After some pro-LGBT voices criticized Delta Air Lines for offering edited versions of the movies "Rocketman" and "Booksmart," the company announced it had not requested that "homosexual content" be removed from the films and that it was implementing a new process to provide entertainment that reflects "the diversity of the world."
In other words, Delta Air Lines is now going to make sure that it offers films with gay sex and related images, scenes, and themes for passengers traveling on its airplanes.
“We value our in-flight entertainment options as a means to reflect the diversity of the world,” the company said in a statement. “We are reviewing the processes of our third-party editing vendors to ensure that they are aligned with our values of diversity and inclusion.”
A spokesman for Delta told Fox News that the company is “immediately putting a new process in place for managing content available through Delta’s entertainment. ... The studio has agreed to provide a special Delta edit that retains the LGBTQ+ love scenes in both ‘Booksmart’ and ‘Rocketman’ that will be on our flights as soon as possible."
"Booksmart," a movie about teenage girls coming of age, including lesbian sexuality and masturbation, had some scenes edited by a third-party vendor before the film was offered on Delta Air Lines.
When "Booksmart" director Olivia Wilde found out about the edits, she complained that the masturbation and lesbian sex scenes had been removed. She also complained that the words "lesbian" and "vagina" had been edited.
“What message is this sending to viewers and especially to women?" Wilde said on Twitter. "That their bodies are obscene? That their sexuality is shameful?”
"Rocketman" is a movie about homosexual pop-star Elton John, which depicts gay hookups and sodomitical sex, among other aspects of John's life.
After Entertainment Weekly's digital director Shana Krochmal saw "Rocketman" on a Delta flight, she tweeted, "On @Delta today discovered that #Rocketman is stripped of almost every gay reference or scene that @eltonofficial fought to keep in the film’s mainstream release, including a simple chaste kiss. This is good context but it’s still frustrating."
In its statement, Delta Air Lines further said, "Studios often provide videos in two forms: a theatrical, original version and an edited version. We selected the edited version and now realize content well within our guidelines was unnecessarily excluded from both films. We are working to make sure this doesn’t happen again."
