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Mainstream cinematic pop culture is all about giving the audience what they want. But sometimes, certain movies slip through the cracks that go against the established pattern in dramatic ways. The more popular these films become, the greater the outrage and controversy surrounding them. Concrete example, 2019 JokerAnd the media hysteria surrounding the film’s release.
Such backlash from the media and pop culture watchdogs is not a new phenomenon. Since Hollywood has existed, there have been movies that have generated massive controversy over their content. And yet, some of the most controversial films of the 20th century may seem relatively bland today. Let’s take a look at 10 of those movies that caused massive outrage when they were released, but wouldn’t cause such a ruckus if they were released today.
ten psychology
You Can’t Name a More Influential Thriller Than Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 Psychological Horror Masterpiece psychology. The film inspired several generations of filmmakers and is still considered the gold standard of its genre. At the time of its release, psychology has been embroiled in controversy over its shocking content (for the time)which included the toilet flushing, a single couple in bed together, partial female nudity and, worst of all, graphic murder scenes.
And yet, the film is actually subtle enough to show the violence. The film’s most famous scene, where Janet Leigh’s character is killed in the shower, is done in relatively good taste. You never actually see the knife hit the character, and most of the heavy lifting is done by the unsettling musical score of the stage and the imaginations of audience members. It’s a tribute to Hitchcock’s mastery of atmosphere that he was able to create one of the most iconic murder scenes in movie history without showing the actual moment of the murder.
9 night of the living dead
Every modern zombie movie owes a lot of inspiration to director George A. Romero’s 1968 horror classic night of the living dead. The film presented zombies from ancient folklore in a newly gruesome way as undead flesh-eating cannibals, even though the word “zombie” is never used in the story. The film’s gore portrayal was considered too extreme for the general publicand putting a black character in the lead role was unheard of at the time.
As for violence, night of the living dead really doesn’t do anything remotely extreme by today’s standards. The film was made on a shoestring budget, and most of the violence is only implied or shown off-screen. Granted, nothing about the movie comes close to the graphic displays of cannibalism and vivisection that define the modern zombie movie genre.
8 fight club
One of the most misunderstood movies Hollywood has ever produced is David Fincher’s 1999 thriller drama. fight club. Despite star talents such as Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter, fight club was met with a deluge of negative initial reviews for what many believed to be the film’s emphasis on glorifying violence and anti-social behavior.
And yet, the movie really doesn’t do anything too violent by modern standards. You get a few scenes of men fighting and spilling blood, but nothing like the modern action scenes of decapitated heads or bullet-riddled bodies. Even the fight club general message is not “destructive behavior, it’s cool”, but a warning against blindly following charismatic leaders to the end of a cliff.
7 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
There are a handful of movies that have been credited with starting the slasher horror movie genre, and the 1974s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a prominent member of the list. The film was inspired by the crimes of real life serial killer Ed Gein. The film’s shocking content proved so controversial that it was banned in several countries upon release.
But the truth is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not a pure slasher film. Certainly not as much as its sequels were. The original 1974 film shows some of the murders that actually take place on screen. In fact, when Leatherface kills a man using his signature chainsaw, the camera focuses on Leatherface’s back instead of showing the decapitation of the victim. Most of the violence in the film is conjured up in the audience’s imagination due to frequent shots of dead bodies and actions that are implied but take place off-screen.
6 Taxi driver
Today Martin Scorese Taxi driver is considered one of the greatest films ever made. But when it was released in 1976, Hollywood still operated by a strict code of what was acceptable to show on screen, especially for non-horror films. This made the reception to Taxi driver deeply divided, with many decrying the graphic use of violence in the film, especially in the climactic gunfight scene, which actually got the film booed in Cannes.
But then again, the cinematic content that so deeply shocked our ancestors will look like small beans to modern audiences used to guys like John Rambo and John Wick taking out entire platoons of enemies in the most user-friendly way. firearms. Scorsese himself continued to make films with much more graphic and violent content, and today Taxi driver its history and performances are remembered more than the controversy over its ending.
5 American psycho
Before being Batman, Christian Bale played a very different type of upper-class dandy with a propensity for violence in the 2000s. American psycho. Bale tries out for the role of Patrick Bateman, a narcissistic investment banker who fantasizes about committing violent crimes. Kinda fight club, American psycho was decried by critics who thought the film glorified violence.
But once again critics failed to realize the film was a dark comedy that poked fun at Patrick Bateman rather than bragging about him. As far as the graphic content of the film goes, it’s really nothing compared to a normal episode of Game Of Thrones. In fact, the book American psycho is based on much more functionality than graphical content that has been significantly toned down for the movie.
4 Bonnie and Clyde
Few real-life couples have captured the public imagination quite like crime duo Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. Naturally, Hollywood has undermined the notorious couple’s life more than one time. In 1967 Arthur Penn made a film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie and Clyde, and the film was immediately and furiously opposed by the morality police of the time.
The main criticism was directed at the film’s outspoken depiction of sex and violence. The ending in particular earned a notorious reputation for featuring one of the bloodiest death scenes in movie history. Unknown to critics at the time, Bonnie and Clyde should be part of a New Hollywood Movement who would see films follow his trend of openly depicting taboo subjects on screen. Compared to other New Hollywood films that followed and continue to be made, today Bonnie and ClydeThe supposedly “horrifying” scenes would barely warrant a raised eyebrow.
3 A clockwork orange
Stanley Kubrick has always been a director without half measures. So when he set out to adapt Anthony Burgess’ incredibly violent 1962 novel A clockwork orange, the result was always going to be pushing the boundaries. Sure enough, Kubrick’s film, showing a group of young people engaging in a range of criminal behavior from theft to sexual assault, was banned in several countries upon its release.
It is true that the film features several scenes that would be difficult to digest even today. But Kubrick’s description of the events of these scenes have a deeper meaning than just being gratuitous or voyeuristic. Compared to the violence shown in films today, the scenes of A clockwork orange may seem quite sweet. Although Malcolm McDowell’s central performance as the villainous protagonist Alex continues to be one of the best portrayals of psychopathic behavior ever seen in movies.
2 battle royale
Imagine this setup. A group of teenagers are stuck in a forest area. The government provides them with various weapons and orders them to kill each other until only one survivor remains. This configuration probably reminds you The hunger Gamesbut we are actually talking about battle royalee, a 2000 Japanese film that has been whispered about in dark corners of the internet for two decades.
battle royale proved so controversial in its graphic depiction of school children killing each other that the film was banned almost upon release. Still, it managed to gain a huge global cult following through the internet and is today considered a classic that has received praise from many filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino. Again, the violence depicted in battle royale was extreme for its time, but was surpassed by its spiritual successors on the international film circuit.
1 The Last Temptation of Christ
Martin Scorsese had established himself as one of hollywood’s finest directors when he set out to do The Last Temptation of Christ with Willem Dafoe in the lead role of Jesus of Nazareth. The film was almost immediately launched by religious groups for its depiction of Christ as a person who experiences various human frailties, including anger and lust, and marries Mary Magdalene.
Things got so bad that Scorsese received death threats, and a cinema in Paris that was showing the film suffered a terrorist attack by fundamentalist groups. Today, the subject of the human nature of Jesus and the question of having children have been popularized by films such as The “Da Vinci Code”, and no longer generate such extreme reactions. In addition, any graphic violence shown in The Last Temptation of Christ pales in comparison to the bloodshed shown in the most recent feature film based on Jesus The passion of Christ.