The rules for watching R-rated movies on a flight

Washington Post

4 days ago

That raunchy comedy you watch on a plane could lead to drama with your fellow passengers.
Fliers live in a golden age of multimedia options, with dozens of movies and TV shows offered by most airlines. But with that choice comes potential tension between people who feel they should do what they'd like in the seat they paid for and those who find the images on their neighbors' screens offensive or inappropriate for their kids.
Airlines long ago moved away from showing a single, one-size-fits-all movie that played on monitors hanging from ceilings. Those films were often edited to remove scenes of sex and violence. Dubbing transformed harsher insults into the occasional 'Fudge you.'
Curse words are easy enough to avoid given the need for headphones, but today's in-flight movies on U.S. carriers also regularly contain the kinds of visuals that earn an R rating. A scan across several airlines' movie menus found adult content in intense horror films like 'Nosferatu' or 'The Monkey,' violent action comedies like 'Deadpool & Wolverine' or 'Novocaine,' and art house offerings with explicit sex scenes like 'A Different Man' or 'Queer.'
Holly Graham watched 'Saltburn,' a dark satire from 2023 starring Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi that she describes as 'very grotesque' in its depiction of risqué misbehavior and violence at a British manor. She ended up finding the movie 'awful' but doesn't apologize for watching it, even if kids may have been nearby. She's had parents ask her before if she could limit her movie selections to PG-13. She has declined.
'I did not sign up to be a mid-flight babysitter,' says Graham, a director of booking for live entertainment based in Tampa. 'I'm going to watch what I want to watch.'
Drew Margulis, who flies regularly from his Florida home, takes a different approach. If a racy scene starts on an in-flight movie, he will probably hit the skip ahead button a couple of times.
'You can say, 'Don't look at someone else's screen,' but that doesn't really work with a 4- or 5-year-old,' he said in a direct message on FlyerTalk, a forum for frequent fliers.
Heated debates on this topic on Reddit and fliers' message boards tend to break out between those with and without children. Disagreements also reveal cultural differences, with some posters arguing that Americans are too uptight about nudity.
Allen Sanderson says he's more likely to avoid harsh violence on his in-flight movie out of courtesy. He's seen some critics compare a nude scene on a flight to porn.
'No, an R-rated movie on a plane is not soft-core pornography,' says Sanderson, a retired researcher based in Salt Lake City. 'The United States is in the Victorian Puritan era when it comes to nudity.'
It's certainly within bounds to flag a passenger watching actual pornography, flight attendant Rich Henderson says. Henderson, who cowrites the Two Guys on a Plane blog, says he tries to avoid certain routes, like flights to Las Vegas, to avoid rowdier behavior.
'You can assume passengers are going to be a little more on the wild side,' he says.
Elaine Swann is an etiquette expert who spent a decade as a Continental Airlines flight attendant. She believes that in recent years people have grown more comfortable watching flat-out gory content during flights — via movies, TV or video games. Her new book, 'Elaine Swann's Book of Modern Etiquette,' includes a section on travel.
She prefers to err on the side of caution when it comes to movies on planes and thinks others should, too. She also understands that busy people might want to use their time on board to catch up with that film they've been dying to see. Swann suggests preemptively giving a heads-up to the parent of the kid in your row.
'We're neighbors for the next four hours,' Swann says. 'That way the parent can do the work and shield the child and keep them busy. People are happy to do that sort of thing. It helps us to coexist in a space that is built on respect.'
United Airlines, which has shown 'Novocaine' and the Jason Statham shoot-'em-up 'A Working Man,' says it aims to present movies in their original form.
'We occasionally make minor edits to ensure suitability for the inflight experience without altering the storyline,' spokeswoman Amy Fisher said in an email. 'We display clear content warnings before each film, including advisories about adult themes, and encourage passengers to be mindful of those around them.'
Oscar winners aren't immune from this debate. The Delta subreddit debated the suitability of 'Oppenheimer,' the Oscar-winning drama that features some nudity. Then there's 'Anora,' the most recent best picture winner, a film about a sex worker with wall-to-wall adult content. American Airlines has shown 'Anora' on flights.
When Kate McCulley noticed this, she suggested on Threads that fliers see the Mikey Madison movie, which she liked, at home if they don't want to weird out their seatmates. Then she found out that her mother watched it on the way to visit her in Prague, where she lives.
'If that movie had been edited, it would have been like 15 minutes long,' says McCulley, who runs the travel blog Adventurous Kate.
She believes the burden falls especially on fliers who bring their own movies on board. She prefers watching downloads on an iPad that she can block more easily in case she gets surprised by an R-rated moment. It happened during the beach fight scene with full-frontal nudity in the Jennifer Lawrence comedy 'No Hard Feelings.'
'This is why I like window seats,' McCulley says. 'Nobody will see a thing unless they're spying on you in a really creepy way.'
Even Graham, the Tampa flier whose in-flight tastes trend toward the mature, had to draw the line at the first-class passenger she saw watching an actual pornographic film in his seat while their flight boarded.
'Much like the Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, I can't quite put a definition on it, but I know it when I see it,' she says.
Adam Thompson is a freelance writer based in New York. Follow him on Bluesky @adamtrot.bsky.social‬.