‘E.T.’: The Steven Spielberg movie banned in Scandinavia: “The film is set in a threatening and frightening mood”
There are countless superlatives to have been lobbed at Steven Spielberg during one of the most distinguished and successful directorial careers in history, and very rarely has he ever found himself mired in any sort of notable controversy.
Even his features trading in heavier, more serious, and hard-hitting subject matter have always been handled with grace, poise, and dignity, making him among the safest pair of hands in the business to tell any sort of story, whether it’s an intimate drama rooted in real-world tragedy or a bombastic blockbuster boasting wall-to-wall visual effects.
However, one of his most beloved features ended up falling afoul of the Scandinavian authorities, to the extent that bans were implemented and flew in the face of existing restrictions. When a film is rated PG, it’s right there in the name that children of any age can watch the movie in question as long as they have a parent or guardian with them to ratify their choice to take the plunge.
And yet, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial caused plenty of outrage among the younger generation of cinephiles when it was decreed certain age groups were forbidden from seeing it under any circumstances. It’s a wondrous, timeless fable that’s endured for multiple generations as a formative filmic experience, but Scandinavian censors opted to rob the youth of the early 1980s of a formative moment.
Thanks to some potentially traumatising scenes featuring the ‘death’ of the title character and the way children are pitted in direct opposition to adults in positions of power and authority, it was written in stone that E.T. was completely unsuitable for kids ranging from 7 to 11 years old, dependent on which country was making the ruling.
As United Press International shared in January 1983, following the cosmic caper’s debut in Scandinavia, the Swedes were especially stringent. The Council of Children’s Films formed the opinion that E.T. “may cause mental injuries to children aged over 7 but under 11 years,” with chairperson Kersten Elmhorn personally finding the film “very strong and suggestive,” even if it was “extremely professional and well-made.”
Sweden’s censorship director Gunnel Arrback explained that because “a large part of the film is set in a threatening and frightening mood,” there’s no chance he’d allow anyone under the age of 12 to see it first-hand. Norway was in the exact same boat as its Scandinavian neighbour, but the ratings boards of Finland and Denmark weren’t quite so harsh, even if they still banned E.T. for anyone aged under 8 and 7 years old, respectively.
Based on the fact Spielberg’s fable ended up as the highest-grossing release in the history of cinema, it’s not outside the realms of possibility to suggest plenty of Scandinavian youngsters – and their parents – had no issues flouting the rules to end up sneaking into a screening of E.T. to find out what all the hype was about. Whether any of them suffered the exact fate predicted by the censors and ended up psychologically damaged, though, remains entirely up for debate.
