https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/29/23980781/robert-de-niro-apple-censoring-gotham-awards-speech-donald-trump
Bits where he criticized Donald Trump and the film industry were cut.
They attempted to censor him, by removing part of his speech from the teleprompter. He got his phone out and read it from there instead.
Actually it's the opposite. They're claiming he hadn't received/approved the newest draft, which is an insane justification when you think about it, like 'we didn't realize that he hadn't approved the changes the we independently made to his speech'
Apple has now gotten caught for doing this to Jon Stewart and now Robert De Niro in a month’s time. Not great.
Kind of a bummer, AppleTV+ actually has really good content now, and this makes me not want to support it.
Almost makes someone want to setup a Jellyfin/Plex server with radarr, sonarr and a VPN like AirVPN, then sail the high seas and grab all the easily acquired AppleTV content floating around out there to watch without financially supporting the company, but that'd be wrong.
I'm no fan of Apple, but a lot of their new shows are pretty decent like Silo, Invasion, Slow Horses, Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, Severance, Foundation, etc. I suppose it's all subjective but I think they're worth the HDD space.
Variety reports that De Niro’s accusations regarding censorship have been denied by “a source close to the film,” who instead claims the incident was a miscommunication. The insider alleges that multiple versions of the speech had been created, and that both Apple and the filmmakers were unaware that De Niro had not approved the final draft. We have reached out to Apple and the Gotham Film & Media Institute to clarify the situation.
I can't rule out a dumb employee trying to make a unilateral change to a speech almost nobody would have known about otherwise, but a miscommunication over multiple drafts certainly strikes me as highly plausible, and I can also understand why the filmmakers would have been encouraging a draft that was more focused on the film than tangential contemporary political issues.
I wouldn't say that contemporary political issues are tangential to the movie. The same thinking and greed behind those murders still drives American capitalism.
I can see Apple and the filmmakers wanting people to not draw comparisons.
I think there's a time and place. Trump is a criminal who should be in prison, but his casual racism against Native Americans is still quite tangential to the Osage murders. I think most filmmakers who made a movie about bad things in the past do indeed want to draw contemporary comparisons (because we should try to avoid repeating past mistakes), but that doesn't mean every comparison is appropriate in every circumstance. Nobody wants rambling acceptance speeches, perhaps even more so at obscure awards shows where there isn't even a large audience who might need to hear the message. The speech as given just wasn't very good. It veers progressively off-topic.
If they didn’t want to hear what HE had to say then why give him an award and a mic?
It is very common for actors to use their speeches as a chance to speak about issues important to them. From Joaquin Phoenix all the way back to Marlon Brando.
This is an obvious attempt from Apple to censor a speech they asked for.
If they didn’t want to hear what HE had to say then why give him an award and a mic?
To hear him talk about the film?
It is very common for actors to use their speeches as a chance to speak about issues important to them. From Joaquin Phoenix all the way back to Marlon Brando.
Indeed it is, and the result is lots of eye-rolling and complaints. De Niro has many opportunities to express himself on a variety of issues. That doesn't mean every sentence he could possibly say really belongs there whenever he's given a microphone.
If Apple wanted him to only talk about certain things during his speech they could’ve communicated that before he accepted their request for him to give a speech.
He probably would’ve turned down the request.
You acknowledge that it is common for actors to do what he did so it is safe to say Apple knew also.
So Apple takes the “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission” approach and plays dumb.
If Apple wanted him to only talk about certain things during his speech they could’ve communicated that before he accepted their request for him to give a speech.
Apple never asked him to give a speech. This is an acceptance speech for an obscure, untelevised awards show. The winners are invited to speak when accepting it. De Niro worked with the producers/Apple on his acceptance speech. For some reason, the draft loaded on the teleprompter wasn't the version he planned on. There are many different reasons this could be.
If you're going to attribute an action to a company as a whole, then it at least needs to be a decision made by a high-level employee and not some peon. The idea that Apple decided to just unilaterally delete portions of his speech at the last minute, without his consent, is among the least plausible scenarios. Anybody with any actual authority at the company is smart enough to know how stupid that would be. The most likely scenario is pure mistake with multiple drafts in play; the next most likely is a nobody who grossly overstepped their bounds, made their bosses look bad, and has probably already been fired.
