SouthFlorida.com | City Link Magazine

If anyone tries to make a dreadfully serious, artsy sex film like Last Tango in Paris in this decade, it will be laughed off the screen. No one wants to take sex seriously at the movies nowadays, and for audiences, this trend has been a good thing. Moviegoers are flocking to see R-rated comedies. This summer's premier sex comedy, Knocked Up, has made more than $100 million and, before July is over, could easily top $150 million a feat achieved only rarely by the R-rated comedies of previous decades, but one that is now commonplace.

The current trend started in the summer of 2005, when Steve Carell catapulted to movie fame with The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Even though Carell has gone all squeaky-clean this summer in the pious Evan Almighty, that film makes a reference to his notoriety with a marquee that features The 40-Year-Old Virgin Mary.

Also that summer, Wedding Crashers, with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, lured in the 18-to-34 market with its ornery look at hooking up at weddings by barging in uninvited. Wilson and Vaughn's characters aren't really part of the current vogue, though. They are too-slick frat-boy types; the more common leading men in these sex comedies are klutzy, not ruggedly handsome and often sweet-natured. They are the antithesis of macho.

The model for this kind of sex-comedy anti-hero is Ben Stiller, who became a huge box-office hit in 1998 in There's Something About Mary. The pre-prom fiasco of getting his penis stuck in his zipper, which required hospitalization, and the hair-gel scene were among the most hilarious and risqué movie scenes of the 1990s. Brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, who directed Mary and Shallow Hal but are currently on the downswing in the movie biz, certainly influenced the current flock of sex comedies.

The Farrellys' successor is writer, director and producer Judd Apatow, responsible for Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and, coming Aug. 17, Superbad. Apatow, a former standup comic, can do no wrong. He's the hottest thing going in movie comedy right now, eclipsing even Stiller and Will Ferrell.

Assisting Apatow is Seth Rogen, the leading man of Knocked Up. Rogen will play an immature cop in Superbad, which also features Jonah Hill (Knocked Up, Evan Almighty), Michael Cera (Arrested Development) and newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse as three high-school seniors who are ready to party before graduation. Party means "hook up," since none of them has been getting much nooky. The versatile Rogen also co-wrote Superbad with Da Ali G Show writer Evan Goldberg.

Superbad could be hilarious, but its premise certainly isn't novel. The precursor to this kind of teen sex comedy is obviously Porky's, which begat American Pie. If there's a major difference in Superbad, it's that its nerds are truly nerdy. They don't really have a chance of suddenly becoming cool; there's not a makeover around that can accomplish the impossible. But what else has changed in these sex comedies is that women have become more receptive to these dorky guys, and in most of these movies, the women are very attractive. Cameron Diaz (There's Something About Mary) and Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up) certainly qualify as the archetypal hotties. But notably, the good-looking women also boast a great sense of humor, which makes them a little different from unattainable babes. The leads are approachable, even if they are gorgeous.

Contemporary sex comedies even spur a different kind of laughter. The giggling isn't based on embarrassment; viewers nowadays don't shock or embarrass easily. Instead, what would once have been embarrassing scenes incite knowing laughs. In Knocked Up, Ben (Rogen) becomes grossly uncomfortable having sex with Alison (Katherine Heigl) when she's several months pregnant with their daughter, and the scene prompts big belly laughs. Ben keeps saying he doesn't want his daughter's first conscious moment to be the sight of his penis. It's very silly, but judging from the laughter heard in audiences during this scene, many people can relate.

So will Apatow and Rogen, among others, keep us rolling in the aisles about sex? Apatow already has six comedies in the pipeline for next year, including The Pineapple Express, Drillbit Taylor and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. And his frequent collaborators Rogen, Goldberg, Ferrell and Paul Rudd will all have roles to play in this treasure-trove of future entertainment. Until Apatow mounts an incredible failure, he will play a large part in the future of sex in the movies for years to come.