Dec. 4, 2023

Speech Censorship Causes Controversy at Film Awards Ceremony

A puzzled Robert De Niro that presented the Gotham Awards, claimed that his Gotham Awards speech was censored during the live ceremony. The actor mentioned his anti-Trump comments were cut without notice. By: Dylan Low

As De Niro paid tribute to Martin Scorsese’s Killers of The Flower Moon, he noticed that a segment of his speech was edited and removed from the teleprompter. He hence stuttered during his reading, trying to find his footing. 

“I’m going to go back. I’m sorry. Okay, there was a mistake in this. I’ll keep going. Just keep scrolling,” De Niro started early on during the speech. There was a cut to a montage of film clips from the accomplished film, before being brought back to the actor. 

De Niro addressed the audience reading from his phone, “I just want to say one thing. The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out, I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it. History isn’t history anymore. Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts, and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness.”

He then called out the previous American President, saying, “The former president lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four years in office, and he’s keeping up the pace in his current campaign of retribution, but with all his lies, he can’t hide his soul.” 

The American Actor-Host further elaborated, “He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature and shows disrespect for example by using Pocahontas as a slur,” referencing ex-President Trump’s nickname for Senator Elizabeth Warren. 

“This is where I came in and I saw that they edited all that.” De Niro remarked, as he accused Apple and/or Gotham Awards for removing parts of his original speech without consent.

“So I’m going to say these things but to Apple and thank them all that,” De Niro claimed as he looked to wrap up the speech,“Gotham, blah blah blah, but I don’t feel like thanking them at all for what they did. How dare they do that, actually. But now I will go to: Accepting the award for Killers of the Flower Moon…”

Despite the controversial censorship situation, De Niro followed the schedule to present the Gotham Historical Icon and Creator Tribute award for the film Killers of the Flower Moon.

Following the incident, it caused much buzz amongst audiences and was talked about by many film members in the industry. Apple and Gotham Awards has yet to release a statement and respond for comment.
 

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