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Actually, I Don’t Mind a Little Disney Movie Censorship
When I first heard that Disney was censoring movies on its streaming service Disney+, I reacted like most of the people I know, with a sense of outrage. Seriously, how dare they cover Daryl Hannah’s rear end with ugly CGI hair extensions in Splash? I was 15 years old when that movie came out and I was decidedly not harmed by seeing her butt. Disney has also censored the word “fuck” and its derivatives from Adventures in Babysitting and Free Solo. They edited a scene from Lilo and Stitch where Stitch hid inside a clothes dryer to instead have him hiding behind a pizza box because they didn’t want kids to think hiding inside a dryer was a good idea. There have also been edits from other works to remove racial slurs and naked Playboy models.
As the son of a librarian, I am opposed to censorship of completed works. In principle, when the artist (of any kind) has finished the work, leave it alone. The artist can go back to tweak it, but no one else should. That’s my starting point when it comes to censorship. I also draw a distinction between censorship as suppression and censorship as redaction. Censorship as suppression means the naughty bits are being hidden from you. You’re not getting to see anything that might spark controversy or incite revolution. Censorship as redaction means taking something away to get the work ready for publication or…
