Thursday, January 25, 2007

Deleting God

A rookie censor deleted all references to "God" from the airline version of the movie The Queen.

The rookie censor was told to edit out all profanities _ including any blasphemy _ for the version of the movie distributed to Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, Air New Zealand, and other carriers.

So the new censor mistakenly bleeped out each time a character said "God," instead of just when used as part of a profanity, said Jeff Klein, president of Jaguar Distribution, the company that distributed the movie to airlines this month.

"A reference to God is not taboo in any culture that I know of," Klein said. "We excise foul language, excessive violence and nudity."

In-flight viewers of the film at one point heard "(Bleep) bless you, ma'am," as one character spoke to the queen. In all, the word "God" is bleeped seven times in the version.

I feel sorry for the guy. He probably thought searching for "God" would catch any profanity. We've all done search-and-replace functions that didn't work very well.

The company, Jaguar Distribution, has sent out replacement tapes for the airlines.