Barry Ritholtz, who runs the excellent financial blog, The Big Picture, writes:
We were combining a business trip to California (Santa Rosa, North of San Francisco) with a pleasure trip thru the vineyards of Sonoma and Napa. The onboard movie was Sideways. Then came the line — F%&king Merlot! — that sent Merlot sales down by 40% for the next few years. Only that wasn’t the line we heard on Jet Blue: Instead, it was “Friggin Merlot.” I was aghast — it ruined the film.
Ritholtz puts Jetblue’s decision to show an altered version of the film in the greater context of customer service: What other bonehead corporate moves have cost firms revenue and sales by alienating their key customers? Are they explainable, defendable, even rational?
To me, showing an altered version of a film that is rated R anyway, is absurd. It reveals an airline’s utter contempt for its customers.
So what’s going on here? On some airlines I’ve flown, they say they’ve edited the movie to fit the flying time, but other than cutting out scenes, have they also changed the dialogue? Isn’t this artistic mutilation? Or do the studios send the airlines a “For Dummies” version of their movies? If this is the case, then there should be a warning. I’d like to know which airlines take such a dim view of their passengers. I am assuming Jetblue will never show a documentary of Allen Ginsberg (Howl) or William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch) reading their work.
If the airlines want to show only movies that are “decent” (whatever that means), they should only show cartoons. Otherwise, don’t play Nanny and don’t censor what the grownups want to watch.
So, I am going to throw a Virtual Shoe at Jetblue’s Nanny Policies by showing you a recording of John Turturro reading “Howl”. For those of you on airlines that have Wi-Fi, enjoy it!
