It’s been a frustrating week for Olivia Wilde, who learned from a fan via Twitter that a queer love scene had been cut from Booksmart on certain airlines. “This is truly a bummer,” she responded on Sunday (October 27). “There is no nudity in this scene. What makes it too obscene for airplane viewing? What airline?” Wilde has since made it her priority to discover exactly what these airlines have censored from her directorial debut. And today (October 30), she hit up Twitter with a list.
“I finally had the chance to watch an edited version of Booksmart on a flight to see exactly what has been censored,” Wilde tweeted. “Turns out some airlines work with a third party company that edits the movie based on what they deem appropriate. Which, in our case is … female sexuality?” From there, Wilde went on to list all of the things that were unfairly removed from the film, which, in addition to the queer hookup scene, included muting the word “vagina,” cutting Molly’s masturbation and UTI story, and removing a scissoring joke, among other things.
After explaining that the airlines also decided to remove frames that included naked doll bodies, which don’t feature any distinctive genitalia at all, Wilde went on to say that the most disappointing edit was, without a doubt, the removal of Amy and Hope’s love scene. “Most disappointingly, they cut most of Amy and Hope’s love scene in the bathroom, which involves zero nudity, but does involve an essential plot point for a lead character,” she wrote. “Wtfffff.”
If these edits weren’t concerning enough already, you’d probably be interested to know what these airlines didn’t cut from the film. “By the way, they didn’t cut ANY cursing,” she added to her already extensive Twitter thread. “Every ‘fuck’ is heard loud and clear, sometimes in the same scene where they muted ‘vagina.’ They showed George (elegantly) deep-throating a microphone but couldn’t stomach a consensual love scene between two women.”
Ultimately, this thread was way more than Wilde simply airing her frustrations about the airlines’ unfair and sexist movie edits. Instead, it was about urging them to do better by cutting ties with the third party company that approved such edits. “I urge every airline, especially those who pride themselves on inclusivity, to stop working with this third party company, and trust the parental advisory warning to allow viewers to opt out if they choose,” she wrote.
Wilde closed out the thread with an extremely fitting GIF from the film of Beanie Feldstein, who played the role of Molly, shouting “Make it stop!” Your move, airlines.
