Like people and almost everything in this world, movies age. There are those for which time has been kind, and there are others that look very different after years of societal change have distorted the common perception of them.
Commercial comedy films have been an easy target for certain sectors of critics and audiences in recent years, and how could they not? The persistence of racist, misogynistic, homophobic and outdated views has been reanalyzed and no longer tolerated by many. However, this phenomenon is not exclusive to comedies as past prestige films are now also considered politically incorrect for various reasons.
These are some movies that are still considered great, but have also been labeled as politically incorrect and have sparked debate all over the movie world.
15 Blue is the warmest color
Blue is the warmest color follows the coming of age and sexual awakening of a high school student (Adèle Exarchopoulos) during her early adulthood as she enters a relationship with an aspiring painter (Léa Seydoux). The film is notorious for its explicit and almost unsimulated sex scenes, which have sparked much debate over how they were framed.
Abdellatif Kechiche’s direction has been characterized as exploitative and irresponsible (part of the crew quit mid-production because Kechiche was morally harassing them). Both protagonists later criticized and defended the film and its production. It remains an open subject in today’s film landscape.
14 The brown rabbit
Vincent Gallo is one of the most divisive figures in film and culture. To some he is a controlling egomaniac, to others a genius, and to some both. The truth is that many of his works are considered cult classics and some of the most original films of the last thirty years. None of these are as controversial as the one from 2003 The brown rabbit.
The disagreement over the film stems from an explicit scene where Chloë Sevigny performs fellatio on Gallo, which some say is a male gaze fantasy, and others a sensitive and realistic approach to sex on screen. The movie bombed and Gallo hasn’t directed another since, but some people still call this a depressing modern classic.
13 Dirty Harry
While Clint Eastwood’s first appearance as Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry may be considered great in terms of what a cop thriller should be, its moral stance has been deemed a fascist apology by several critics. This idea was shared by both Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael.
The latter stated that the film perceives evil and crimes as part of a metaphysical entity and deems it a “deeply immoral” film for equating violence (and ignoring the components that make up crime) with justice.
12 Gone with the wind
Gone with the wind is the classic love story between Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) in the midst of the American Civil War. This nearly 90-year-old film is one of American cinema’s greatest treasures, while at the same time serving as a stark reminder of the inequality and racial prejudice of classic Hollywood.
This is shown in the plot, as the film is largely uncritical of slavery and the Southern tradition that championed it. This ignorance echoed in real life with Hattie McDaniel, who went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and was separated from her white co-stars at the ceremony, as well as not invited to the film’s premiere in the still-divorced south. .
11 Irreversible
One of the most controversial scenes of all time appeared midway through Gaspar Noé’s movie Irreversible. This reverse chronological story follows a traumatic night in Paris in which a woman is brutally raped and beaten in a metro station and the subsequent (or earlier) quest for revenge.
The abuse scene is completely graphic and visually disturbing. It is now seen as an irresponsible view of rape and provoking people who have been victims of abuse as the stylization of the scene has no awareness of itself as ultimately it is the director cultivating his own ego and ‘edge’ .
10 Children
Children is one of the most confrontational and complicated films in history, and from the outset a visual, contextual and psychological challenge, an insult to the viewer. Larry Clark’s career has focused on the lives of teenagers on the periphery of society, who regularly engage in drug use, underage sex and violence. This combination has never been as powerful as in Childrenhis most (infamous) work to date, which follows the lives of hedonistic New York teenagers.
Although Clark has understood youth culture like no other author, his approach has not been well received by a segment of the public and by critics who find his view amoral, superficial and irresponsible. His direction is said to be voyeuristic, depicting the horrors of the protagonists’ lives in a numb and “cool” manner.
9 The king and me
The king and me is another example of a beloved classic full of questionable ideas. The adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical finds an English widow turned governess in Siam and hired to be the tutor to the king’s many children. As a relationship between the two grows, the story becomes a condescending tale of Western values as the savior for the wild and uncivilized East.
8 Last Tango in Paris
Last Tango in Paris follows the toxic love affair between a middle-aged American man (Marlon Brando) and a young French woman (Maria Schneider) as they begin an anonymous sexual relationship that turns nasty and violent. The brutality and turmoil of the film’s plot were also part of the shooting.
Years later, Schneider revealed that the film’s rape scene was not in the script and was told only minutes before it was shot, as Brando and director Bernardo Bertolucci had decided not to tell her about it. Brando later apologized and also told her that he was also deeply traumatized by his experience on the film and had not spoken to Bertolucci for years.
7 Lawrence of Arabia
This four-hour epic about the life of TE Lawrence and his aid to the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire in World War I is such a complicated work today. While Lawrence of Arabia is still visually stunning and the narrative and underlying themes, such as identity and sexuality, are still highly relevant to this day. It is questioned because it is the archetypal film where a white man brings salvation to a seemingly more antiquated society.
6 Nude
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Nude marked a before and after in director Mike Leigh’s career and propelled David Thewlis to international stardom, earning them both top prizes at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. Nude follows a talkative paranoid intellectual and conspiracy theorist as he takes his worldly anger out on strangers he meets one night in London. This anger is usually translated in a very raw and intense way into violence directed mainly against women.
Some see Nude as a dark comedy that signals violence and alienation as part of modern society, while others denounce the tone and characterization of women as almost cartoonish, laughing at the fact that they are attacked by horrible men.
5 The passion of Christ
Loved or hated, there didn’t seem to be much of a middle ground with Mel Gibson’s The passion of Christ when it premiered, or almost twenty years later now. Those who love this story of the last hours of Jesus of Nazareth before, during, and shortly after his crucifixion hail it as a transmutation of art into transcendence.
The film’s detractors highlighted how Gibson uses unnecessary violence, leaving no room for spiritual growth and causing emotional chaos. Others have linked Gibson’s anti-Semitic remarks to possible undertones in the film.
4 Pol X
Pol X is a grueling work that seems impossible to finance in the current landscape. The film follows a man who is confronted by a woman, who claims to be his lost sister, and their ensuing romantic relationship. Director Leos Carax depicts this possibly incestuous love story without an ounce of humor, moral sensitivity or anything. The apolitical approach to the subject is appreciated by some and refuted by others as ‘edge around the edge’.
3 Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom
Pier Paolo Pasolini Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom is one of the most gruesome and torturous experiences ever perpetrated on celluloid. This perverted story about three fascists kidnapping teenagers to force them into 120 days of sexual torture lasted about a week in Italian theaters before being banned and ultimately leading to Pasolini’s mysterious death.
While a highly intellectual approach and adaptation of Marquis Sade’s novel, it does feature scenes of very young adults playing adolescents who are brutally abused in the most horrific and traumatic ways possible. While acclaimed and held in very high esteem in movie history, it seems like the kind of movie that today would be labeled as a glorification of sexual horror.
2 The seekers
This influential Hollywood classic paints an outdated image of Native Americans. This sounds even stronger once one finds out John Wayne’s racist comments and attitudes. The seekers has him searching for his kidnapped niece for years, a quest that grows more and more questionable as the years go by, using his hatred of Native Americans as fuel to continue.
1 Tess
Tess is the adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Ubervilles which follows the tragic life of a farm girl in the late 19th century. Although she manages to survive many hardships, the adversities in her life seemed to be emphasized and endured in an almost masochistic way. It could certainly be analyzed today as an almost disastrous porn male look into a woman’s life.
Some have said that director Roman Polanski, who has multiple open cases against him involving various accounts of rape and harassment, shows this story through a purely misogynistic lens that misinterprets the protagonist’s courage by making her issues a more predominant focus in the story of the movie.