Movies are consistently letting us down. See that guy flying? Well, you can’t do that. See that huge yacht he owns? You can’t afford that.
One thing we can do, though, is have sex. But being capable of it does not mean it always turns out so great. CollegeHumor perfectly shows us how sex in movies will always be a little smoother, and a lot less realistic, than the sex the rest of us have.
The sketch breaks the whole thing down scene by scene, cutting between the Hollywood version and the real one. It is funny because every guy watching recognizes himself in the second half of each cut. The sketch uses five stages, and below each one is our own take on the gap between the screen and the bedroom.
The Entrance
In the movies…
The couple crashes through the front door already locked together, nobody fumbles a key, and the apartment is somehow spotless with perfect mood lighting.
In real life…
Someone is looking for the light switch, someone is kicking laundry under the bed, and at least one of you is wondering whether the roommate is home. Nobody has ever been this graceful with a door lock.
The Lead In
In the movies…
Clothes simply fall away. Shirts open in one pull, zippers never catch, and no one has ever met a bra clasp they could not beat one handed.
In real life…
Skinny jeans exist. Boots have laces. Shirts get stuck on heads. The awkward pause while one of you hops on one foot is the most honest part of the evening.
Talking
In the movies…
Nobody says a word, because apparently both people can read minds.
In real life…
There are questions, there are checks, and there is the occasional laugh at the wrong moment. And that is a good thing, which we will come back to.
During
In the movies…
The soundtrack swells, the camera cuts away at exactly the right moment, and nobody gets a cramp, an elbow in the face or hair in the mouth.
In real life…
No soundtrack, just the neighbor’s TV. Limbs end up in places they should not be. Things take longer than a two minute montage, or sometimes shorter, and nobody yells cut.
The Aftermath
In the movies…
The sheets are artfully arranged, both people look flawless, and the conversation is poetic.
In real life…
Someone needs a glass of water, someone is hunting for a phone charger, and the sheet is somehow all on one side of the bed.
Where the sketch came from
CollegeHumor was founded in December 1999 by two high school friends from Baltimore, Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen. It started as a place to share funny links and pictures, and after the company was bought by IAC it began making original video in 2006. Sketches like this one, taking a familiar Hollywood trope and running it straight into ordinary life, became its signature for the next decade.
The brand did not survive in its original form. In January 2020 IAC sold CollegeHumor’s parent company to its chief creative officer, Sam Reich, and almost the entire staff was laid off. Reich put the company’s weight behind Dropout, the subscription streaming service IAC had launched in September 2018, and in September 2023 the CollegeHumor name was officially retired in favor of Dropout. The old sketches still circulate, and this is one of the ones that has aged best.
Why movie sex looks the way it does
The Hollywood version is not an accident. A sex scene on screen is choreographed, lit, shot from multiple angles and edited down to its most flattering seconds. Every clumsy moment the sketch pokes fun at has been removed on purpose.
In recent years that choreography has become even more deliberate. After the Weinstein scandal and the MeToo movement in 2017, intimacy coordinators, who had already worked in live theater, spread across film and television. HBO adopted a policy in October 2018 requiring them on its series and films with intimate scenes, and SAG-AFTRA set up standards for the role in 2019. Their job is to plan these scenes in advance and make sure the actors consent to everything throughout filming. In other words, the effortless look is the product of a lot of talking before the cameras roll.
What real life can learn from the sketch
The joke lands because real sex is messier, slower and funnier than the movie version. That is not a flaw. A few things worth taking from it:
- Talking is not a mood killer. The silent mind reading on screen only works because it was scripted. Off screen, asking what someone likes, and checking in along the way, is how both people end up having a better time.
- Laughing is allowed. Getting stuck in a shirt is funny. Couples who can laugh at the awkward moments tend to be far more relaxed than couples chasing a movie scene.
- Stop comparing. You are measuring yourself against something that took a crew, a choreographer and an editor to make. That is not a fair fight, and it is not the standard your partner is using.
- The aftermath matters. The movie version fades to black. In real life, the glass of water, the conversation and the shared joke about the sheet are part of what makes someone want to come back.
If you want more of the same logic applied to other parts of adult life, our guide to dressing for a job where nobody told you the dress code is built on a similar idea: the polished version you see on screen is rarely the version that works when you actually have to live it.
So watch the sketch, laugh at the parts that hit a little too close to home, and remember that the real thing does not need a soundtrack to be good.
