10 Controversial '90s Movies Where The Audience Missed The Point

Controversial responses to movies that came out in the 1990s occasionally illustrated how audiences had missed the point of those movies. For instance, shocking horror movies that were banned for being too violent or horrific demonstrate an aversion to graphic elements that are meant to contribute to the story. What is important in this context is that the movie’s most disturbing aspects are not gratuitous but all important to the core themes.

A lot of movies in the 1990s were controversial due to graphic violence or sexual elements; others attempted to handle heavy socio-political topics, which angered some people. However, movies become box office hits despite major controversies, and some of the selections from the 1990s are the same. The controversy surrounding a movie in this sense tends to be because a significant number of people didn’t understand the movie’s most intense scenes, demonstrated by the fact that many went on to be considered staples of cinema.

10 Fight Club (1999)

Critics Argued That Fight Club Idealized The Concepts It Was Satirizing

Fight Club is an outrageous adventure commenting on consumerism culture and featuring one of the movie characters who defined the 1990s. Fight Club proved to be controversial because of its violence and what some saw as a glamorized portrayal of toxic masculinity. Tyler Durden prompts the creation of the Fight Club as an escape from the monotony of corporate jobs, allowing (all male) participants to let loose in brutal, chaotic fights. They then move to destroy civilization, eliminating the thing “oppressing” them.

However, Fight Club is very exaggerated and the actions of the Fight Club aren’t supposed to be taken as a serious revolution. There are some moments of strange camaraderie and the alluring idea of liberation from mundane life, but these turn out to be fallacies where the Narrator is concerned. Fight Club‘s ending doesn’t frame Project Mayhem as a good thing, and all of Tyler’s toxic behavior only led to a destructive conclusion that likely resulted in harm being done to more people.

9 Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman’s Psychological Thriller Shocked Audiences

Then married couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman collaborated on the thriller Eyes Wide Shut, which also delves into themes of threatened masculinity. The movie’s backlash was mainly due to its graphic sexual content, resulting in censorship during its theatrical release. It was not the first time director Stanley Kubrick had been met with such a response, as A Clockwork Orange is widely considered one of the most controversial movies of all time.

Roger Ebert is a defender of Eyes Wide Shut, claiming (via rogerebert.com): “It’s symbolic of the moral hypocrisy of the rating system that it would force a great director to compromise his vision.” Cruise’s Bill’s fascination with an underground cult that holds massive orgies is entwined with his marital problems, and his insecurity prompted by his wife’s admission that she is unfulfilled. Eyes Wide Shut is scandalous, but it was never meant to be anything else when Kubrick wanted to show an unsettling narrative about Bill’s jealousy.

8 Henry & June (1990)

Henry & June’s Rating Disrupted Hollywood

Henry & June, starring pre-Pulp Fiction Uma Thurman, is remembered as the first NC-17 movie released in theaters after the MPAA implemented it as the replacement for the X-rating. Again, the filmmakers clearly thought the graphic sex was a part of the story, which revolves around a love triangle that arises when Anaïs finds herself attracted to both Henry and his wife June. However, the generally precocious ground of the NC-17 rating combined with this label still being in its early days didn’t help Henry & June.

Henry & June was removed from theaters because of its content and/or rating but went on to win an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography. However, Travis Yates argues (via SlashFilm) that “an implicit bias looms over the NC-17 rating to this day.” They often prompt discussion about why the movie necessitated such a rating. For instance, Ana de Armas’ performance in Blonde won her an Oscar nomination, but the movie was still met with criticism for its constant graphic scenes. Blonde director Andrew Dominik’s response to the backlash also missed the point of these sequences not always being needed.

7 Dogma (1999)

Kevin Smith’s Religious Satire Was Not Universally Well-Received

Long before the days of the Good Omens and Hazbin Hotel, Dogma was criticized by religious groups for ever-controversial director Kevin Smith’s comedic take on Christianity. Dogma was generally well-reviewed, and a box office hit in its time. Pre-Good Will Hunting Ben Affleck and Matt Damon star as two fallen angels looking for a way to reenter Heaven, with the stipulation that it will destroy all of humanity. A cast of heroic characters then assembles to stop them.

Reid Goldberg calls Dogma (via Collider) a “satirical tribute to faith,” while Ebert says it “takes church teaching jokingly and very seriously indeed–both at the same time” (rogerebert.com). In a straightforward save-the-world comedy, Dogma asks some critiquing questions about religion but concludes with a resolution of faith. In the spirit of Dogma being about open discourse, Smith famously went to a protest against his own movie just to see what it was all about.

6 Indecent Proposal (1993)

Critics Hold Opposing Opinions About Indecent Proposal’s Meaning

Fresh out of the Brat Pack era, Demi Moore starred alongside Robert Redford and Woody Harrelson in another sexual 1990s movie that provoked some backlash. Achieving a standard R rating rather than NC-17, Indecent Proposal‘s controversy stemmed from the story itself. The depiction of a woman who accepts a small fortune to sleep with a billionaire so she and her husband can use the money to get his career off the ground was criticized by feminists. Co-screenwriter Amy Holden Jones is the movie’s biggest defender, having said (via New York Post):

“The idea that a woman should not be tempted by any of those things, or she should be so pure that you can’t make a movie about her feeling that way […] part of feminism for me is that women can be portrayed not as visions of perfection on-screen, but as whole human beings with choices.”