“If you're going to attribute an action to a company as a whole, then it at least needs to be a decision made by a high-level employee and not some peon.”
I’ve had many experiences with companies that fire “peons” for bad PR or misrepresenting the views of the company or however HR wants to word it to avoid legal problems.
It is very easy for CEOs or upper management or middle management to pass down orders that are worded in a way that imply what they want workers to do without saying it in a legally binding way.
“The idea that Apple decided to just unilaterally delete portions of his speech at the last minute, without his consent, is among the least plausible scenarios.”
Then why is it the first conclusion that De Niro and many others came to?
“Anybody with any actual authority at the company is smart enough to know how stupid that would be.”
Because it looks like they are censoring his speech.
Apple always have these convenient excuses in their back pockets. Makes much more sense to me that DeNiro was telling the truth, especially given recent events.
Makes much more sense to me that DeNiro was telling the truth
Nobody ever said he was lying. He made a statement, live, based on his current understanding of the situation. Later, someone else offered a perfectly plausible explanation.
it's too much of a coincidence that the removed parts were the most controversial ones. that's a pretty weird change for allegedly an "older draft version".
additionally, it's not the first time Apple has removed controversial topics in a short period of time. I might not agree with DeNiro at all, but I'm convinced that those parts of the script were removed purposefully by Apple.
What's plausible or reasonable about independently editing someone else's speech and not even bothering to make sure they knew about it?
I'm aware, but at the moment on stage, it wasn't possible for him to know the truth in the first place so it's not about whether we think De Niro was "telling the truth." He was speculating.
He made a guess based on the evidence he had. It may or may not be "true" or factual. Either way, he wasn't lying, and the person you responded to didn't say anything about him lying.
You know, when I wrote it I actually questioned whether I should use the word "lying," or if doing so would cause an overly nit-picking response, but I decided to expect the best in people. Surely they'd see that I was establishing a shared premise that he wasn't lying, which is the usual opposite of "telling the truth," while pointing out that he wasn't necessarily telling the truth. There's a middle ground of ignorance.
But by all means, thank you for interjecting yourself in the conversation to state the obvious.
Regardless of whose idea it was to cut the speech, the fact remains that someone made a censored draft, the organizers received it along with the full speech, and the censored version ended on the prompter without De Niro's consent. Perhaps Apple wasn't responsible, but then who?
Or a former version of his speech didnt have any politics in it because it was a draft, and he passed it to someone for review on what he had already written.
Then that copy somehow got mistaken for a, if not the, final draft.
I do that when writing. I ask for review on what I have written down, even knowing that I have more to add but just dont know how to start putting to words yet.
I don't buy this theory as he should have easily recognized it was an earlier copy of what he wrote rather than stopping and stating that someone edited his words as if he'd never seen the speech in this form.
someone made a censored draft
I don't think we can quite say that. Speeches usually have a time limit. It would be perfectly normal to write more than you can actually say and then start cutting back or rewording parts to make it shorter. That's not "censorship." If you're cutting down an acceptance speech, the more off-topic stuff is naturally going to be looked at critically. I'd expect there to be multiple drafts with different portions cut out so it's not so much as a "full" verses "cut" speech but which version of cuts was the final version.
I don’t buy it. Those decisions always include the actor for obvious reasons.
“Oops! We aCciDeNtLy cut out the part that might cause insurrection supporters to not watch our award show! Aww shucks our mistake increased our ratings.”
“Oops! We aCciDeNtLy cut out the part that might cause insurrection supporters to not watch our award show! Aww shucks our mistake increased our ratings.”
It's not a televised. It's an obscure awards show that almost nobody saw.
Apple did not produce or distribute the event. I think they'd be perfectly content with zero viewers. CODA won two Gotham Awards, including Troy Kotsur for best supporting actor. Did Apple talk about it then? No. What about when CODA won big at the Oscars? Apple dedicated two long paragraphs of the press release to talking about the other awards CODA won but the Gotham Awards are so irrelevant that they didn't even get a single throwaway mention.
CODA is irrelevant here.
Apple admitted they made a mistake with the teleprompter.
We can only speculate why it happened.
