Sally Bowrey: Why the re-release of Crocodile Dundee won’t be the same as the one you saw in the 80s

It’s the knife fight Crocodile Dundee never saw coming.

In one corner - the iconic cinematic larrikin - in the other - the woke brigade.

Cinematic censors appear to be brandishing a bigger knife, with a growing push to slash iconic scenes from movies now deemed out-dated.

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First to fall prey, Mary Poppins.

UK censors recently reclassified the 1964 classic, raising the age rating because of “discriminatory language,” with concerns young viewers could repeat some terms without knowing what they mean.

Sounds like a decent idea – if you live in a hermetically sealed bubble.

Paul Hogan performs in a scene on the set of Crocodile Dundee. Credit: Getty Images/Getty Images

A Boxing Day screening of Crocodile Dundee in the UK left viewers fuming, after censors cut classic scenes from the film, deemed inappropriate for modern audiences.

The one that injured viewers most, was the removal of Dundee’s classic line “that’s not a knife, that’s a knife.” Censors chopped that over fears it might encourage more knife crime.

Kill me now.

Crocodile Dundee returns to the big screen on May 8 in 4K, after a meticulous restoration. Minus a scene where Crocodile Dundee gropes a transgender person in the groin. Paul Hogan says he was fine with the scene being left out of the re-release because it protects the innocence of the character.

However, he wants the rest of the film left as is.

“I have no problem with them taking that out, as long as they don’t take anything else out.”

Now, that’s not a given.

Australia’s Classification Board is pushing for new power to censor old movies, books and television shows – if it’s been 10 years since their last review – to keep up with “modern attitudes.”

Paul Hogan in Sydney. Credit: 7NEWS

But what are modern attitudes?

By the time you explain them out loud, they have changed. Culture doesn’t stand still.

On any given day kids will trip over offensive ideas - many of which will no doubt come from the friend’s mouths.

The rest percolate in the ultimate wheelhouse of sludge - the internet. For those too young to Google, they will no doubt catch plenty blasting from their parents TV over the next four years, straight from the mouth of President Trump – a man proud to brag about groping on a hot mic.

It’s not good, but pretending it’s not out there - is worse.

You can’t rewrite the past, or even the present, to make it “appropriate”. That’s Disney’s job and even they have got it wrong.

Just as the censors.