Yes, that is real porn Kathryn Hahn is watching in the first episode of HBO’s “Mrs. Fletcher.”
Tom Perrotta, who serves as showrunner on the series which he adapted from his own best-selling novel of the same name, says the amount of full-frontal nudity and graphic, real internet porn shown in the series is meant to show a true-to-life representation of what he calls “a huge cultural force that we don’t like to talk about.”
“Mrs. Fletcher” tells the story of Eve Fletcher (Hahn), a single mother who struggles to acclimate to life as an empty-nester after her son Brendan (Jackson White) goes to college. All that sudden alone time spurs Eve to try reacquainting herself with her long-suppressed sexuality — and start to get closer to the boy her son bullied in high school, Julian (Owen Teague).
So naturally, Eve kicks off this transformative new chapter by visiting Milfateria.com.
“We’re definitely pushing some envelopes,” Perrotta told TheWrap. “We didn’t want to soft-pedal what porn is.”
“For Eve, she’s trying to jump-start her life. There hasn’t been a lot of pleasure in it, so porn becomes this portal to this idea of claiming your desires,” he added.
This isn’t the New York Times bestselling author’s first time having one of his books adapted for the screen, but it is his first time helming his own series as the showrunner. Before “Mrs. Fletcher,” he was a writer along with Damon Lindelof for the highly popular HBO series “The Leftovers,” based on his 2011 novel.
HBO makes a good home for “Mrs. Fletcher” as well, being a network known for using full-frontal nudity in other shows like “Euphoria” — who could forget Eric Dane’s prosthetic penis — and for implementing the mandatory use of intimacy coordinators while filming any show that involves a sex scene.
Perrotta acknowledged the conscious choice, in somewhat of a role-reversal, to show Eve watching porn — but not her teenage son
“I do think something like porn, which is such a ubiquitous but also unacknowledged presence in society, can operate differently depending on who you are and where you are in your life,” he said. “So for Brendan, [it’s] a contributor to a certain kind of toxic masculinity [that] gives him a script for sex that is just about his pleasure.”
Perrotta referred to the scene at the end of the first episode when Eve — alone in her house for the first time in a long time — opens up her laptop and begins a journey of personal reckoning simply by googling the word “MILF.”
“She just gets a two-second glimpse, and she slams her laptop shut, because it’s like, ‘Whoa,’” Perrotta said of the moment when a startling, full-volume porn video flashes across Eve’s computer screen. “I think that’s a lot of people’s first experience, ’cause we’re used to watching soft-core and understanding that there are rules… and then suddenly, you’re in this real porn space where anything goes.”
“I think that that moment feels so real, because she’s like, ‘Whoa, no, that’s too much…but maybe it’s not,” Perrotta added. “And that aftermath of just the light on her face, and you see that it’s got her interest — it feels like a really important moment for the story.”
“Mrs. Fletcher” airs Sundays at 7:30 ET/ 10:30 PT on HBO.