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Production company Rimfire Films issued a statement ahead of the Encore Cut’s debut noting that “some years ago, Paramount Pictures and other distributors requested the reference to the crossdresser be edited from the original film, as they found it offensive. We agreed to that request”.
There’s another joke on a similar theme later on in the movie that’s said to have been excised, that’s basically Mick Dundee groping someone.
This is a classic movie from my youth and I welcome the edits.
I saw the headline and immediately knew what scene they had cut. I remember almost nothing about the movie, since I haven’t seen it since I was 13 years old, but I remember that scene.
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I mean, George Lucas releases new cuts of his movies all the time. But it seems like it is just playing into the internet drama to have a new cinema release just for a new cut of the film that removes scenes.
Also, most 4K remasters are AI slop
The scenes removed are first where he meets a cross-dresser and discovers she has a penis, and then later he meets another woman and gropes her crotch to confirm she does not have a penis.
Given the current political climate, where trans individuals are being demonized and political leaders are demanding access to your genitals, it’s not funny anymore.
It is a positive for anyone watching the movie, but also glosses over the transphobia that was prevalent at the time the movie was made. One movie is fine, but if we clean up all the movies it is a lit harder to look back and acknowledge how bad society was at the time when we lose the examples.
If we only clean up some of them, and keep the rest for context this is one that should definitely be removed.
I will also say that this article is definitely feeding into the outrage. Most other articles just see it as a cinema rerelease in 4K and don’t mention the edits at all.
What would otherwise be an uninspired rerelease is now a culture war headline: “New ‘Encore Cut’ removes footage from original film”.
While the article writer does whine about where thiis might lead to, as if it was the first time it happened, at least it includes the following quote from Hogan:
Hogan’s response is that people pointed out to him that “this guy is a folk hero around the world. He shouldn’t be groping people. And I thought yeah that’s right, he shouldn’t be, so take it out. I mean, he did it in all innocence, in naivety, but it’s better without it”.
It isn’t specific to the underlying transphobic contrxt, but at least pointing out that groping is bad and a protagonist shouldn’t be doing that plays a part.
The original is still available. It’s not being erased, it’s being removed so a new generation can enjoy an old movie without confronting the casual transphobia that used to be considered funny.
Commercial movies made for the specific purpose of manipulating people to turn over their money should not be any part of your cultural record. It’s been updated so it can continue to fill that purpose, not so that we can get in touch with the 80s again.
I agree 100%, and I don’t support the idea to add/include those scenes to films. It wasn’t really a funny joke then when transphobia was prevalent, and it’s definitely not funny now when people are more aware about the existence and struggles of trans people, and reactionaries are trying to claw back towards hate.
So I’m torn.
I think a notification before the film is enough to acknowledge the mistakes of the past.
In general I am against a film being changed after the fact. Although more accurately I’m against a film being changed after the fact without making the original available.
For example when George Lucas added new scenes to Star Wars, while some were just unnecessary CGI, others like “Han Shoots First” or the introduction of Jabba in A New Hope changes the film.
Additionally we have changes to E.T. to make the guns into Walkie-Talkies, which is just silly.
Of course we also have the Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings, which also change the film, but arguably for the better.
Also films like Blade Runner have multiple editions.
We also have the more recent “Justice League” vs “Zach Snyder’s Justice League”, which are two similar films, but also quite different.
I’m fine with the cut. Glad even.
I just went and rewatched both of them, the bar scene and the later one at a party.
They could be worse. Dundee is shown as more shocked than angry or hate filled. The crowd is shitty but not violent, and nobody was offering any hate towards the ostensibly trans/gay character, “only” bigotry of a non violent nature. So it isn’t as bad as it could be. But it’s still pretty gods damn bad.
Thing is, it’s like Hogan himself said, the character is groping two people. The entire thing is misogynist, and regardless of any debate about whether or not the person in the bar scene was intended to be trans, or a gay man in drag (which used to be a fairly heated debate topic among the drag queens I know), what matters is that they’re treated horribly. So is the woman in the later scene.
I mean, that’s assault. Period. No debate about it, the character felt free to grab two people’s genitals. Like, hello, ever think of just asking? The person in the bar scene flees while everyone is laughing at the assault, ostracized and ridiculed just for being themselves. It’s a lesser form of bigotry than violent attack, but it sure ain’t how we’re supposed to treat each other.
The movie is better without those scenes. Any time the movie would come up in conversation with my gay friends, it was directly cited as a reason they didn’t like it. It’s just shitty behavior from someone we should otherwise be rooting for. Dundee being so casually willing to grope someone, for any reason, ruins the entire point of the character. That it’s either homophobic or transphobic (depending on who you ask, and it doesn’t really matter for this issue) makes it all worse, but just being willing to grab anyone’s genitals is such a shitty thing to do that it breaks immersion.
So, goodbye and good riddance to shit that should have been cut out before the film ever hit theaters the first time.
