{"id":643160,"date":"2026-08-18T07:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T07:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643160\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T07:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T07:40:18","slug":"its-obvious-why-gen-z-isnt-having-sex-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/643160\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s obvious why Gen Z isn\u2019t having sex\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jane Schoenbrun, one of the era\u2019s most distinctive film-makers, first came to the Cannes film festival<\/a> a little over a decade ago. They were then in an industry job they didn\u2019t much enjoy. \u201cThe next year I came back and I was so depressed. I decided to quit my job,\u201d Schoenbrun later explained. \u201cIf I\u2019m depressed at Cannes, there\u2019s something that needs to change. I know I want to be here but I need a better reason to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

If real life were a cheesy film, the image would dissolve from a disappointed Schoenbrun to hysterical acclaim in the Debussy Theatre and the subtitle \u201c10 years later\u201d. You read a lot of nonsense about standing ovations at Cannes, but the response, at this year\u2019s event in May, to Schoenbrun\u2019s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma really was something special. The director, with co-stars Gillian Anderson<\/a> and Hannah Einbinder, huddled in the middle of a giant human doughnut as massed bellows rocked the architecture.<\/p>\n

Is this the response one would expect to a twisty, postmodern meditation on psychic echoes of the 1980s slasher movie in contemporary culture? Maybe so if you are Jane Schoenbrun. The director, who is transfeminine and nonbinary, has already established a significant following with We\u2019re All Going to the World\u2019s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow<\/a>. \u201cThere was one film I liked a great deal I saw two weeks ago called I Saw the TV Glow,\u201d Martin Scorsese said in 2024. \u201cIt really was emotionally and psychologically powerful and very moving.\u201d Paul Schrader, that director\u2019s great collaborator, said Schoenbrun \u201chad hands down the most original voice in film in the last decade\u201d.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the day after the premiere, Schoenbrun, relaxed on an upper floor of the JW Mariott hotel, a few hundred metres along the Croisette, appears relieved that the audience understood where the picture was coming from. The film-maker remembers getting a lot of notes during the production process. <\/p>\n

\u201cI actually like that \u2013 as long as it\u2019s coming from the right place,\u201d they say. \u201cI try to do that to myself. I really do. I interrogate. It\u2019s very painful. Especially with movies like this that are as pretentious as f**k. I am getting so \u2018in my head\u2019 about it. Then you actually make it and you watch it with people, and you\u2019re like: \u2018Wait? Are you feeling things though?\u2019 You always have to be ready to question very deeply the choices you\u2019ve really invested in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JaneJane Schoenbrun. Photograph: Jamie McCarthy\/Getty <\/p>\n

Pretentious as f**k? Well, maybe. But, like their previous two investigations into horror mythos, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma really is a heck of a lot of fun (that title alone!). Einbinder, best known from the TV show Hacks, plays Kris, a young queer film-maker hired to make a belated reboot of a 1980s teen slasher franchise called Camp Miasma. Anderson is majestic as Billy Presley, a retired \u201cfinal girl\u201d from the series whom Kris considers luring back before the camera. We know we are headed for prime oddness when we discover that Billy is living on the location of the original film. There is a lot of Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard in the character. There is a bit of Schoenbrun in Kris \u2013 both are outr\u00e9 experimental filmmakers elevated into the biggish leagues after cult success. Some of the film\u2019s funniest moments feature conference calls with baffled studio types.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve now made two movies for real Hollywood money,\u201d Schoenbrun says. \u201cNot much as far as \u2018Hollywood money\u2019 goes. But still more money than I\u2019ve got. I think this movie\u2019s budget was somewhere in the $8 million or $9 million range. You are going to have to get on some Zoom calls with some men to get money. In so many ways, this is a movie about joy, and this is a movie about queer liberation through art making. The movie would have been a lie if dealing with commerce to get the movie made wasn\u2019t in the text.\u201d<\/p>\n

As you may have gathered, Schoenbrun is a smart cookie. They have all the highbrow critical terms in their arsenal. But there is nothing remotely pompous about the film-maker. One scene in which, as the two leads are watching a video, Kris frowns at a supposedly inappropriate sequence is having a good-natured laugh at prescriptive progressives.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously I\u2019m taking the piss out of myself a little bit with \u2018this part\u2019s transphobic\u2019. Shut up!\u201d they say, laughing. \u201cTV Glow was such a personal film that came out of this really visceral moment in my life. I think that\u2019s exactly why it resonated so hard with other people. But one thing that I\u2019ve been really pleased with in sharing this film with people, and actually with a lot of those Hollywood types, is they seem almost shocked when they first watch it that it\u2019s funny and self-aware.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is true. Nobody is likely to find Camp Miasma hard work. Schoenbrun makes comparison with Jordan Peele\u2019s Nope<\/a> from 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s this assumption that if it\u2019s a trans film you\u2019re going to have to eat your vegetables now,\u201d they say, laughing. \u201c\u2018The gays say this is important, so we\u2019ve got to watch it and try to get what it\u2019s about.\u2019 There is a technique of trying to win you over a little bit before I try to rock your world a little bit. I remember seeing Nope in theatres and really feeling: here is a movie about threading the needle. There is a movie about looking the thing in the eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GillianGillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma <\/p>\n

