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I was watching "The Craft" last night,
September 28, 2001 9:42 AM   Subscribe

I was watching "The Craft" last night, and noticed that they censored the image of Robin Tunney's parents' plane going down (actually a Glamour, but you know that), and later Nieve Campbell's character says "you know the [silence]", they actually cut out the words "plane crash". Has anybody else noticed this kind of censorship? Would anybody have been really shocked to hear Nieve say "plane crash"? Do you think the WB would've been swamped with calls? It's bad enough what they did to homer or what the geniuses at clear channel are doing. Good movie, though.
posted by signal (16 comments total)

Wow. I thought that first link was going to be an article about you watching "The Craft".

I am so disappointed.
posted by Kafkaesque at 9:56 AM on September 28, 2001


Caught The American President on TNT a couple of nights ago. They removed any elaboration on the conflict in the Middle East that pulled President Shepherd out of the romantic China Room. In fact, now that I think about it, I can't even remember anything relating to the (fictional) conflict with Libya that forms part of the film's political backdrop. It must all have been excised.
posted by dsandl at 10:29 AM on September 28, 2001


Its funny how much coverage we must witness of this event on television, newspapers, magazines, all showing graphic pictures of the destruction, but when it comes to Homer running up and down the WTC or "Psycho Killer", suddenly media is trying to be sensitive to people having difficulty with the situation. Watching the Simpsons makes me relax and laugh out loud. Watching a 20/20 special on how easy it would be to attack the US with biological weapons scares me.
posted by computerface at 10:47 AM on September 28, 2001


computerface: good point

I can understand not showing "ID4", but some of the decisions are ridiculous. I think people should listen to "sunday bloody sunday" right now, help them put this in perspective.
posted by signal at 11:07 AM on September 28, 2001


NBC showed "Back to the Future" last weekend and cut out some of lines in which Michael J. Fox warns Doc that he will be killed by the Libyan terrorists. They also erased the "by terrorists" part of the note that Fox writes Doc.

In this day and age of network sensitivity, I though BTF was an odd choice given the whole Libyan terrorist/plutonium subplot. "Teen Wolf" may have been more suitable fare.
posted by alexg23 at 11:08 AM on September 28, 2001


Its not 1984 yet, a documentary on NYC is being released unedited. Funny how this is the exception and makes the news.
posted by skallas at 11:28 AM on September 28, 2001


For heaven's sake, this isn't "censorship." It's just a mass media outlet making a judgement call regarding how appealing a certain image might be to their audiences at a particular time. They're hardly withholding some crucial imagery or information whose absence would seriously affect out ability to understand or enjoy the work of entertainment in question. The use of the word "censorship" in the context suggests such a weird confusion of information, entertainment and entitlement as to make one no longer cease to wonder at the perennial whining about "challenged books" that one finds at the posting some days past.
posted by Faze at 11:31 AM on September 28, 2001


Sorry, when I watch The Craft, I am so mesmerized by Fairuza Balk that any dialogue, or lack thereof, is lost in the reverie :)

Ditto for the remake of Island of Dr. Moreau. Althought that little piano-playing french-fry-boy sometimes gives me the willies.
posted by UncleFes at 11:33 AM on September 28, 2001


faze: self-censorship also exists, and no, I'm not suggesting some conspiracy, it's just weird the kind of stuff which is being cut these days.

unclefes: I focus on Robin Tunney, but hey! there's room for everybody's obsessions.
posted by signal at 11:41 AM on September 28, 2001


For heaven's sake, this isn't "censorship." It's just a mass media outlet making a judgement call regarding how appealing a certain image might be to their audiences at a particular time.

But isn't one of the problems that in the past US networks and studios have made the same kind of judgement calls on what makes for good viewing? That is, lots of nice fake explosions and comedy terrorists, but not that many real ones?

They're hardly withholding some crucial imagery or information whose absence would seriously affect out ability to understand or enjoy the work of entertainment in question.

But they're endorsing the way in which American broadcast media have become a safety blanket in recent decades, insulating the viewing public from a more grim reality. Again, Bill Hicks is your friend.
posted by holgate at 11:46 AM on September 28, 2001


I can understand not showing "ID4",

Well I can't. The movie's ultimate outcome is us kicking some alien ass. sure, New York gets blown up but so do other cities. I feel like I'm being treated with 'kid-gloves' by the networks. I do agree with Faze in that its not really censorship but the 9/11 tragedy hasn't destroyed my ability to separate fantasy from reality.
posted by srw12 at 11:50 AM on September 28, 2001


everyone always forgets that they are CHOOSING to watch any given channel. it's not like they force you to watch their channel...

they censor so that they appeal to a wider audience. Very simple. it's thier channel. if you don't like it, change the channel.

If all the channels are doing it, complain to your representatives, and CC the owner of the station!
posted by presto at 12:21 PM on September 28, 2001


Presto: setting up a strawman, are we? Nobody's making a political issue out of this, just commenting on the kind of stuff they're cutting out. Chill, baby.
posted by signal at 12:33 PM on September 28, 2001


Lewis Black put it well in his CC/TDS rant a couple of days ago, talking about the psychotic reaction of Clear Channel (and others) with their "suggested" song removals, as if they were dealing with schizophrenic teenagers. "Ooh, we better not play that, they'll go 'crazy'". It is insulting, and it is censorship- even if of a middling kind. Certainly, there's been a lot of the more serious censorship by the media, which has a habit of not always reporting information that might "trouble" the public. Oddly enough, Jeff Greenfield, also on TDS a day or two ago, was talking about how the past 10 years of news reporting has taken an "end of history" approach, not bothering us with worldly information but insteading amusing us with Car Chases and Pictures of the Night, urging us to go back to our little diversions and consumerist pleasures and let other folks make decisions about the world- because there were no more big decisions to make. Man, the Daily Show rules...

Anyway, no one's going to think less of TNT (well, that's not even possible at this point) for leaving out terrorist/bombing themes in a movie's plot. Don't know why they do it at all, except that it's "what everyone else is doing", so they don't want to look like the odd ones out.
posted by hincandenza at 12:42 PM on September 28, 2001



Cartoon Network is airing Cowboy Bebop as part of their Adult Swim package. (recently discussed here on MeFi) and have decided to skip one of the better episodes (ep. 8, Waltz for Venus) becuase the beginning has the Bebop crew foiling a highjacking on a shuttle bound for Venus.
posted by eyeballkid at 1:23 PM on September 28, 2001


I think TNT should change their name. It's obviously a reference to dynamite. Horribly offensive.
posted by webmutant at 1:33 PM on September 28, 2001


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