BFG Podcast #093: 'Cocaine Bear,' Censoring Roald Dahl, and the Decline of Sex in Movies

In this week's fascinating edition of the BFG Podcast, host Neal Pollack welcomes Michael Washburn to talk about the recent "sensitivity" rewriting of Roald Dahl's novels. Among the things no longer acceptable: mentioning that a character likes to read Joseph Conrad, saying that women work as cashiers, and talking disparagingly about people who wear wigs. We join the universal chorus of the people who disdain this development, and hope it ends soon, though it probably won't. Neal and Michael break it down in full.

At last, Cocaine Bear has arrived in theaters. Stephen Garrett and Neal acknowledge that it has some narrative flaws and characters that are thinner than the ozone layer. But at the same time, there is a bear who does cocaine, and rowdy, pulpy movies are back live. So even if Cocaine Bear isn't great, which it isn't, this is the world that Cocaine Bear made and it's more fun than the world was before Cocaine Bear.

But while Cocaine Bear is super-gory, it's not sexy, and that's because there's no longer sex in movies. In fact, kids online are calling for the return to the Hays Code, when movies were called Pillow Talk and could only vaguely imply that sex even existed. Why is this new Puritarianism happening? Neal talks to Jake Harris to figure it all out.

What a great show, enjoy!