American studios scrubbed a Black pimp from Taxi Driver
The 1976 film originally featured a Black antagonist, but executives feared the racial dynamics would be too controversial for audiences.
In the original screenplay for Martin Scorsese's 1976 film Taxi Driver, the pimp who controls the child victim of sex trafficking was written as a Black man. However, the studio insisted on casting a White actor for the role instead. This change altered the racial dynamics of the film's climactic scene, effectively redacting the specific tension the writer had originally envisioned.
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