8 Incredible Ways Movie Spoilers Were Kept Secret

3. Audiences And Critics Were Asked To Keep The Twist A Secret - The Crying Game

The Crying Game
Miramax Films

If you haven't seen The Crying Game... it's weird. Very weird. The plot revolves around Fergus, a member of the IRA, and his relationship with Dil, a woman harbouring a big secret.

That secret is revealed midway through the film, as Fergus and Dil are about to do the dirty. Fergus undresses Dil, begins to explore her body, and... realises she's transgender.

It's completely out of left-field and will leave your jaw on the floor, and this is the response the filmmakers wanted general audiences to have, prompting them to begin a movement that would hopefully ensure the twist was kept a secret.

When The Crying Game was initially released, its distributor, Miramax, asked movie pundits and reviewers to not mention anything about this part of the plot, including keeping Jaye Davidson's (the man who played Dil) gender a secret.

The film's marketing campaign aimed for a similar goal, asking members of the public and theatre attendees to not reveal the film's twist to their friends. This heightened public interest in the film, allowing it to turn a massive profit off a very low budget.

And brilliantly, this campaign worked. Audiences were so convinced that Davidson was actually a woman that they believed his penis to be some sort of practical effect, and The Crying Game was able to completely shock viewers for the duration of its theatrical run.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!