Carol type Movie genre Romance

Delta Airlines customers were surprised to discover some key scenes missing from an in-flight version of Carol.

The film, a critical darling over the holidays, starred Oscar nominees Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as two women caught up in a whirlwind romance in 1950s New York. The in-flight version for Delta Airlines omitted all love scenes between Blanchett and Mara’s characters – even scenes of them kissing. A fervor spread across Twitter when comedian Cameron Esposito tweeted about the missing kisses on her recent Delta flight.

“Watched Carol on a plane [and] they edited it so the main characters never even kiss,” Esposito wrote. “Two women kissing is fine for planes.”

Esposito went on say some viewers didn’t even know the characters were meant to kiss in the film thanks to the edited version. She also noted that a fellow passenger was watching an episode of Billions, which features Paul Giamatti and Maggie Siff engaging in a BDSM sex scene.

Delta Airlines responded to critics of this edited version of Carol, telling EW that the film’s studio, The Weinstein Company, provided them with two versions of the film. The unedited, theatrical version contained nudity, which is not allowed on Delta in-flight entertainment. The edited version, which omitted the sex scenes as well as the kissing, was chosen solely because it did not contain nudity.

“If we were worried about kissing we wouldn’t be showing the film in the first place, but because there are scenes with more than a few seconds of nudity, we opted for the edited version instead of the theatrical version,” Delta Airlines told EW in a statement.

Delta isn’t the only airline showing Carol on their flights. But as Phyllis Nagy, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter for Carol, points out on Twitter, other airlines haven’t shied away from the original version. “Each airline has its own policy. Some ordered the theatrical version, some the edited,” Nagy said in response to a concerned fan. She then noted that American Airlines and United Airlines are showing the theatrical versions, while also expressing disappointment in the edited version’s lack of “intimacy.”

The Weinstein Company, who Delta claims provided the two versions of the film, did not respond to EW’s request for comments.