Be More Connell: British TV Has “Improved & Modernised” Its Attitude To Sex & Violence, Says Ofcom Study

deadline.com:

Sex and violence on British TV screens may have become more graphic but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, according to new Ofcom research.

The regulator’s Audience Attitudes to Violence and Sexual Content on Television report conducted dozens of in-depth interviews about the prominence of this post-watershed content and broadly found that both sexual and violent content has “improved and modernised” in recent years.

When it comes to sexual activity on British screens, the review found that “portrayals were seen as less likely to include gender stereotyping, objectification of women or uncritical depictions of exploitative relationships” than past TV dramas. “Both men and women welcomed what they saw as more enlightened portrayals of sex and sexual relationships, with these changes being considered generally as a positive trend in societal attitudes,” it added. “Viewers also consider that intimate scenes are less likely to be portrayed from an exclusively male perspective by default.” The likes of Paul Mescal’s character Connell in BBC Three and Hulu’s Normal People was flagged by respondents as an example of a positive role model, focusing on the issue of content in sexual relationships and on female sexual empowerment in his relationship with Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Marianne.

These Normal People episodes come with a “contains strong language and sexual content” on-screen warning, which was contrasted with an episode of Friends in which the characters discover they’re getting a free pornography channel on their TV, which comes with no warning.