Hollywood, Media Silent as ‘Crocodile Dundee’ Gets Censored
Woke scolds snip 'problematic' scenes from '80s comedy classic
Hollywood and the entertainment press are worried that President Donald Trump will spark a censorship tsunami.
Deadline’s Peter Bart suggested Trump 2.0 may lead to a new Hollywood blacklist. The stars of “The Apprentice,” the anti-Trump hit piece, warned of a free speech chill when their film struggled to find a distributor.
Spoiler Alert: It eventually did, and the film flopped.
Meanwhile, both Hollywood and the reporters who cover the industry looked the other way as sensitivity readers censored classic books, movies got erased by major streaming services and trigger warnings greeted everything from “Peter Pan” to “Goodfellas.”
No outrage. Often silence.
The latest censorship attack is drawing crickets from the usual suspects.
The ’80s comedy “‘Crocodile’ Dundee” sparked a franchise and proved one of the decade’s most unlikely hits. Paul Hogan played a rugged Australian who endures classic “fish out of water” moments stateside.
The film earned Hogan, the film’s co-screenwriter, a Best Original Screenplay nomination.
Seen today, a few sequences are now considered “problematic” to the Woke Left.
Case in point? Hogan’s Mick Dundee character grabs a trans person, dressed as a woman, by the crotch and finds male genitalia. The moment didn’t cause much outrage at the time, and it connected with Mick’s crude social skills.
As in, he lacked any. That’s part of his character, for better and worse.
That moment is one of several bits cut out of the movie’s recent revival. The “Crocodile Dundee” encore cut, shown last month at the OpenAir Cinema in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens, removed several key scenes from the film.
That includes the film’s most iconic line.
“That’s not a knife. THAT’S a knife,” Mick says, flashing his personal blade to a startled mugger.
Another trimmed moment? Mick asks about the heritage of a stranger, a blip deemed racist in select quarters.
This all happened more than two weeks ago. Even the film’s aged star bent the knee to the woke censors, according to the Daily Mail, saying he agreed with the cuts. An edited version of the comedy classic also appeared on British television in December.
The more recent kerfuffle earned modest press in Australia but virtually nothing stateside. The Daily Mail reported on it, as did the Midnight’s Edge YouTube channel.
What about the Hollywood press stateside?
- Deadline
- The Hollywood Reporter
- Variety
- The Wrap
A good faith Google search couldn’t find any coverage from those outlets. Nor did The New York Times, CNN or other legacy media platforms give it attention.
It’s no surprise.
The same outlets mostly stood down when “The French Connection” underwent a woke nip and tuck in 2023.
Forgive us for not taking actors and legacy reporters seriously when they worry about Trump’s potential impact on the arts.
They’ve already shown they couldn’t care less.
NOTE: There’s an “Encore Cut” trailer on YouTube. The comments section has been disabled.
Not a hill worth dying on if you’re Hogan. You can watch the version he released ages ago or watch the “approved for slaves version.” He got his money and doesn’t need some nazi ass showing up to burn down his house for wrong think.
Boy, they’d hate Mel Brooks’ movies. Can’t wait to see what they do to Blazing Saddles and The Producers. And the “What Knockers” scene is right out in Young Frankenstein.
Sooooo if THE WRITER Paul Hogan ” agrees with the cuts” WHO THE FK ARE YOU TO COMPLAIN? I just watched CASABLANCA for the umpteenth time and the scene where INGRID BERGMAN calls “Sam” a fifty year old black man, “BOY” is representative of how fked up racism was. BUT IT DOESN’T AFFECT YOUR WHITE ASS so you can pretend it’s some kind of “sacred” writing or whatever your dumb ass is pretending!
Interesting how you use someone’s skin color as part of your disparagement of them. What assumptions are you making about the person you are belittling based on that skin color? Do you realize what that makes you, Keith? Take the beam from your own eye, first.
My gracious. You seem quite angry. It might serve you well to take stock of yourself and find out why that is.
If that that doesn’t work, go buy something shiny and expensive that maxes out your credit card. That usually helps angry people like you.
1) You don’t know what Paul Hogan really thinks, just his public relations stance.
2) Who cares what he thinks? That’s not the point. What a stupid argument. Ovid burned his manuscript of Metamophoses. Does that mean the world would be better if his friends had burned theirs? Should we burn ours?
The discussion is not about what Paul Hogan thinks about certain scenes in his movie, but about woke revisionism of everything that doesn’t suit the latest woke sensibilities. And this article mentions the Dundee movie in the specific context of accusing Hollywood of selective concern: worrying about censorship because of Trump—though of course he is on the side that wants less, not more of it—when with Dundee and a whole range of works of art, it didn’t so much as issue a peep over their censorship, instead it cheered.
Hollywood press take on sensitivity readers: yay! how did we ever live without this service!? On cutting “problematic” scenes from movies: art must be subordinate to THE MESSAGE, and not offending people is more important than good art. But I’m supposed to take their pearl-clutching over Trump seriously? Gmafb.
What if he said he agreed with banning the film altogether? It would be ok then?
Nothing but low IQ ad hominem fallacies.
Do we know why Paul Hogan “agreed”? Maybe it was a condition of getting a release and royalties. Blink twice if you’re under financial duress, Paul. Even if he did, so what? The thing existed in history and was enjoyed by an audience.
I know of no one who has watched Casablanca and thought, “Why, yes, Black people are like children. Ingrid Bergman says so.” It does, however, place the film in its place and time. It’s old.
That said, I wonder how you feel about all the hate-Whitey that comes out of what passes for present-day Black art (a shame to their ancestors). Or, is that the good kind of poisoning of race relations. The stats on Black-on-White violence, especially measured against population proportions, might tell us something. But, I bet you’re not the man to acknowledge that, are you?
I get this is all alien to people afflicted by Marxist brain rot, whose feeble minds can only understand history through the idiotic Oppressor / Oppressed paradigm, but it is possible to look at art and history for what it says in its own time?
Maybe it just wasn’t made for you and your main character syndrome. In any case, you’re an embarrassment to your people.
Keith, slow down with your hate speech bullying. Take your fascist censorship support back to your nazi support group.