Delta Air Lines edits movie, removes same sex kiss scene

Update: According to Delta, it did not strip the movie Carol of its same-sex love scenes, but selected a cut of the film with less nudity.
“If we were worried about kissing, we wouldn’t be showing the film,” the airline said in a statement. “But because there are scenes with more than a few seconds of nudity, we opted for the edited version, instead of the theatrical version.”
This story was originally published at August 5 at 2 p.m.
Todd Haynes’ 2015 movie, Carol, is a strikingly beautiful love story between a shopgirl, Thèrese (Rooney Mara), and a sophisticated housewife, Carol (Cate Blanchett). The two engage in a deeply emotional affair over a short period of time during the 1950s. A critical depiction their relationship involves sex and intimacy, yet Delta Airlines decided to edit those scenes out — along with kissing — for the in-flight version of the film.
This error in judgement was brought to the internet’s attention by comedian Cameron Esposito, when she tweeted her feelings after watching the film on a recent flight.
“Watched CAROL on a plane & they edited it so the main characters never even kiss. Booooooo. Two women kissing is fine for planes,” she tweeted. The comic, who is married to fellow comedian Rhea Butcher, also noted that the person sitting next to her on the plane was watching a movie in which two straight characters were “participating in BDSM.” Singer Mary Lambert chimed in as well, mentioning that she’d only ever seen the movie on a plane and didn’t even know the two leads had sex, thinking that “the director/producer chose that creatively.”
The website After Ellen first reported the story, when a reader of the site addressed the airline directly to complain about the unnecessary censorship. Delta responded by saying that “it is never [their] policy to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation or similar classification.” The airline also claims that they were offered a choice by the film’s studio of either showing a censored or uncensored cut of the film.
Even so, some are still calling BS. Specifically, Carol screenwriter Phyllis Nagy tweeted, “@Delta domestic airlines that took the theatrical rather than the edited version: American and United.”
It’s a little disheartening to see that no matter how far things come, we still have a ways to go.
Refinery 29