Arts & Entertainment
Delta blasted for straight-washing “Rocketman”
“Rocketman,” the acclaimed musical biopic about Elton John, is making headlines again this week as Delta Air Lines defends itself against accusations of showing straight-washed, edited versions of its inflight movies.
The new controversy began on Tuesday, when an outcry sprang up on social media after Entertainment Weekly’s digital director Shana Naomi Krochma went on Twitter to scold the airline for removing most of the film’s gay content.
“On @Delta today [I] discovered that #Rocketman is stripped of almost every gay reference or scene that [Elton John] fought to keep in the film’s mainstream release, including a simple chaste kiss,” Krochna tweeted.
She followed up with a second tweet which questioned the airline’s decision to edit out same-sex love scenes while leaving in scenes of domestic violence.
“What does it say that the edit left in a scene of John Reid assaulting Elton but removed any evidence of intimacy between them or for that matter Elton and any man? What is that saying is OK?”
“Rocketman,” which deals with the early years of John’s musical career and his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, has been widely praised for its refusal to shy away from the subject of the singer’s sexuality. The film made news earlier this year when an outcry emerged over pre-release rumors that Paramount Studios had demanded director Dexter Fletcher and producer Matthew Vaughn remove a nude sex scene between actors Taron Egerton and Richard Madden, who portrayed John and Reid, respectively, in the film. Fletcher has denied that the studio made such a demand.
It’s the second time this week Delta has come under fire for removing LGBT content from its inflight movies. On Sunday, actress-turned-director Olivia Wilde blasted the airline for cutting a pivotal same-sex love scene in her film, “Booksmart.”
Responding to a fan on Twitter who had complained about the missing scene, Wilde tweeted, “This is truly a bummer. There is no nudity in this scene. What makes it too obscene for airplane viewing?”
Later that evening, at the Motion Picture Academy’s 11th Annual Governors’ Awards in Los Angeles, she told Variety, “I don’t understand it. There’s censorship, airline to airline, of films, which there must be some kind of governing board to determine. We rate it a certain way. If it’s not X-rated, surely it’s acceptable on an airplane.”
She added, “There’s insane violence of bodies being smashed in half and yet a love scene between two women is censored from the film. It’s such an integral part of this character’s journey. I don’t understand it. My heart just broke. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it; I want people to experience the entire film.”
Then, on Tuesday, Wilde complained on Twitter, “I finally had the chance to watch an edited version of Booksmart on a flight to see exactly what had been censored. Turns out some airlines work with a third party company that edits the movie based on what they deem inappropriate. Which, in our case, is … female sexuality?”
In a lengthy thread, she called out other specific edits made to the film, such as removing or muting the words “vagina” and “genitals,” removing dialogue about masturbation and UTIs, and removing a scene that featured two naked female dolls. The tweets never referenced Delta by name, though many followers and fans were quick to do so in their replies and retweets.
Wilde asked, “What message is this sending to viewers and especially to women? That their bodies are obscene? That their sexuality is shameful?” She went on to add, “ I urge every airline, especially those who pride themselves on inclusivity, to stop working with this third party company, and trust the parental advisory warning to allow viewers to opt out if they choose.”
Delta, which has a long history of commitment to supporting the LGBT community, received similar criticism in 2016, when the in-flight version of Todd Haynes’ Oscar-nominated “Carol” removed a kiss between actresses Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
On Thursday, the airline issued a statement explaining that a third-party company is contracted to provide its own edit of the movie along with the unedited version. If the unedited version contains content that does not meet Delta’s guidelines, the third party’s version is used instead, whether or not parts of the film that don’t violate the guidelines have also been removed.
The airline’s statement said, “Delta’s content parameters do not in any way ask for the removal of homosexual content” from its in-flight movies. We value diversity and inclusion as core to our culture and our mission and will review our processes to ensure edited video content doesn’t conflict with these values.”
No word on whether the unedited versions of “Rocketman” or “Booksmart” will be now made available on Delta flights.
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Uncloseted Media published this interview on July 7.
By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON, ISABEL STOKES, and BELLA SAYEGH | After appearing on the 11th season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the first season of “Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. the World,” the sixth season of “RuPaul’s All Stars” and now the 11th season of “All Stars,” Silky Nutmeg Ganache, known by many as the Reverend, is undoubtedly a legend.
