Yahoo News 10 Movies That Offended Real Places
You have to work pretty hard to upset entire cities and countries, but some filmmakers manage to inspire rage across the globe – sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Movies like Grimsby, in cinemas this week, managed to upset some pretty big targets, so here’s hoping the studios have some decent lawyers on their books…
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The offensive movie: ‘Grimsby’ (2016)
The offended place: Grimsby
For his latest movie about a yobbish football fan from Grimsby who turns out to have an James Bond-esque brother, Sacha Baron Cohen depicted the small Lincolnshire seaside town as a utopia for oiks – full of beer-swilling slobs urinating out of windows and generally acting like football hooligans. Cohen was denied permission to shoot in the actual town of Grimsby, forcing him to shoot in Tilbury, Essex instead. Incensed that his town would be besmirched around the world, the town’s Mayor released a promotional video singing the praises of Grimsby (the place, not the film) to anyone who’d listen. The locals weren’t impressed with Cohen, either. Said the landlord of the pub Cohen visited for research: “He asked for a receipt for his expenses — for a £3.50 pint. I told him we don’t do receipts, but he needed one, so we had to write one on the back of a beer mat.”
The offensive movie: 'Borat’ (2006)
The offended place: Kazakhstan
Sacha Baron Cohen is clearly no stranger to controversy: everywhere he goes he gets someone’s back up. In 2006 he managed to upset an entire country when the Kazakhstan government took offence at the character of Borat, particularly his depiction of their nation as backwards and under-developed lovers of prostitutes. They called the movie “a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is incompatible with the ethics and civilized behavior of Kazakhstan’s people” and ran a four-page spread in the New York Times protesting their treatment at the hands of Cohen’s movie. However, the country’s tourism business has gone through the roof since the release of the movie and the government can now finally see the funny side, even inviting Cohen to visit.
The offensive movie: 'The Dark Knight’ (2008)
The offended place: The Turkish town of Batman
You might think that Warner Bros only needed to seek permission from DC Comics and the estate of Bob Kane to continue producing 'Batman’ movies, but you’d be wrong, at least if you’re Huseyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party mayor of Batman, a small oil-producing town in Turkey. “There is only one Batman in the world,” Kalkan said. “The American producers used the name of our city without informing us.” He launched a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Warner Bros seeking a share of the royalities from 'The Dark Knight’, claiming the movie was responsible for “a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate” in hits town. The suit, unsurprisingly, was not successful.
The offensive movie: '300’ (2006)
The offended place: Iran
A Zack Snyder movie? Offensive? Yes, but not for the usual reasons. Snyder’s wargasm '300’, adapted from the graphic novel by Frank Miller, was deemed highly offensive by the Iranian culture department, generating headlines like 'Hollywood Declares War On Iran’. A cultural adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad labelled the movie “American psychological warfare against Iran” for its portrayal of Persians as grotesque and evil. The movie was clearly being told from the point of view of the Spartans, but that didn’t bother Ahmadinejad and pals, who clearly fast-forwarded to all the cool slow-mo bits.
The offensive movie: 'The Devil’s Own’ (1997)
The offended place: Northern Ireland
Brad Pitt’s movie about an IRA bomber was plagued with production issues and was doomed from the start: violence in Northern Ireland caused extensive rewrites in the early nineties, then when it was finally released in 1997 it felt offensively out of time, as the Good Friday peace accord was to be signed less than a year later. The movie was accused of being wilfully ignorant about Ireland’s history of terrorism and Pitt had a miserable time making it (“it was the most irresponsible bit of filmmaking - if you can even call it that - that I’ve ever seen”).
The offensive movie: '2012’ (2009)
The offended place: North Korea
Several American movies have been banned in North Korea, but none for quite such bizarre reasons. Roland Emmerich’s 'greatest hits’ disaster movie '2012’ was denied a release in North Korea, not because of the movie’s content, but because it was deemed offensive for depicting the year 2012 as one of terror and fear. This wouldn’t do, obviously, as 2012 was the 100th anniversary of the Great Leader Kim Il-Sung, and no amount of earthquakes or tornadoes or volcanic eruptions were going to steal his thunder. Anyone caught watching a pirated version of '2012’ was sentenced to up to five years in prison for what amounted to “a grave provocation against the development of the state”.
The offensive movie: 'Sex And The City 2’ (2010)
The offended place: United Arab Emirates
It feels like there wasn’t a country on Earth that wasn’t in some way offended by 'Sex And The City 2’, but some had more right to be upset than others. The government of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates denied a shooting request, dubbing it “too sexual” (that’s right, play right into the marketing team’s hands, guys), forcing the crew to film in Morocco instead. The movie was astonishingly offensive towards Arab culture, particularly in a scene where a group of niqab-wearing ladies reveal themselves to be wearing haute culture fashions underneath their traditional clothing. “If cartoons of Mohammed have incited jihad,” said one reviewer, “'Sex And The City 2’ may add nukes to the equation.”
The offensive movie: 'Argo’ (2012)
The offended place: Canada
Here we have another movie about America vs Iran, but for once, it wasn’t (just) Iran who found the movie offensive: America’s neighbours, Canada, had a few bones to pick about their portrayal in the entire real-life escapade. Ben Affleck’s account of the narrow escape of six American workers stranded in Iran might have won the Oscar for Best Picture thanks to plenty of chest-thumping and flag-waving, but in actual fact it was the Canadian embassy who deserved the credit, not the CIA; Ex-President Jimmy Carter claimed in an interview that “90 per cent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian.” The film went down like a lead balloon at the Toronto International Film Festival, forcing Affleck to rewrite the movie’s postscript crediting the involvement of the Canadian government. What a hoser.
The offensive movie: 'Exodus: Gods & Kings’ (2014)
The offended place: Egypt
It’s impossible to make a movie out of a Bible story without upsetting someone, but director Ridley Scott ended up angering the entire nation of Egypt with his fantasy account of the story of Moses. The movie was banned by the Egyptian government due to several perceived slights against their nation. The country’s cultural minister claimed: “It is a Zionist film. It gives a Zionist view of history and contains historical inaccuracies and that’s why we have decided to ban it.” They had a problem with the film’s explanation of the parting of the Red Sea as a “tidal phenomenon” and the movie’s claim that “Moses and the Jews built the pyramids”. No one was particularly happy that Christian Bale, born in Pembrokeshire, was cast as Moses, and Scott stoked the fires of controversy when he defended his decision: “I can’t mount a film of this budget and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such.”
The offensive movie: 'Child 44’ (2015)
The offended place: Russia
The book was a best-seller, but the movie adaptation of Soviet serial killer thriller 'Child 44’ was pulled from release in Russia just a day before its release. The movie was set in Stalin-era Russia and Putin’s government deemed the movie’s content inappropriate on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. “It is important that we should finally put an end to the endless series of schizophrenic reflections of ourselves,” said Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky in a statement. The movie, starring Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman, was said to portray the Soviet Union as "not a country, but a Mordor, with physically and mentally inferior subhumans”. Come on, it wasn’t that bad…
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