Chuck Chuck Baby star on important reason for lesbian chicken factory film’s lack of sex

Sherlock star Louise Brealey has explained why sex scenes were kept out of her new lesbian musical comedy drama Chuck Chuck Baby.

Speaking exclusively to PinkNews, actor Brealey said she shared the perspective of the film’s writer-director Janis Pugh and that sex scenes were not necessary to craft the acclaimed lesbian love story.

Brealey may be best-known for playing Molly in BBC mystery Sherlock and as the mother in BAFTA-winning British family sitcom Such Brave Girl, but in Chuck Chuck Baby she plays the closeted, thirty-something Helen, who is drifting through life until Joanne (The Sixth Commandment‘s Annabel Scholey), her teenage crush, returns home.

The story is elevated by Brealey’s sensitive handling of Helen, as her character arc in the film includes a deep love for her fellow women, romantically and platonically. 

Sharing her thoughts on the connection between Helen and Joanne, Brealey said their love story circulates a “centrifugal sense of giddy joy,” adding: “Janis wasn’t very interested in getting down and gritty. I would have very happily done endless sex scenes with Bel but the story didn’t need it.

“Janis, as a gay woman, was not interested in showing women having sex. She felt like there are a lot of examples in cinema of men thinking that this is how lesbians have sex, and she [didn’t want] to get involved in that.

“It’s just male-gaze nonsense and I think there was a bit of her that didn’t want to feed the beast. There are so many tropes about lesbian sex being there for male gratification, she’s really aware of that.”

The topic of lesbian sex scenes in film and TV has long been a subject of debate. The handling of sapphic intimacy is rarely achieved with thought and respect. 

While Blue is the Warmest Colour may be seen as a cult queer classic, and may have won the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, the film has since become cloaked in controversy.

Both lead actors Léa Seydou and Adèle Exarchopoulos criticised director Abdellatif Kechiche, specifically regarding an explicit sex scene said to have taken 10 days to film. Seydoux has since told The Independent that she “felt like a prostitute” at times during filming.

Blue is the Warmest Colour is a pointed example of what lesbian sex scenes can look like through the male gaze.

On the other hand, Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire handles the intimacy and attraction between two women with simmering sensuality through the eyes of another lesbian.

In creating Chuck Chuck Baby, Brealey said: “I didn’t feel like we’re pulling our punches here by not having a bit of scissoring [genital-to-genital contact].”

She added that, when it comes to scissoring, Pugh said: ‘Lesbians don’t do that.’”

Chuck Chuck Baby is due in cinemas on Friday (19 July).