A scene where David and Jake kiss was edited out.
Mikelle StreetSchitt’s Creek has won praise for a variety of reason. For one, it’s downright funny. But also, the television series is one imagined in a world where there is not homophobia. And with a lead like the pansexual David Rose, played by show creator Dan Levy, that makes for a very special set of storylines that involve much needed, and painless queer representation. So when news began to spread on social media that a television network was airing episodes that censored scenes of David kissing Jake, there was understandable pushback.
“4Music showed Schitt’s Creek with cut dialogue between David and Patrick,” a Twitter user posted over the weekend, specifying that verbiage about sleeping together had been omitted. “But their kiss is there. And episodes earlier talk of Moira sleeping with Roland remains. And Moira still says ‘fuck,’ so some curious censoring.”
The account went on: “The next episode where Jake kisses David — no kiss — But Patrick and David still kiss. Again with odd censoring.
“Are they limiting my gay content? Can I only see PG-related kissing boys, but no talk of having sex? And no other boy can come along kissing on them?” With the tweets, they included footage from season four episodes one and two, where the cuts happened.
The poster later noticed other scenes had been trimmed down as well.
On Sunday, Levy saw the tweets and signal boosted them. “Is this true 4 Music?” the show creator tweeted to the British television station. “Censoring kissing and intimate dialogue?” He later noted that the censorship was not only “highly disturbing and dangerous” but that removing the kiss between David and Jake took out a “big laugh from the scene!”
Out has reached out to Channel 4 but they have not responded to our inquiry nor publicly to Levy about the edits.
“I will be retweeting this every day until I get a response,” Levy vowed.
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