Disney Overcompensating

Thank Allison Pregler for making this a big deal and possibly a few others if they noticed it before her. To the point, Disney Plus is censoring some of their content. Not exactly new news, but people are noticing more. One of these most notable parts was from the movie, Splash. From what I can gather, there is a nude scene, but it's just a butt. Keep in mind that this is from 1984 and a PG film. The rating didn't always mean for kids and families. The scene in question was censored with Disney adding in more hair to cover the butt of Daryl Hannah's character. And this has been a big story over the last few days. It shows what Disney has been for a very long time and people getting frustrated at them.

It's not uncommon to see them edit stuff. The reason I view it as overcompensating is because of their reputation. They are a go to for families and kids. But the point of watching a streaming service is to watch a movie or show uncut and unedited. It's completely overboard with censorship. Touchstone, which is what Splash was released under, existed as a way for Disney to do more adult films and had a number of hits through that label. It's almost like they are afraid to try anything adult or show that they had adult content. No effort to show they more than a kids conglomerate.

Disney is not the only company censoring, but they are the worst when it comes to other companies. Obviously, Looney Tunes has its share of insensitive moments, but outside of World War II stuff (if they are even on DVD), they didn't ban their content. A warning is given to explain the different eras. And WB got backlash for a Tiny Toon Adventures episode not making to DVD for it's beer episode. To the point where they responded and put the episode on DVD and that was back in 2012. But to back to Disney, even some swearing is censored in some films. One example given by sites is Adventures in Babysitting for saying fuck. Again, the point of streaming is to watch something uncut and unedited.

This brings a problem to not just what Disney does, but what other companies could do. Think about it, and I'm not the only one thinking this. Some companies will do whatever they can to make specific content appropriate or edit it for viewers. A lot of people want the original versions of films. Not the special or edited editions. Many ditch cable. And it's not always easy to find DVD's of films either due to not finding them or it was never onto that format of home video. I think you have to treat older content the way it is and put disclaimers if a company think its very insensitive.

This new era could hurt movie viewing as a whole. And companies like Disney will only make it worse with the way they handle things.