How instructive to hear Gwyneth Paltrow’s views on intimacy coordinators, the people hired to supervise intimate scenes in film and television. Talking to Vanity Fair magazine about her big screen comeback, in Josh Safdie’s ping pong film, Marty Supreme, the actor, 52, joked of her sex scenes with 29-year-old Timothée Chalamet: “I was like, ‘I’m 109 years old. You’re 14’.”

Paltrow also said: “There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator (IC), which I did not know existed.” When the IC spoke to her: “I’m like, ‘Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on’… We said, ‘I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back’.” She added: “I don’t know how it is for the kids who are starting out, but… if someone is like ‘OK, then he puts his hand here’… I would feel as an artist very stifled by that.”

Well, I also don’t know about kids starting out, but I’d imagine it’s much harder for them when rich, famous, powerful players such as Paltrow undermine intimacy coordinators: people specifically hired to safeguard the welfare of everybody on set – not just big stars.

I’d love to relay more about the Paltrow Vanity Fair article: all the darling details about stealth wealth, raw milk, perimenopause, shearling clogs, and the inside track on the financial status of Paltrow’s wellness empire, Goop.

However, this is about #MeToo. Specifically, the ongoing soft-cancellation of the intimacy coordinator, whose professional presence, lest we forget, is one of the hard-won gains of the #MeToo movement. How it’s becoming a major Hollywood power flex to declare you don’t need one. How it’s starting to be considered rather chic to dispense with their services. And what the trickledown effect of all this A-list privilege could be.

It’s especially mystifying from Paltrow because, as detailed in Vanity Fair, she was at the heart of #MeToo, bravely speaking out against convicted Miramax producer, Harvey Weinstein. Early in her career, Paltrow had a horrible encounter with Weinstein, who was warned off by her then boyfriend, Brad Pitt. Paltrow recalled: “[Pitt] leveraged his fame and power to protect me when I didn’t have fame or power yet.” One thing that was striking about her experience was that, even with a famous boyfriend, Hollywood director dad (Bruce), respected actor mum (Blythe Danner), and director legend godfather (Steven Spielberg), she still wasn’t safe from Weinstein.

Years later, it’s a little surprising that Paltrow arrived on the set of Marty Supreme unaware of the existence of intimacy coordinators. (Paltrow lives in prosperous Montecito, outside Los Angeles, not some sea cave in the Outer Hebrides.) But then, there’s a fair bit of this kind of thing about.

While some actors (including Emma Thompson and Ewan McGregor) have supported intimacy coordinators, others not so much. Michael Douglas acknowledged Hollywood abuses but felt that ICs were “executives taking control away from filmmakers”. He also felt it was the man’s responsibility to make the woman comfortable: “Which is hopefully what good acting looks like.” Mikey Madison didn’t feel she needed an IC for her recent Oscar-winning role in Anora, whose director Sean Baker said: “I have directed approximately 10 sex scenes throughout my career and I’m very comfortable doing so.”

In 2023, Jennifer Aniston claimed not to know about intimacy coordinators (“I’m from the olden days, so I was like, ‘What does that mean?’”), refusing one for a sex scene with her friend, Jon Hamm. And so it churns on. How bizarre these anti-stances sometimes look. The claims of being stifled. The pleas for artistic agency. The passive aggression. The faux self-deprecation. The pushing of the idea that not using an IC somehow makes people ballsy, adventurous, down to earth. Never mind how turning one down is a power-play in itself, there is a gigantic missing of the point. It’s wonderful these people feel so safe and protected, but who else is in the room?

Intimacy coordinators are not just for lead actors, directors, producers, the people already wielding immense power. They are designed to advocate for everyone, cast and crew alike, including the traditionally powerless/voiceless on set. Not that there haven’t been glitches: last year, the union SAG-AFTRA changed rules around intimacy coordinators, including around confidentiality, after too many details were given to the press about the 2024 film, Miller’s Girl, starring Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman.

Effectively, intimacy coordinators serve as a democratic safety measure. This is why it’s irresponsible for them to be undermined, as an eye-roll, a bore, even an unnecessary wellness-grift (in Gwynnie’s case, oh the irony!). It puts pressure on those without power to be obliging and biddable: “Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t want an intimacy coordinator, so….” It creates a two-tier system: the powerful proclaiming they don’t need ICs; the powerless unable to say they want them. How is this much different to what went on before?

This was the crux of #MeToo. As much as it was about sexual abuse, it was also about toxic power imbalances. It’s important to remember because a huge dark lie is forming: that now Weinstein and his kind have been dealt with, power-hosed off the streets of Hollywood, everything is fine and, if anything, all the rules and safeguards are starting to get tedious.

Striking isn’t it? Outside professionals are routine in Hollywood (stunts; fight scenes; dialect), it’s only with sex, there’s the pushback. From where I’m sitting, this looks like a slow motion asset-stripping of #MeToo. How long before people start mocking the idea of being afraid to go for meetings with producers in hotel rooms?

Maybe unfairly, it’s particularly painful when the barely veiled undermining comes from women, especially one who had such a valuable voice during #MeToo. Maybe next time Paltrow comes across an intimacy coordinator, she could remember how most of the hundreds of people she’s working alongside on set don’t have fame and power to protect them. Sometimes, it’s not all about you.

• Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist

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