Arousing call for change

Why are women's coming-of-age tales only about sex? Can we see them grow in other ways, the way male maturity often unfolds on screen?

- Urvee Modwel

Babe, wake up. Something strange is happening with coming-of-age plots. In both movies and TV shows, what used to be a rounded look at maturity is now merely a montage of sex scenes with a vague message about empowerment at the end.

Consider Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos's 2023 movie starring Emma Stone. An infant brain in a grown-woman's body. A great opportunity to view adulthood, social contracts, womanhood and love in a new way. Instead, Stone spends too much time naked, her character doing "furious jumping" with men for money, trying to convince us that exploitation is empowerment.