5 Movies That Will Put You on the Side of the Censors
Here at Cracked, we’re generally on the side of obscenity. No matter how immature and yet somehow unfit for children the language and/or antics get, we can get behind them (or at least won’t stop anyone from getting behind them). Sometimes, however, a work of supposed art is so extreme that you have to admit you’re kind of on the censors’ side. Such as…
Pretty Baby
Pretty Baby is the title of both a 1978 film starring Brooke Shields as a 12-year-old sex worker and a 2023 documentary about how horrifically exploited Shields was as a child actor, so that about sums it up. The movie was controversial at the time for depicting Shields fully nude and subsequently banned in several countries or released only under the condition that the nude scenes be cut or altered, to director Louis Malle’s anguished protests. Sorry, but if your story can’t be told without a naked tween, we’re probably fine without it.
The Tin Drum
The Tin Drum is a 1979 German black comedy set during World War II that shared the top prize at Cannes with Apocalypse Now and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film, so we’re not making any arguments about its artistic merit. However, it’s about a boy who decides to stop physically growing, which gets weird as he gets older, requiring the 11-year-old actor to perform sex scenes with adult women. You can argue, as its creators did, about whether that justified the film being banned in parts of Canada and the U.S. as child pornography, but when it was revived as a stage play in 2020, there’s a reason the character was played by an adult.
Cannibal Holocaust
Speaking of creators’ legal arguments, the violence featured in 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust was so realistic that Ruggero Deodato had to bring one of the actors whose character was killed on screen into court to prove she was still alive. However, the biggest problem with what the Guardian called “the most controversial movie ever made,” and what caused it to be banned in several countries, was its extremely unsimulated depiction of animal cruelty, which you might consider worse, depending on how vegan you are.
The Censored Eleven
The so-called “Censored Eleven” is a group of cartoons produced by Warner Bros. in the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s that were pulled from distribution in the ‘60s specifically for being racist as hell. Like, one of them is called Goldilocks and the Jivin’ Bears. Another is Uncle Tom’s Bungalow. Warner Bros. was reportedly planning to release a collection of the full uncensored cartoons in the early 2010s, but the set never materialized, probably because the only people who want that aren’t part of anyone’s desired customer base.
A Serbian Film
If you want to argue about artistic merit, join the critics of 2010’s A Serbian Film, who largely contend that it has none. No less a figure than A.O. Scott declared that the film “revels in its sheer inventive awfulness and dares the viewer to find a more serious layer of meaning." We’re not talking about some poop jokes and bare boobs here — we can’t actually provide an accurate plot description without probably getting ourselves arrested in the several countries that banned it. If you still want to click that link, well, you were warned. See you on the cell block.
