The censorship of Robert De Niro's speech and the incongruity with the message of 'The Moon Killers'

Robert De Niro read the beginning of his Gotham Awards speech from his phone when he discovered it had been removed from the teleprompter.

The race towards the Oscars advances in full sail and awards like the Gotham AwardsThe Moon Killers< /span>.Martin Scorsese by suggested having been a victim of censorship when he received the Historical Icon and Creator Tribute award for Robert De Niro stood out with the award for Best Film, was buried by controversy, since Past Lives, the independent cinema awards, have already handed out their statuettes. However, the list of winners, where

"I just want to say one thing: the beginning of my speech was edited and cut and I didn't know it. And I want to read it, " , she said, realizing that the beginning of his speech had been removed from the teleprompter. "History is no longer history. The truth is not the truth. Even the facts are being replaced by alternative facts and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness,” denounced the actor on stage at the Gotham Awards.

De Niro intended to offer a political speech with allusions to former President Donald Trump, wanting to take advantage of the theme of The Moon Killers, where lying is normalized and racism still comes to light. However, he did not remain silent in the face of this alleged attempt to silence him, so he took out his cell phone and began to read the words he had originally written. to reflect on the problems that plague today's society

“i have to thank apple and all that but i don’t feel like thanking them at all for what they did. how DARE they?”

robert de niro qas absolutely brilliant during his #gothamawards speech presentation

pic.twitter.com/aGzhEkmG5v

— lulo | ed teach supporter (@mishajackles) November 28, 2023

“In Florida, young students are taught that slaves developed skills that could be applied for personal benefit. The entertainment industry is not immune to this disease. The Duke, John Wayne, famously said the Native Americans: 'I don't think we were wrong to take this great country from them. There were a large number of people who needed new lands and the Indians selfishly tried to keep them for themselves," the actor highlighted in his speech.

“Lies have become just another tool in the charlatan's arsenal. The former president lied to us more than 30,000 times during his four years in office and maintains the pace of his current campaign of retaliation. With all his lies he cannot hide his soul. "He attacks the weak, destroys the gifts of nature and shows disrespect for him, for example, using 'Pocahontas' as an insult," he continued.

At the end, he did not hesitate to criticize and point out Apple for cutting the political part of his speech, stating that, although the usual thing would be to thank the production company that has opted for the project, and the organization behind the awards, I didn't see it relevant in that situation.

“'Filmmakers, on the other hand, make an effort...' and this is where I went in and saw that they edited all that out. So I'm going to say these things to Apple and thank them for everything: Gotham, blah blah blah, but I don't feel like thanking them at all for what they did. How dare they do that? Now I will go on to accept the award for The Assassins of the Moon....

The most striking thing about the supposed censorship is that it occurred when receiving an award for The Assassins of the Moon. Ultimately, it is a film that denounces black American history and how the natives were silenced to play dirty and with impunity for the theft of their lands, contained in the line of the actor's words about Donald Trump's policies.

Very pertinently, the Oscar-winning star of Taxi Driver took advantage of the opportunity offered by the award for Scorsese's film to design a speech where he pointed out that the same horrors exposed in this western continue today, that systematic racism or other problems in society are attempted to be whitewashed or attacked with lies promoted from power.

And by pointing out Apple and the alleged censorship of his speech (it remains to be seen if the company explains what happened), in a sense, Robert De Niro put on the table the dichotomy around the importance of the message of The Assassins of the Moon in front of the business behind the cinema where the substance of the theme takes a backseat. However, since it is a production with such a drastic and profound political and historical message, cutting its speech would make more evident the commercial complacency of not wanting to enter into political controversies instead of defending the artistic intention of the product itself. As if it were feared that people of the ideology to which the message is directed will bother and arouse rejection of the film in question.

Therefore, Robert De Niro's reaction to attacking Apple and the alleged attempt to silence him is not at all unreasonable, both for defend their values ​​as well as to keep intact the message of The Assassins of the Moon, which if distorted would only detract from the credibility and power of this latest work by Martin Scorsese.