Dr Bowdler, I presume
Sep. 14th, 2008 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radegundUnny watched Shrek before bed, as he often does these evenings. When it got to the bit where the Lovers Are Parted, and the soundtrack is John Cale's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", I was reminded that I wanted to post about bowdlerisation.
I haven't checked the recording itself, but on the basis of a Web search I'm going to say that they play the whole Cale version except for the fourth verse, which is fairly sexually explicit, and the opening phrase of the fifth verse. The omitted material is seamlessly edited out, but it's obvious from the tune that there's a half-line missing from the final verse.
"Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you," sings Cale. It jars, if you're following the music.
What's missing from that shortened line? "Maybe there's a God above".
I find this decision fascinating - what we choose to prevent children from accessing says a lot about our society. Shrek is a sophisticated film, with reasonably complex takes on gender, power, and textuality, among other things. It has cruelty, fighting, and toilet humour. And yet they balked at "maybe there's a God above" - even though (and I realise I'm now officially overthinking this) a concerned adult could easily explain it away as "Baby, there's a God above" if they really felt that strongly. Or perhaps the producers asked Cale to re-record the offending line as "Clearly, there's a God above" and he refused... Who knows?
I haven't checked the recording itself, but on the basis of a Web search I'm going to say that they play the whole Cale version except for the fourth verse, which is fairly sexually explicit, and the opening phrase of the fifth verse. The omitted material is seamlessly edited out, but it's obvious from the tune that there's a half-line missing from the final verse.
"Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you," sings Cale. It jars, if you're following the music.
What's missing from that shortened line? "Maybe there's a God above".
I find this decision fascinating - what we choose to prevent children from accessing says a lot about our society. Shrek is a sophisticated film, with reasonably complex takes on gender, power, and textuality, among other things. It has cruelty, fighting, and toilet humour. And yet they balked at "maybe there's a God above" - even though (and I realise I'm now officially overthinking this) a concerned adult could easily explain it away as "Baby, there's a God above" if they really felt that strongly. Or perhaps the producers asked Cale to re-record the offending line as "Clearly, there's a God above" and he refused... Who knows?