Making a piece of art that pleases everyone? As a filmmaker, I believe drinking hot lava is more doable. You could make something safe, but then chances are, you’d hardly ever speak your heart.
That’s the thing I hate and love the most about art—it is absolutely subjective, and therefore, extremely personal to every individual. That same quality renders it prone to misinterpretation, misunderstanding, or being perceived as offensive.
Then comes a concept of what’s appropriate for the silver screen. Censorship often takes care of most of it, but each time a filmmaker has tried to bend the rules of what’s ethically appropriate to be shown on screen, the movie has attracted controversy.
Even the greatest of the great, such as David Lynch, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, and David Fincher, have faced creative controversies.
Naturally, every decade sees its fair share of movies that end up hitting the headlines for being controversial.
In this article, we’re looking at the most controversial movies from the 1980s.
The 8 Most Controversial Films from the ‘80s That Were Masterpieces in Reality
1. Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
Twilight Zone: The Movie is a horror sci-fi anthology of four short stories. Among them, one segment was directed by John Landis. His film follows an extremely racist man who ends up saving two Vietnamese children during the Vietnam War.
The film features a scene in which the man crosses a shallow river while carrying the children. The shot was filmed on a shallow river, with the crew following them from a helicopter.
All was going well until the planned special effects explosion went off and knocked the helicopter out of the sky. The low-flying craft crashed right into the actors, killing all three.
While Landis faced criminal charges (which he was eventually acquitted of), the main outrage came when Warner Bros. released the movie and kept the ominous scene. People felt it was really heartless for the studio to profit from such a tragedy.
2. Blue Velvet (1986)
David Lynch’s Blue Velvet divided audiences upon its release. Most people were against the explicit scenes, and the conservatives even branded it as “pornography.”
The narrative follows two young adults who are pulled into a world of darkness and crime that they never knew existed in their small town after one of them discovers a severed human ear in a secluded field.
Isabella Rossellini’s Dorothy is Frank Booth’s sex slave in return for the safety of her family, who are being kept as his hostages. The closet scene in Blue Velvet is especially explicit, in which Frank is abusing Dorothy, while Jeffrey (the one who found the ear) watches them from the closet.
Dorothy’s arc is filled with sequences that showcase women’s plight in a morally decaying society. While Lynch tries to show the truth without any dilution, many complain that the movie is too sexually explicit and promotes voyeurism.
3. Cruising (1980)
This Al Pacino starrer, directed by William Friedkin, received a lot of hate owing to its seemingly problematic portrayal of the queer community. The narrative follows an undercover cop who must pretend to be gay to nab a serial killer who’s been targeting gay men.
The controversy began midway through production. Gay rights activists tried to harm the filming in many ways, and there were also protests outside the theaters upon the movie’s release.
4. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ was the filmmaker’s attempt to humanize the Son of God. The movie is adapted from Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel of the same name. It follows Jesus into a fantasy in which he is an ordinary man with a family and human desires, not the Son of God.
Jesus getting intimate with a woman was declared blasphemous, and the Catholic Church was absolutely against the movie’s release. Prominent figures, including Mother Teresa, shunned the movie and asked religious Christians to boycott the film.
The movie made headlines as different Christian communities, including Evangelicals and Baptists, joined the protests outside the theaters alongside Catholics when the movie was released.
5. Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
The loss of innocence has long been a major theme in the horror genre. Silent Night, Deadly Night is no different; only it uses a specific motif for violence that triggered the audience to their very core.
The narrative follows a mentally traumatized boy who grows up to become a serial killer. He puts on the Santa Claus costume, walking around on the streets, brutally claiming lives in cold blood on Christmas. Not too different from Michael Myers, who hunted on Halloween, wearing a mask, right?
Only, TriStar Pictures made a wrong move by airing its ads during normal hours. As children saw an axe-wielding Santa killing people and were traumatized, their parents were outraged. Many critics also shunned the movie.
The controversy got so out of hand that the movie had to be pulled from theaters.
6. Do the Right Thing (1989)
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing sparked quite a controversy right after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Some people felt the movie promoted a riot mentality. Some claimed that Black people would be incited to fight and start riots in the same way as Mookie if they felt threatened.
Ultimately, despite immense pressure, Universal released the film; however, there was no aftermath in the form of riots on its release, as speculated.
7. Hail Mary (1985)
Before Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, Jean-Luc Godard had attempted something similar and faced severe backlash from Christians. His movie Hail Mary humanizes Mary by portraying her as a young student working as a gas station attendant.
Despite being a virgin, Mary is pregnant, and in the film, Joseph is a cab driver, not a carpenter. While the premise doesn’t sound too controversial, the film had everything that would offend the religious, including nude scenes of Mary and blasphemous dialogue.
From the pope to religious Catholics, everyone was upset about such an outrageous reimagination of their God in the name of storytelling, and the release was met with vehement protests. In Minneapolis, the print was stolen from a theater and destroyed to prevent its screening.
8. White Dog (1982)
Samuel Fuller’s White Dog is one of the most widely misunderstood films, which faced heavy criticism, backlash, and protests even before it could be released. So much so that Paramount Pictures only released the film in limited theaters for test screenings and then scrapped the finished film entirely, fearing the audience’s fury.
The narrative follows a white woman who rescues a white German Shepherd dog and discovers that it is trained to attack Black people on sight. Although the dog is too old to be retrained, she seeks help from an accomplished Black dog trainer.
The trainer becomes obsessed with curing the dog’s racist mentality. Through the arc of the dog and the trainer, the movie deeply explores whether racism is curable.
After being shelved for more than a decade, White Dog was taken up by the Criterion Collection, which finally gave it an official DVD release. The film immediately won hearts with its nuanced exploration of American racism and an ending that stays with you long past the credits.
Let us know which of these movies in the list you have watched. Which of these do you think really deserved the hate they got?