THE FRENCH CONNECTION BECOMES LATEST VICTIM OF WOKE CORPORATE CENSORSHIP

National Review

 

The French Connection Becomes Latest Victim of Woke Corporate Censorship

By PHILIP KLEIN

June 7, 2023 2:35 PM

 

Savvy viewers have noticed that The French Connection, the 1971 crime drama, has been stealth edited on streaming platforms to remove a few seconds in which Gene Hackman’s classic character Popeye Doyle uses a racial slur. The film was acquired by Disney in 2019 as part of the takeover of Twenty-First Century Fox, but the studio has made no comment on the change – which also applies to the version being shown by The Criterion Channel.

 

It’s bad enough for film studios to turn current movies into exercises in virtue signaling, but it’s quite another to desecrate works of art by imposing today’s standards on the past. The French Connection isn’t just a masterpiece, but a historically significant film that brought the principles of the French New Wave to American cinema, and represented a bridge between old Hollywood, and the grittier films of the 1970s. Doyle isn’t supposed to be a perfect hero, but rather, a morally complicated anti-hero. He is a police detective who disregards all the rules in pursuit of French drug traffickers. The early scene in the film that was edited out ( in which Doyle insults his Italian partner for trusting somebody black) helps establish that he is a racist and cynical about human nature. It is especially disturbing that Criterion, which is supposed to be a brand for cinephiles, would be a party to this. It’s also unclear how sanitizing art that portrays a racist cop really serves the purposes of progressives  given their insistence on having America grapple with its racist history.

 

Recently, Stephen Spielberg admitted that he regretted having digitally replaced guns with walkie talkies as part of a rerelease of E.T., saying: “I never should have done that. E.T. is a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are, either voluntarily, or being forced to peer through.”

 

It’s bad enough for somebody to revisit their own work, but it’s even more egregious for the corporate woke police to swoop it in and do it to the work of others. Unfortunately, given the rapid development of technology, it may become all too tempting to nip and tuck movies that include parts that may be uncomfortable to modern audiences. All I can say is, if you have the space and can afford to, take Sonny Bunch’s advice and stock up on physical copies of your favorite films. Luckily, I have The French Connection on DVD.

 

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