Just like people and almost anything else in this world, films age. There are some for which time has been kind, and there are others which look much different after years of societal changes have warped the general perception of them.
Commercial comedy films have been an easy target of certain sectors of critics and audiences for the last few years, and how could they not be? The perpetuation of racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and outdated notions has been re-analyzed and is no longer tolerated by many. This phenomenon, though, is not exclusive to comedies, as high-prestige films of the past have also been now deemed politically incorrect for a variety of reasons.
These here, are some films that are still considered great but are also labeled politically incorrect and have sparked debate all over the film world.
15Blue Is the Warmest Color
Blue Is the Warmest Colorfollows the coming of age and sexual awakening of a high school student (Adèle Exarchopoulos) through her early adulthood as she enters into a relationship with an aspiring painter (Léa Seydoux). The film is notorious for its explicit and nearly unsimulated sex scenes, which have sprung a lot of debate on how they were framed.
Abdellatif Kechiche’s direction has been characterized as exploitative and irresponsible (part of the crew quit mid-production due to Kechiche morally harassing them). Both leads criticized and later defended the film and its production. It remains an open topic in today’s cinematic landscape.
14The Brown Bunny
Vincent Gallo is one of the most divisive figures in cinema and culture. To some, he’s a controlling egomaniac, to others a genius, and for some others, both. Truth is, many of his works are considered cult classics and some of the most original films in the last thirty years. None of these are as controversial as 2003’sThe Brown Bunny.
Contention about the film arises from an explicit scene of Chloë Sevigny performing fellatio on Gallo, which some find to be a male gaze fantasy, and others a sensitive and realistic approach to sex on screen.The movie bombedand Gallo hasn’t directed another since, but some people still call this a depressing modern classic.
13Dirty Harry
While Clint Eastwood’s first apparition as Harry Callahan inDirty Harrymight be considered great in terms of what a police thriller should be, its moral position has been deemed as a fascist apology by various critics. This idea was shared by both Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael.
The latter stated that the film perceives evil and crimes aspart of a metaphysical entityand finds it to be a “deeply immoral” movie for equating violence (and ignoring the components that make up crime) to justice.
12Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Windis the classic love story between Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) in the midst of the American Civil War. This nearly 90-year-old film is one of the greatest treasures of American cinema and at the same time is a grim reminder of the inequality and race prejudices present in Classic Hollywood.
This is shown in the plot, as the film is largely uncritical of slavery and the Southern tradition that defended it. This ignorance echoed in real life with Hattie McDaniel, who went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and was segregated from her white co-stars at the ceremony, as well as not being invited to the film’s premiere in the still segregated south.
11Irréversible
One of the most controversial scenes of all time appeared midway through Gaspar Noé’s filmIrréversible. This reverse chronological story follows one traumatic night in Paris in which a woman is brutally raped and beaten in a subway station and the ensuing (or prior) search for revenge.
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The abuse scene is totally explicit and visually disturbing. It is now seen as an irresponsible look at rape and triggering towards people who have suffered abuse as the stylization of the scene has no consciousness of itself, as it ultimately is the director cultivating his own ego and “edge.”
Kidsis one of history’s most confrontational and complicated films, and from the very start is a visual, contextual, and psychological challenge, an affront to the viewer. Larry Clark’s career has focused on the lives of teenagers on society’s peripheries, who frequently engage in drug use, underage sex, and violence. This combination was never as potent as inKids, his most (in)famous work to date, which follows the lives of hedonistic New York teenagers.
While Clark has managed to understand youth culture like no other auteur, his approach has not been well received by a section of the audience and critics who find his vision to be amoral, superficial, and irresponsible. It has been said his direction is voyeuristic, displaying the horrors of the protagonists' lives in an anesthetized and “cool” fashion.
9The King and I
The King and Iis another example of an endeared classic filled with some questionable ideas. Theadaptation of the Rodgers and HammersteinBroadway musical finds a widowed English woman who becomes a governess in Siam and is hired to be the tutor of the King’s many kids. As a relationship grows between both, the narrative becomes a patronizing tale of Western values as being the salvation for the wild and uncivilized East.
8Last Tango in Paris
Last Tango in Parisfollows the toxic love affair between a middle-aged American man (Marlon Brando) and a young French woman (Maria Schneider) as they begin an anonymous sexual relationship that becomes sordid and violent. The brutality and turmoil of the film’s plot were also part of its shoot.
Years afterward, Schneider revealed that the film’s rape scene was not in the script and was told only minutes before shooting it, as Brando and director Bernardo Bertolucci had decided not to tell her about it. Brando apologized later on and also told her that he was also deeply traumatized by his experience on the film, and did not speak to Bertolucci for years.
7Lawrence of Arabia
This four-hour epic about the life of T.E. Lawrence and his aid to the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire in World War I is such a complicated work these days. WhileLawrence of Arabiais still visually stunning and its narrative and underlying themes, such as identity and sexuality, are still very much relevant to this day. It’s questioned for being the archetypical film in which a white man brings salvation for a seemingly more antiquated society.
Nakedmarked a before and afterin director Mike Leigh’s career and launched David Thewlis into international stardom, as well as earning them both top awards at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.Nakedfollows a talkative paranoid intellectual and conspiracy theorist man as he vents his rage at the world on strangers he meets one night in London. This anger is usually translated into violence mainly directed at women in a very raw and intense manner.
Some seeNakedas a dark comedy signaling violence and alienation as part of modern society, while others denounce the tone and characterization of women as nearly cartoonish, laughing at the fact that they live attacked by horrible men.
