Both say that the gig isn’t just about appeasing a production’s most famous names. “When you’re dealing with a big star and number 25 on the call sheet…there’s a really big power dynamic between [them]. That’s where we can help bridge a gap, make sure they feel good, and then get out of the way,” Duenyas says.
And even if opinions about them may vary, ICs are here to stay. On December 3, SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP announced that they’d “reached a tentative agreement establishing the first-ever collective bargaining agreement covering intimacy coordinators working in scripted, dramatic television, theatrical, and streaming productions.” Details about the agreement were not available at press time, but it will go before the SAG-AFTRA National Board for consideration in the coming weeks.
Years after #MeToo, sets are still experiencing something of a culture shift. “Part of what the intimacy coordinator has brought to the industry is growing awareness of how people have been impacted by nonconsent, by power dynamics, growing conversation and awareness of harassment in the industry,” Steinrock says. “It was kind of just an assumption that if you are going to be in this industry, you can expect to face a certain level of harassment. Now the conversations that are being brought, in many ways thanks to intimacy coordinators and the intimacy-coordination movement, are that these things don’t have to be normalized and there is a different way of operating on set. I’ve seen how that awareness can have a trickle-down effect [on] other scenes, whether or not those scenes are intimacy-related. For example, my husband, who works predominantly in fights and stunts, has dramatically shifted his process to be more consent-forward.”
“I’ve never heard so many people talk about consent and boundaries in real life until a few years ago,” Thackeray says. “That’s really empowering for people and important.” But, taking a wider lens, one can’t help but wonder how nouveau conservatism and studio consolidations might impact the depictions of intimacy we get to see. Thackeray says his full dance card is a good sign, and that he hopes to be respected as a department head on set—but that doesn’t always happen. “What I don’t want to see is that we are unraveling what everybody’s worked so hard to get to,” he says. “That would be a real shame, and it would be quite dangerous, if I’m honest.”
Vivian Manning-Schaffel
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