Born to a Jewish family in the New York borough of Queens, Schoenbrun was raised some miles to the north of the city in Westchester County. Their obsession with horror in early life \u2013 Buffy was a big favourite \u2013 showed through in the brilliant I Saw the TV Glow, which finds two oddballs uniting over love for a spooky TV show. Schoenbrun was hugely into fan fiction and bulletin boards \u2013 key obsessions of a millennial childhood. After taking a degree in film at Boston University, they found work as a production assistant and wrote articles for Filmmaker magazine.<\/p>\n

The creation of We\u2019re All Going to the World\u2019s Fair, a 2021 psychological horror obliquely on gender themes, looks to have been a formative experience in more ways than one. A 2024 profile in the New Yorker explained how, in preparation for the film, Schoenbrun \u201cturned to psilocybin\u201d (the hallucinogenic agent in magic mushrooms). \u201cI said to myself, \u2018I\u2019m going to investigate on this trip why I am so ashamed,\u2019\u201d they told the magazine. \u201cI still thought I was a boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schoenbrun went on to take a singular route to what just about counts as worldwide renown. Neither Worlds Fair nor TV Glow made a fortune, but both landed on all the best-of-the-year lists that matter (the latter came in at number six on The Irish Times\u2019 favourites for 2024). There was, before Camp Miasma opened the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, a carnival atmosphere in the auditorium. The title itself was greeted with cheers.<\/p>\n

It helped that Gillian Anderson was in the building. You hardly need to be told, given Schoenbrun\u2019s teenage obsessions, that they were a great fan of The X-Files. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was so deeply inspired by Gillian,\u201d they say. \u201cI wrote X-Files fan fiction as a kid, and my most prized possession was my X-Files novelisation collection. I was a nerd. I was thinking mostly about The X-Files for a few of those formative years. So, there was obviously something emotional and meta in the casting, right? When I first met Gillian, it was like: \u2018Oh my God, I already know you. This is so weird. Did you raise me a little bit?\u2019 And, for so many people, she\u2019s played that role. For so many people, she is this queer awakening, and I hope you feel like catch a whiff of that in the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a remarkable amount to process in Camp Miasma. The film is about US\u2019s long romance with violence. It is groaning with addictions to high trash \u2013 not just horror films, but also the bright colours of candy bars. And there is a great deal about the complications of sexual longing.<\/p>\n

\"HannahHannah Einbinder in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are certainly cinematic references to sex or academic references to sex that I was bringing to the table,\u201d Schoenbrun says. \u201cBut primarily it was my own relationship to sex that I was trying to be really honest about. Until I was 32, I had kissed and had sex with exactly one person. Sex was something that I avoided. It was traumatic. It was like: oh, I know that that\u2019s a part of life; I guess I\u2019ve got to deal with that somehow. Then, after transition, as I started to \u2018become\u2019, it was both terrifying and very joyful and meaningful. I think an essential part of becoming a full person in the world is to learn how to have a healthier relationship to sex. I don\u2019t care if it is good or bad. I just want to be here, experiencing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knocking on the door of 40, Schoenbrun has sympathy for the next generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk a lot about like this generational divide,\u201d they say. \u201cIt\u2019s like Gen Z isn\u2019t having sex. \u2018What\u2019s that about?\u2019 I think it\u2019s obvious what it\u2019s about. Not only is it about how much lonelier a world we\u2019re all living in, but it\u2019s also about how much uglier a world we\u2019re living in. Just take one visit to the homepage of Pornhub to understand that ugliness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schoenbrun has taken on a great sadness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no wonder that these folks would want to avoid sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who would be young in 2026?<\/p>\n

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is in cinemas from August 21st<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jane Schoenbrun, one of the era\u2019s most distinctive film-makers, first came to the Cannes film festival a little…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[11519,18,117,89746,7947,19,17,32886],"class_list":["post-643160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-gillian-anderson","tag-hannah-einbinder","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-martin-scorsese"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117115383894174065","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}