Considering the context of what was removed I doubt it was a coincidence.
the filmmakers would have been encouraging
Yet this kind of encouragement seemed a tiny bit... unwelcome maybe? 🤣
I think he's experienced enough to know that when your movie is out in theaters right now, the studio always wants you to use every possible opportunity to talk up the film, and would prefer you not go off on tangents. If nothing else, that's a reasonable request.
Yes, lets not talk about modern racial issues and instead focus on this for-profit film we based off of classic racial issues. We want revenue not awareness!
I don't want to give credit to Apple, but let's not forget that De Niro is anti vax, among others bullshit he have spewed over the years
I honestly don't care what the guy had to say. Removing parts from his speech without telling him is plain awful.
Wait... He is? I don't follow news about celebrities as often and only watch movies and shows, maybe some interviews.
Yeah... honestly don't blame them for cutting an unhinged rant out of their awards show speeches. But if they did it without informing him, or explicitly approved it to get him to commit, and bait and switched, then yeah, they're in the wrong.
It did make it far more entertaining, though.
actually it's ad hominem,
Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person'), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.
Shame on Apple and the production company. Deniro is a badass for overriding and calling them out.
yeah, I do not agree with a lot of the guy's opinions, but I respect that instead of playing ball with Apple he took his phone and read his own speech.
I see few comments shitting on de Niro for being an anti vaxxer as if it holds a weight in this argument.. read some of those comments too.
alleges that multiple versions of the speech had been created, and that both Apple and the filmmakers were unaware that De Niro had not approved the final draft.
What a lame excuse LOL that's just another description for censorship by some clueless interns. And I'm sure they are going to come up with new, multiple versions of lame excuses during the next days.
They should rather take responsibility for their malpractice! Lo and behold: the actor himself has no problem with taking responsibility for his own speech.
What is it with atrocities towards native Americans and Hollywood award speeches?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Robert De Niro slammed Apple and the Gotham Film & Media Institute this week after claiming his speech for the Gotham Awards had been censored — allegedly by an Apple employee just minutes before the show started, according to Variety’s sources — to remove criticisms about Donald Trump and the entertainment industry.
The actor appeared onstage at the ceremony on Monday night for the presentation of the Gotham Historical Icon and Creator Tribute to Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon, a film distributed by Apple that focuses on a series of murders targeting the Osage people in Oklahoma during the 1920s after oil was discovered on tribal land.
According to Variety’s sources, an edited version of the speech was uploaded to the teleprompter just minutes before the Gotham Awards kicked off, by a woman who identified herself as an Apple employee, in response to “feedback from the filmmaking team that wanted the actor’s remarks to be centered on the movie.” Variety also reports that the teleprompter company was emailed a revised speech script by two Apple employees that evening, and that De Niro was not aware of the changes.
Variety reports that De Niro’s accusations regarding censorship have been denied by “a source close to the film,” who instead claims the incident was a miscommunication.
The insider alleges that multiple versions of the speech had been created, and that both Apple and the filmmakers were unaware that De Niro had not approved the final draft.
De Niro’s accusations of censorship come just weeks after reports that Jon Stewart’s show on Apple TV Plus, The Problem With Jon Stewart, was ended due to “creative differences” related to topics on China and artificial intelligence.
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"multiple version of the script?!?!" If this was the wrong version uploaded, De Niro would have known it was the wrong version uploaded since he would have known about this version. Unless of course he wasn't involved in multiple revisions.
And now that I've seen this article, I've watched a clip for a broadcast I normally wouldn't give a rat's bottom about. Thanks Apple!
Ad hominem attacks are lazy logical fallacies that show the utter stupidity of people.
The fuck does this old fart's vax position have to do with his allegation of Apple cutting out the Trump rant of his speech?
Antivaxer is the new "jew" in social media. I imagine it was exactly like this to be a jew in the second world war. People would hate you without knowing anything about you.
It's also similar rhetorics. I think the jews were accused of spreading disease.
Couple key differences:
Does anyone remember the days when there were a few people who didn't feel like they needed to make a political statement every five minutes?
Like you're doing now?
If you're referring to his speech, the political statements he made reflected the whole premise of the film (and real events) he was speaking about.
