It hasn’t even been five minutes since Olivia Wilde made her directorial debut for the film Booksmart and already, she’s stuck dealing with issues.
Namely, how several airlines edited out a lesbian kiss from the film.
Here’s a spoiler for ya: Olivia is not happy.
It’s exciting times for Olivia Wilde right now!
The actress just made her directorial debut with the film Booksmart !
The coming-of-age comedy tells the story of two best friends who spent their high school years being so focused on being academic overachievers.
To remedy this, they try to cram four years of fun into one wild night.
Intrigued? You’re not alone.
The film has been getting tons of buzz!
It even has 97 percent on Rotton Tomatoes — an impressive feat for the first-time director.
Since it came out, Olivia has been interacting with fans online about the movie.
But by doing this, she learned something truly upsetting…
Etihad Airlines had edited out the intimate lesbian scene between actresses Kaitlyn Dever and Diana Silvers.
It was edited out while intimate scenes between male and female characters remained.
That same fan made it known that it wasn’t just Etihad Airlines censoring the clip. It was also Delta and Emirates airlines too.
Delta ended up releasing a statement to People , explaining their side as they have a third-party editing company who edits their movies.
“Delta’s content parameters do not in any way ask for the removal of homosexual content from the film,” the airline statement read.
“We value diversity and inclusion as core to our culture and our mission and will review our processes to ensure edited video content doesn’t conflict with these values.”
Wilde saw the fan’s tweet and responded with her frustration.
This resulted in a ton of tweets on the subject of censorship in movies.
Even Chrissy Teigen got involved!
She tweeted: “uhhhh I’ve literally watched people get their entire [expletive] on in an airplane movie. Like full doggy but no lesbian kissing is a rule? Lame.”
After learning that even the word “lesbian” was cut out from Delta airlines, Olivia tweeted out another response:
One person even called the overall censorship of the lesbian kiss a ” gross abuse ” against the LGBTQ community.
The actress/director spoke to “Variety” about the unfair censorship at the 11th Annual Governors Awards.
“I don’t understand it,” she said.
“There’s censorship, airline to airline, of films, which there must be some kind of governing board to determine. We rate it a certain way. If it’s not X-rated, surely it’s acceptable on an airplane.”
She went on to say that her heart “just broke” when she found out about the editing.
‘It’s such an integral part of this character’s journey. I don’t understand it,” she said.
“My heart just broke. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it; I want people to experience the entire film.”
She continued:
“There’s insane violence of bodies being smashed in half and yet a love scene between two women is censored from the film.”
RELATED STORIES
Dever — one of the actresses in the scene — told “Variety” that she was upset by the news.
“It’s ridiculous,” Dever said. “I don’t even know what to say to that. That makes me so mad.”
Hopefully the cast and crew can pull together a win for the movie and LGBTQ rights by stopping the censorship!
If you want to check out the full uncensored version of the film, be catch Booksmart on Netflix!