The Last of Us somehow got nominated for MTV Movie Award’s Best Kiss

The MTV Movie Awards’ Best Kiss category has always been a little weird. Remember when? Species won for an inter-species kiss that blasted out the back of a man’s head?) But it’s never been weirder than on Tuesday, when Tess’ “kiss” from HBO’s Last of UsNominated to receive the award

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for The Last of Us, episode 2.]

For those unfamiliar, the “kiss” in question is between Anna Torv, the actress who plays Tess, and Philip Prajoux, the actor who plays the infected Cordycep zombie that kills her by linking his weird tendril-y mouth mushrooms with her face. It’s a weird, decidedly disgusting moment on the show, and almost completely out of step with the rest of the series and its tone.

Craig Mazin (creator of the series) said the team was interested in exploring what might happen to someone who is peacefully infected.

“What does it look like if you just stand perfectly still and let them do this to you?” Mazin asked in an interview with Variety. “Then we landed on this nightmare fuel. It’s disturbing and it’s violative. I think it’s very primal in the way it invades your own body.”

Though the scene may not have had the “primal” effect Mazin intended, it did come across as violative, just not in a particularly provocative way. It feels sexy and objectifying to see the confident, bold Tess watch as her death draws near. This is the moment when she sexualizes Tess in the most disturbing, voyeuristic, and obscene way without offering her any perspective.

And that’s the kiss that MTV wants to memorialize forever. In the past the award was mostly associated with romantic, memorably sweet kisses such as the run catch-and iss from The Notebook, or the upside-down-in-the-rain kiss from Spider-Man.

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