The internet puts Delta on blast for cutting same-sex kisses in ‘Carol’ on inflight movies

The controversy bubbled up on Twitter this week after stand-up comic Cameron Esposito expressed her displeasure at the apparent censorship. “Watched CAROL on a plane & they edited it so the main characters never even kiss. Booooooo,” her tweet read. “Two women kissing is fine for planes.” The tweet has been retweeted 112 times and liked 749 times.

Watched CAROL on a plane & they edited it so the main characters never even kiss. Booooooo.

Two women kissing is fine for planes.

— Cameron Esposito (@cameronesposito) August 3, 2016

Esposito implied that the same standards may not have been in place for other shows with heterosexual intimacy, referring to her seatmate watching a bondage scene, which appears to be from Showtime’s financial thriller, “Billions.”

BTW my seatmate totally watching something where Paul Giamatti was participating in BDSM w/ a lady but CAROL had no kissing!?

VERY MAD.

— Cameron Esposito (@cameronesposito) August 3, 2016

Esposito then went on to share a GIF from the movie, which shows Blanchett leaning over and kissing Mara from behind, captioned “This is not dirty” and tagged Delta, demanding answers from the airline directly.

This is not dirty pic.twitter.com/zDOZMDIGXS

— Cameron Esposito (@cameronesposito) August 3, 2016

For real @delta: I fly w/ u all the time. Platinum medallion. Why is every kiss edited out of the version of CAROL you show onboard?

— Cameron Esposito (@cameronesposito) August 3, 2016

Carol writer Phyllis Nagy also chimed in on the conversation, clarifying that there were two versions of the film: a theatrical, unedited one that American and United Airlines had chosen to run, and the edited one, which Delta was running.

@trishbendix @Delta domestic airlines that took the theatrical rather than edited version: American and United.

— Phyllis Nagy (@PhyllisNagy) August 4, 2016

When Digiday reached out to Delta, the airline’s corporate communications representative Liz Savadelis affirmed the brand’s policy to not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability or sexual orientation. She added that Delta had chosen the edited version based on its guidelines, but had no role in the actual editing or say in which scenes were actually cut.

“If we were worried about kissing we wouldn’t be showing the film,” she said. “But because there are scenes with more than a few seconds of nudity, we opted for the edited version instead of the theatrical version.”

Just last month, the airline celebrated “Pride Month” as an official airline sponsor of nine Pride festivals across the U.S. and Canada. The controversy — even if inadvertent — puts a dent on Delta’s commitment to champion gay rights. There have been a little over 1,000 tweets mentioning both Delta and Carol today, according to data from marketing technology company Amobee. But the sentiment in those tweets is overwhelmingly negative, said Amobee, at over 67 percent negative.