Delta Changes Mind Will Restore Gay Scenes from 'Booksmart and Rocketman
Ryan Lattanzio
“Booksmart”
United Artists Releasing
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According to a Delta spokesperson, the airline will restore previously omitted gay sex scenes from “Booksmart” and “Rocketman.” Earlier this week, “Booksmart” director Olivia Wilde expressed dismay over the in-flight censorship of a key moment from her acclaimed summer comedy, which finds the characters played by Kaitlyn Dever and Diana Silvers making out in a bathroom during a party and proceeding to have sex until Dever’s Amy throws up. (The latest news from Delta was originally reported by BuzzFeed.)
“We are immediately putting a new process in place for managing content available through Delta’s in-flight entertainment,” spokeswoman Emma Protis told Variety. Also being restored is a gay sex scene in the film “Rocketman” between Taron Egerton and Richard Madden. The Elton John biopic features the most explicit depiction of guy-on-guy sex in a mainstream film since 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain.”
According to Protis, the cut scenes were not the decision of the airline, which will work with the films’ studios to restore the slashed scenes. (“Booksmart” was released by Annapurna, and “Rocketman” from Paramount.)
“Studios often provide videos in two forms: a theatrical, original version and an edited version. We selected the edited version and now realize content well within our guidelines was unnecessarily excluded from both films. We are working to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Protis said.
Protis added, “The studio has agreed to provide a special Delta edit that retains the LGBTQ+ love scenes in both ‘Booksmart’ and ‘Rocketman’ that will be on our flights as soon as possible. Currently, we have ‘Gentleman Jack,’ ‘Imagine Me and You,’ and ‘Moonlight’ onboard, and countless content in the past that clearly shows it is not our practice to omit LGBTQ+ love scenes.”
“This is truly a bummer,” Wilde initially wrote on Twitter in reaction to the censorship. “There is no nudity in this scene. What makes it too obscene for airplane viewing? What airline?”
At the Governors Awards in Hollywood on Sunday, she went on to say, “I don’t understand it. There’s censorship airline-to-airline of films. There must be some kind of governing board to determine. We rated a certain way. If it’s not X-rated, surely it’s acceptable on an airplane. There’s insane violence of bodies being ripped in half, and yet a love scene between two women is censored from the film. It’s such an integral part of the character’s journey. My heart just broke. I don’t understand it. It’s confusing.”
According to BuzzFeed, Delta does not know what the new cut will look like, as the edited in-flight version of “Booksmart” also elided additional moments of sexual innuendo.
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