In early June, a story broke that seemed to confirm all of the priors of the “cancel culture” crowd- but is actually instructive for quite a few reasons beyond that.
Around that time, someone noticed that the version of The French Connection, the 1971 cop film that’s considered an all-time classic, had been running on The Criterion Channel, was missing several seconds, including an instance in which Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) says the n-word.
This was nearly universally derided, from conservative cancel culture obsessives to cinema lovers and preservationists of all stripes. There is much anger, in particular, at the Criterion Channel, which is associated with classic film preservation above all and is certainly not known for bowdlerizing great movies of the past. (Disney+, which controls the rights outside the U.S., continues to stream the uncensored version.)
There are a couple of exceedingly strange things about this. In the more than two weeks since this story broke, just about nothing has been uncovered about exactly how this happened. It’s not clear when the change was made, whether it was done when Fox controlled the rights to the film, at some point after Disney completed its purchase of that company and assumed control, or whether it was done at the Disney/Fox or Criterion level.
Was this a top-town corporate decision? Or was it some low-level technician who uploaded the wrong file? That’s unclear because none of the entities involved in this at any level has said a word about it. And that even includes William Friedkin, the director of the movie, who is still alive at age 87, and typically outspoken about things.
But another thing is clear from this: It doesn’t appear that anyone, regardless of their political leanings, is actually in favor of the censoring of a classic film, even if it’s the n-word that’s being cut out.
Nobody’s In Favor of This
That’s because, contrary to widespread belief on the political right, there really isn’t any constituency in favor of censorship of classic films. With books, there does seem to be one, but not with movies.
Sure, you get Twitter and TikTok randos who don’t know the difference between depiction and endorsement and, like, think movies shouldn’t be allowed to have sex scenes. But nobody with any real power feels that way, whether it’s critics, academics, or people actually in the business.
Filmmakers, no matter their political views, tend to be in favor of film preservation and free expression. I am yet to hear anyone of note make the case that “yes, it’s good that they cut that scene out of The French Connection.”
Taking racial slurs out of classic movies is not a current project of “the left,” or of progressive figures in the entertainment industry.
I maintain my longstanding opinion that if a classic movie is going to be tinkered with, it should be the director doing it, and not the corporate rights holder of the movie. There’s a huge difference between Ridley Scott putting together another new cut of Blade Runner, and Ted Turner putting out a colorized version of Citizen Kane.
That said, I very much disagree with the notion that the recent practice of placing content warnings, or TCM’s “Reframed Classics” series, created a “slippery slope” that led to actual censorship. There was never anything wrong with laying out the context of an older movie’s controversies, followed by showing the intact original movie.
If it were up to me, the original version of The French Connection would be restored to the Criterion Channel, with an apology and, preferably, an explanation of exactly why this happened. But it would be better not to treat this affair like a harbinger of endless censorship to come, especially after it was greeted with nearly universal derision.
And no, once again, this is NOT going to lead to the censorship or banishing of Blazing Saddles.