Controversial Movies

[Walloon]

You may be interested in Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11.

[Beadalin]

I must be living under a rock: what in the heck is controversial about Aladdin?

[Necros]

@Trunk

I just heard about this Japanese movie called “Battle Royale” (in English) about a bunch of school kids that get kidnapped on an Island and have to murder each other. They tried to get it banned in Japan.

Apparently New Line Cinema has bought the rights to remake it.

We will have to start a mondo Battle Royale thread as this file gets closer to release in its US form, since there seems to be quite a bit of growing awareness about it.

Of course, I definitely recommend the book (it’s been in an English translation for a while now) for anyone interested. The manga series is a little “ew” for my tastes.

[rjung]

@Walloon

You may be interested in Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11.

Debunking “59 Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11”

[MovieMogul]

@Beadalin

I must be living under a rock: what in the heck is controversial about Aladdin?

Wikipedia again:

One of the verses of the opening song “Arabian Nights” was censored because of political sensitivity. Following protests from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, (ADC) the lyrics were changed in July 1993 from “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face/It’s barbaric, but, hey, it’s home,” in the original release to “Where it’s flat and immense and the heat is intense/It’s barbaric, but, hey, it’s home.” The new change was seen on the 1993 video release of this title. The original lyric was intact on the initial CD soundtrack release that predated the movie’s theatrical release and subsequent protests. The soundtrack was re-released at the time of the DVD release of the film; on the re-released soundtrack, the edited lyric is used. The June 16 copy of Entertainment Weekly used this to suggest that Aladdin was the 25th most controversial film ever.

And rjung beat me to the rebuttal link.

[JohnT]

What a stupid list.

What list about controversial movies wouldn’t include Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or Gremlins, the two movies that started the PG-13 rating, or Henry and June the first film to get a NC-17 rating? Given that they changed the rating system, shouldn’t they be in there by default?

What list would bring up some unheard of “Arab-American” controversy for Aladdin w/o mentioning the possible Mafia (and real Italian-American) rumblings about The Godfather?

Midnight Cowboy? Brokeback Mountain? Dog Day Afternoon? None of them are mentioned?

[ZipperJJ]

The DaVinci Code?? THE DAVINCI CODE?!?!?!

Over Kids and Caligula no less.

Please.

[ZipperJJ]

Oh yeah, and they forgot Harold and Maude.

[BrainGlutton]

@ArchiveGuy

Wikipedia again:

And rjung beat me to the rebuttal link.

. . . Wonder if Disney would have had to change those lyrics, if Aladdin had been released in 2003 . . .

[Walloon]

@JohnT

What a stupid list.

The OP did not request just a list of “controversial movies,” but,

My question to you is, what supposedly controversial or shocking film have you seen and were suprised at how unshocking the movie was or why it got so much attention?

[Larry_Borgia]

Ah, Battle Royale, the film that conclusively proves the tactical superiority of the machine pistol over the frying pan.

[Bryan_Ekers]

I finally got around to watching Natural Born Killers. This was controversial? It’s a slicker, artsier and less coherent version of Bonnie and Clyde, which itself was kind of a nothing movie, notable only because of the historical inaccuracies it spoon-fed the audience to make the criminal protagonists likable.

25. Aladdin

Gah? Did they throw that in as a joke?

[Zoe]

Crash (1996) caused a bit of a stir when it was released on video. Blockbusters wouldn’t carry it because of the NC-17 rating. Kind of unusual for a film with such well known stars as Holly Hunter and James Spader.

Back in 1966 a lot of church folks were unhappy about Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Didn’t like all that cursing, I guess. Or maybe it was the idea of a wife talking back to her husband. Or the alcohol consumption. Here in the South, we didn’t appreciate how rude they were to their company.

[Rayne_Man]

Another candidate is the 1960 British film Peeping Tom by Michael Powell. I think it was shown in the USA but in a heavily cut version.

More details here

[Walloon]

Again:

My question to you is, what supposedly controversial or shocking film have you seen and were suprised at how unshocking the movie was or why it got so much attention?

[ColonelDax]

Does anyone know if The Children’s Hour caused much of a stir when it was released in 1961? Accusations of a lesbian relationship leveled at female teachers by a student weren’t exactly everyday plot material at the time, I’d imagine.

[Walloon]

Following the release of The Children’s Hour in 1961, the MPAA Production Code Administration decided to loosen up a bit, and declared that no subject was off limits anymore, just how the subject was portrayed. Thus in 1962 there were movies with a middle-age man having a sexual relationship with his adolescent stepdaughter, a British soldier getting raped by a Turkish officer, brainwashed American soldiers smoking marijuana and casually shooting each other, the attempted rape of a lawyer’s wife and daughter by the psychopath he sent to prison, and a U.S. senator blackmailed over a homosexual affair in his past.

[Staggerlee]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

When Robocop was first released, it was nearly rated X for violence (IIRC). I’m not supersqueamish, but I figured the movie must be pretty horrific in order to flirt with such a rating, so I avoided seeing it for a long time. Finally I steeled myself up for it and watched it.

That movie might earn a PG-13 today, but certainly wouldn’t be rated R for violence.

(Not saying it shoulda made the list, just that I was surprised at there being any initial controversy over its violence).

Daniel

Are you sure? I know American audiences are perhaps more immune to violent imagery, but the bit near the start of Robocop where the soon-to-be Robocop is shot to pieces by the cackling gang is pretty horrific in the uncut version…

[Pushkin]

@Walloon

I’m a little confused here. Are you saying that the movie JFK was not controversial when it was released? Because it was controversial here in the U.S., where many critics called it inaccurate and misleading.

When you refer to the “BBC debunk of the Kennedy assassination,” what were they debunking: The findings of the Warren Commission (that Oswald acted alone), the beliefs of the conspiracy theorists, or the movie JFK?

Apologies a hasty posting.

Mates of mine who saw the film over here in the UK said it was “controversial” for the opposite reason, that it seemed to make a case for everything but Oswald acting alone.

The BBC debunk was a debunk of the film and related nuts, quite good. Not as I put it, a debunk of the assassination, which made it sound like they were trying to prove that JFK was still alive :rolleyes:

I see Robocop in the thread, I’ve seen it on TV and DVD, more and more steadily un-censored. From the UlsterTV showing where Dick Jones called his boss (shock!) “airhead,” to the surprisingly more liberal Irish tv showing where we see why
Lewis needs to use her windscreen wipers and finally the DVD that includes the scene explaining why initially Robocop has only need of one prosthetic arm… So, its violence didn’t leave that much of a mark on me, years after its release.

[Sublight]

@Walloon

Again: My question to you is, what supposedly controversial or shocking film have you seen and were suprised at how unshocking the movie was or why it got so much attention?

Ok, then. Battle Royale seemed pretty underwhelming when I saw it.

Suicide Club, on the other hand, definitely left an impression.