The Unexpected Sexiness of Sports Cinema: A Guest Post

Hello, dear readers! I’m thrilled to be presenting My Favorite F***ing Movie’s first ever guest post, written by the lovely and talented Lili Labens – make sure to check out her bio at the bottom of this post to find out more about her work. I’ll be back in the middle of the month with a new zine for paid subscribers.

Game, sex, match—or whatever they say. As a film critic, my preferred genres are horror, thrillers, bizarre sex comedies, and depraved Cronenbergian adventures—not sports cinema. I grew up doing ballet, with a short stint in tennis, and any other interaction with sports was firmly against my wishes. My nose was in books, my eyes were glued to the television screen, and at no point in my pop cultural or personal coming-of-age did I concern myself with sports—not even in a smutty, fan fiction format. Growing up in such a fierce Friday Night Lights-esque culture in Texas, I could’ve easily ogled the boys on the football team—we had morning announcements and forced-pep rallies to remind us of the importance of this institution. My interests were primarily with the long-haired, lanky, languid boys who played in bands and doodled skulls on their jeans—not the clean-cut jocks who often reeked of self-importance and unappealingly earnest machismo.

When COVID hit, I gave myself the unassigned and unending task of watching pretty much every movie I could, which expanded my palate for consuming art, and unexpectedly, my taste in men. I began an ongoing cinematic odyssey that I call “Double Feature Thursday”, wherein I watch a weekly double feature of films connected by a specific theme, and one of the most surprisingly-pleasurable themes I’ve explored has been sports cinema. In a post-Heated Rivalry world, I’ve learned that sports media is often about more than just sports (thank god) and can find innovative ways to be more compelling than watching actual sports events—when the ball is in the right court. And when the sports storytelling is somehow sexy, as well as layered and interesting? Well, that’s a home run.

Perhaps I would’ve gotten into sports cinema sooner if I’d realized just how much sexual tension is involved…

Read the rest of the post at My Favorite F***ing Movie.