Jones also notably wanted Indecent Proposal to end with the female lead leaving both men, which reveals another possible interpretation of the movie. The premise inherently implies a lot about gender power politics, even if the movie focuses more on the couple trying to save their marriage in the aftermath. There is a potential discourse about why Diana does what she does in Indecent Proposal, even if the movie’s critics make valid arguments.

5 Starship Troopers (1997)

Starship Troopers was poorly reviewed in general when it first came out due to unnecessary violence and bad acting but has since become a sci-fi cult classic. In addition to the parts of the movie that are just bad, Starship Troopers engages in a historical and political discourse that is bound to displease someone given the subject matter. Robert A. Heinlein’s novel upon which the movie is based has been accused of promoting fascism.

Meanwhile, movie director Paul Verhoeven has stated his Starship Troopers is a satirical criticism of fascism. Starship Troopers came 20 years after Star Wars, which also features an evident WWII metaphor in the form of the Empire. Rather than a straightforward good vs. evil story, Starship Troopers goes for the riskier format of showcasing the perspective of those living in a militaristic hierarchy.Starship Troopers’ real meaning is to condemn this society, and even the violence can be interpreted as in service of that moral.

4 The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project’s Shaky Format Prompted Some Backlash

The Blair Witch Project is a staple of 1990s horror which is credited with popularizing the found footage horror subgenre. However, this technique wasn’t the most enjoyable thing to watch for some in the 1990s. A large part of the controversy surrounding The Blair Witch Project was people finding the shaky cinematography disorienting, causing motion sickness in some extreme cases.

The team behind The Blair Witch Project really committed to the gimmick. The lead actors were listed as missing online, true to their mysterious disappearance at the end of the movie. They went all in concerning their new take on the horror genre, which claimed as much pseudo-realism as possible to elevate the effect. Unfortunately, the byproduct of this was some unpleasant viewing experiences of The Blair Witch Project, sparking a backlash that largely had nothing to do with the movie itself.

3 Natural Born Killers (1994)

Natural Born Killers Became Too Real

Written by Quentin Tarantino but directed by Oliver Stone, Natural Born Killers follows a young couple with traumatic pasts who go on a killing spree and are made into media icons by news outlets. It is fully intended to be a commentary on the mentality of the killers and the media making a spectacle out of their crimes. However, shortly before the movie’s release, Stone said (via SlashFilm): “[Natural Born Killers] began as satire and became more real, less surreal, and, to be honest, I think the Mickey and Mallory story […] could happen any day now.”

In 1995, a teenage couple then embarked on their own crime spree they said was inspired by Natural Born Killers, leading to a lawsuit for inciting violence against Stone and Time Warner. The case was eventually dismissed, but the movie was forever marked with controversy. Unfortunately, tragic real-life events and Stone’s accurate prediction made the movie’s fictional scenario much more dangerous.

2 South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

The South Park Movie Was Criticized For The Same Reasons As The Show

Like the flagship TV show, the tie-in South Park movie was criticized for constant profanity, crude jokes, and taboo subject matter. Except for the entire plot of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut revolves around fictional parents blaming the creators of a vulgar movie their children loved for society’s decline and launching a campaign that escalates into a war between America and Canada. The satirical response to the MPAA is on the nose given the long behind-the-scenes debates about the movie’s rating.

There are a lot of things that prompted backlash in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, including the infamous depiction of Satan being in a relationship with Saddam Hussein. Ebert calls it (rogerebert.com):

“[…] an unending stream of satirical abuse, ethnic stereotyping, sexual vulgarity and pointed political commentary that alternates common sense with the truly and hurtfully offensive. I laughed, as I have reported. Sometimes the laughter was liberating, […] and sometimes it was simply disbelieving.”

Ebert’s circular assessment demonstrates what this movie has in common with South Park episodes that haven’t aged well. On the other hand, the show being criticized for its use of profanity, the creators then making a movie with as much profanity as possible to comment on this, and then that movie also being criticized for profanity is a full loop of the pointed, if vulgar, commentary being disregarded.

1 Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Quentin Tarantino’s Characteristic Violent Movies Initially Shocked People

Today, rampant, gratuitous violence is a stipulation of going to see any movie directed by Tarantino. Back when the director was still making a name for himself, audiences weren’t yet accustomed to the gore that always comes with his razor-sharp writing and twisting plots. While the writing of Reservoir Dogs (and Pulp Fiction) was praised by critics, the violence scared people off. This was despite warnings advertised ahead of the movie about its extreme moments.

Reservoir Dogs eventually outgrew this criticism and people who don’t like this aspect of it know not to go see Tarantino movies now. Tarantino has had a highly successful career of similar movies, such as Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Other movie controversies from the 1990s that overshadowed the actual movies were concerned with more extensive debates, but Reservoir Dogs was mostly just the initial shock at the extreme violence that could be shown on screen.

Source: rogerebert.com, SlashFilm, Collider, New York Post