Making of a Bombshell in 2025

The screen siren formula has evolved since the days of Marilyn Monroe, even as the gaze remains largely the same. Are we still celebrating the idea of dumb, hot, and complicated?

- J Shruti

“I've never ever been happier,” said Sydney Sweeney's Cassie in season two of Euphoria (2022).

It was a dramatic proclamation, her face flushed with tears and flashy makeup accentuating her misery. From the get-go, Cassie had become a sex symbol. She is able to pleasure herself and reach orgasm in public. She allows her boyfriends to film her during sex. She weaponises her conventionally gorgeous body—her breasts especially—to lure male attention. Yet, there is nothing joyful, honourable, worthy or aspirational about her quest to seem like a willing sexual paramour to these seemingly terrible men. Her desperation erases any power she could have, solidifying her as a victim even in moments of presumed agency. You would not be privy to this if you haven't watched the show. But in either case, you have been subjected to her stunning cleavage through the clips that circulate on Reels, or her sultry red carpet appearances where she evokes the bombshell legion. As if, long-form storytelling could have anything over images in our Insta-economy. Who is a bombshell? It is a slang term, for one. Many writers are unlikely to slip that word into their arguments. She is a hypersexualised woman who is there for us to ogle. She could have interviews, nuanced roles, businesses that would have raked her millions that would make the obvious case of her being more than that. Yet, for the general public, men mostly, she is nothing but the sum of her two coveted parts: Breasts and buttocks.