Multiple James Bond movies, including “Goldfinger” and “You Only Live Twice,” have been given trigger warnings by the BFI, with the film institute fearing the films could “cause offense”.
In celebration of Bond composer John Barry, the British Film Institute is presenting a series of films he worked on and have decided to slap the following warning with every movie:
“Please note that many of these films contain languages, image and other content that reflect views prevalent in its time, but will cause offense today (as they did then). The titles are included here for historical, cultural or aesthetic reasons and these views are in no way endorsed by the BFI or its partners.”
Fun times we live in.
That’s actually one of the most assertive content warnings I’ve seen. Usually, it’ll be something like you “might find the content offensive”. Here, you’re literally told that it’s offensive, whether you like it or not, and that it always was.
I watch a lot of old movies, daily — they ALL have outdated behavior and speech. Cultures and standards evolve, it's how people learn. Having these blanket warnings is treating the general public like children. It’s actually quite annoying. In general, the concept of trigger warnings actually make the problem they're trying to correct for worse.
BFI is getting some pushback for this, and rightly so. It all comes after reports that James Bond books were set to have parts rewritten to remove offensive language from the novels.
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.