20 'Controversial' Movies Everyone Completely Over-Reacted To

If there's one thing that raises a movie's profile and gets it a lot of attention, it's scandal and controversy. Some people even have a special interest in controversial cinema. So, weirdly enough, controversy can actually be beneficial to a movie's performance.

Unfortunately, seeking out films that offended the censors is often a pretty frustrating affair, since it is rare to find controversial films that actually live up to the hype.

Battle Royale, The Devils, The Birth of a Nation, Fahrenheit 9/11, Borat and Natural Born Killers are examples of controversial films that do live up the hype, but they're the minority. In some ways, it's fairly understandable that controversial films are often so disappointing.

In some cases it'll be a matter of the hype machine ramping expectations up too high, in others it'll be a matter of the film aging poorly. Whatever the reasons for a controversy are, it is better to watch the film for the actual film experience rather than because of any controversial reputation. You'll only end disappointed most of the time.

Society always looks for things to be offended by. In the following 20 cases, everyone got way too worked up over nothing.

The Movie:

The infamous rape-revenge thriller, which details a writer taking brutal vengeance against the men who raped her.

The Controversy:

With graphic violence, nudity and 30 minutes of rape scenes, this one angered a lot of people. The late, great Roger Ebert was one of its most vocal detractors. It's still banned in Norway, Iceland and Ireland, among other places, to this day and the UK version was edited down.

Why It Was Wrong:

People always attack this for the wrong things. It's true that this vile and repulsive film is wildly unpleasant, but a common criticism of the film is that it glorifies violence against women, but it really doesn't.

The rape scenes are so horrifying that to call it glamorization is ridiculous. The audience is firmly positioned to sympathize with the protagonist and the film is clearly against violence against women.

It should also be said that there were many exploitation films at that time, such as The Last House on the Left, and many of those will have been just as bad or a lot worse than I Spit on Your Grave. Therefore, focusing on this one quite so much, especially given how terrible it is, seems unnecessary. To focus on this so much is to acknowledge that it exists, and that is something we absolutely mustn't do.