Born and raised in Moss Point, Miss., Ganache bears all in this episode of “UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton.” She speaks about her relationship with gender, her 100-pound weight loss, what it’s like living as a queer person of color in a red state and why she’s calling on allies to stand up for the trans community.
Patrons enjoyed a night out at the popular LGBTQ venue Crush Dance Bar on Friday, July 3.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Theater
‘My Favorite Sociopath’ debuts at Shepherdstown’s CATF
Gay playwright Aurin Squire’s take on D.C. journalism in the ‘90s
‘My Favorite Sociopath’
Contemporary American Theater Festival
July 10-Aug. 2
Shepherdstown, W.Va.
Catf.org
Discernment. It’s a thing some people have, explains playwright Aurin Squire, especially when you’re gay or Black in America (Squire is both).
“You instinctively know when the mob is teaming up for the best interests of the powers that be. You can feel it in the air.”
In his sharp new satire “My Favorite Sociopath,” Squire writes about life experiences but set in a different time and place: It’s the 1990s, early days of the 24-hour news cycle, and three ambitious journalism students are pursuing success in D.C.
And now, Squire’s play, along with other new works, are making their world premieres at the annual Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) at Shepherd University in historic, queer-friendly Shepherdstown, W.Va. (just a 90-minute drive from D.C.).
“All of my plays are queer in some way,” says Squire, 46. “This one touches on harmless and dangerous lies. The characters are on the spectrum sexually, and it’s interesting how all that falls out.”
And he’s given it a lot of thought.
“Already as a kid, it seemed to me that the rage against rap music and sex was coming from closeted people resisting their own urges and temptations. For me, it was interesting to see a witch hunt led by witches. Queer people can always call out a lie.”
Since September, Squire has also been working with a TV show about the tech industry set in Silicon Valley. He says, “It seems the general flow of the tech industry is that humanity and civilization is finished and it’s just about accumulating as many goods as possible before everything collapses. In fact, those who are profiting actually agree. But for those who disagree, they believe the solution is to build bigger gates, but activists believe we can stop this”
Yet, he’s learned from folks associated with the show. “Many say the quickest way to divorce yourself from any responsibility or regulations — smash and grab. Otherwise, you have to stop and think and regulate your desires for greed and power”
Squire possesses a penchant for pithy titles. He laughs, explaining the first thing he wrote as a student at Juilliard was “Obama-ology,” the comedy with contemporary message. While a lot of people liked the name, it didn’t necessarily vibe with the author. He concedes that he chooses names based on “easy to remember” and titles that won’t be easy to lose as a file.
Another is “Defacing Michael Jackson,” a coming-of-age dramedy set in rural Florida in 1984, specifically Squire’s native town Opa-locka, Miami, a fantastical place famed for its fanciful Moorish revival architecture.
Living in the shadow of exotic structures, he wasn’t particularly fazed. Squire says “It wasn’t until returning to visit after my freshman year at Northwestern University in Chicago that I realized how weird it was: When you grow up in a place, you take surroundings for granted no matter how over the top.”
Now based in New York (where for two happy years, 2017-2019, he shared digs with drag king Murry Hill), Squire returns frequently to Miami to be with family, but this summer has been filled with both work and travel.
Currently, he’s in Shepherdstown with CATF shaping up “My Favorite Sociopath.” Later this summer he will travel to South Africa for research, followed by a silent writing retreat in Santa Fe, N.M.
Much of Squire’s work reflects the Latino, African, Caribbean, African-American, and Jewish cultures he grew up around in South Florida.
When asked if today’s winds of anti-multiculturalism worry him, he replies, “No, because that’s going to pass. Most people don’t like, people are seeing the negative results of it, and the young people coming up despise it. White male gamers were tricked momentarily through the algorithms into voting against their own interests and they’re now seeing how it’s not working out for them.
“Conservatives always try to stop progress and eventually they always lose. It’s just a question of where we’ll be in the middle of the end of civilization before that happens. I’d like to hope we can turn the ship around before then.”
In addition to “My Favorite Sociopath,” CATF summer season features three other world premieres (Lisa D’Amour’s comedy “The Smoker,” “Refugee Rhapsody” by Yussef El Guindi, “Best Line Wins: A Play Inspired by the Improvised Lives of Elaine May & Mike Nichols” by Beth Kander) and “¡VOS!” by Christina Pumariega.
CATF runs from July 10-Aug. 2 in three venues on the Shepherd University campus: Frank Center, Marinoff Theater, and Studio 112.
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