Fin: The ‘Full Metal Jacket’ "censored helmet" is the year's dumbest movie controversy

Plus: Getting too old for another Lethal Weapon, not knowing who Glen Powell is, dueling 'Merrily' movies, and more in this week’s notes column.

Censoring movies, we can all agree, is bad. When it came to light last year that streaming services had removed a couple of racial slurs from The French Connection, it was met with nearly universal derision from across the political spectrum and from people at all levels of the entertainment industry. (And the story of precisely what happened and who was responsible never came out.)

Thankfully, with a few exceptions—network TV, some cable channels, and your in-flight movie menu—most classic films remain available intact, whether you’re watching them on streaming services, premium cable channels, or physical media releases. This is true of even controversial movies like Blazing Saddles, which are always allegedly on the verge of censorship or banishment. Film bowdlerization — from pan-and-scan transfers, colorization, or other plagues — was a much bigger problem in the 1990s than today. 

There’s simply no appetite or demand, coming from any direction, for the movies to be cut up in deference to modern sensitivities. 

Therefore, the battles about “censorship” have migrated elsewhere to questions about cable channel disclaimers, trigger warnings, and the recent kerfuffle over AMC, adding a line about “cultural stereotypes” to the card it places before broadcasts of Goodfellas. 

You can dislike things like this. But what they don’t do is “ruin” the movie, nor are they “censorship” of the film. 

The latest controversy in this vein is over… the VOD menu screen on Amazon Prime Video for Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. 

I believe it was the Internet character known as Zodiac Motherfucker — who I admit I am a longtime fan of – who noticed it first: On the Amazon VOD menu for that film, the phrase “Born to Kill” has been removed from the helmet:

The helmet with that phrase is featured on the poster, as well as part of a key scene in the movie:

It is a great scene, which forms a core part of what the movie is all about. I may or may not have once written something about how the “Born to Kill”/peace button duality of man scene was a microcosm of John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

The following day, the star of the movie, Matthew Modine, also weighed in: 

Meanwhile, ZMF noted that none of the mainstream news coverage has credited him with bringing this to light (“SEE IM LIKE A SOLAR ECLIPSE. YOU CANT LOOK DIRECTLY AT ME. YOU NEED TO PEEK THROUGH A SHOEBOX WITH A FUCKING PINHOLE IN IT AND HOPE YOU ONLY CATCH A GLIMPSE LEST YOU BE *BLINDED* BY MY MAJESTY.”)

Now, to be clear, this is only the Amazon Prime Video menu. The scene remains in the movie itself. And if you click through any other major VOD providers, like Microsoft, the helmet is still on the menu:

Is this censorship brought on by the dreaded wokeness? I’m guessing not. More likely, the decision was made by some lower-level graphic designer with Amazon or a subcontractor of Amazon, and it most likely had something to do with design principles about text running into other text. There’s also a better-than-decent chance that the offending image was there for 2 or 3 or 4 years before anybody noticed.

If Amazon removed “Born to Kill” from the helmet in the movie, I would join the protest myself. But again, it’s just the VOD menu. After clicking through it to watch the film, you’ll never have to think about it again. 

And besides, it looks like they changed it- to a picture of Modine wearing the helmet, and Deadline reports that the helmet, “Born to Kill” and all, will be restored.