Steven Spielberg has blasted the woke trend of revising old works of art — including movies and books — to appease modern sensitivities, calling it a form of “censorship.”
Speaking at Time magazine’s “100 Summit” on Tuesday, the director also reiterated his regret over changes he made to E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial, saying it “was a mistake” to digitally replace the FBI agents’ firearms with walkie-talkies for the movie’s 20th-anniversary version.
Spielberg was reportedly asked by Time editor in chief Edward Felsenthal about his thoughts on Roald Dahl’s children’s books being edited to remove language deemed offensive.
“Nobody should ever attempt to take the chocolate out of Willy Wonka! Ever!” Spielberg said.
Steven Spielberg on editing work after the fact: "It's our history. It's our cultural heritage… I do not believe in censorship in that way" #TIME100 pic.twitter.com/1dOEm8HPLk
— TIME (@TIME) April 25, 2023
“For me, it is sacrosanct. It’s our history, it’s our cultural heritage,” he continued. “I do not believe in censorship in that way.”
On the subject of E.T., Spielberg blasted his own decision to retroactively edit the movie.
“That was a mistake,” he said. “I never should have done that. E.T. is a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are, either voluntarily, or being forced to peer through.”
He continued: “All our movies are a kind of a signpost of where we were when we made them, what the world was like, and what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there. So I really regret having that out there.”
In addition to Roald Dahl, the novels of Ian Fleming and P.G. Wodehouse are also being posthumously edited to remove language that woke leftists find objectionable.
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