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PODCAST

Morally Offensive

Morally Offensive

Morally Offensive is a bi-weekly film podcast covering movies “Condemned” or considered “Morally Offensive” by the Catholic Legion of Decency, and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. This podcast isn’t just for those who grew up with the trauma of Catholic guilt and shame. It’s for anyone interested in the history of censorship, dirty movies, film history, and how social upheaval and change often coincide with seismic changes to the media landscape.

tv & film film history

All Episodes

140:02

X-Rated: A Clockwork Orange w/John Enroth (Regular...

Morally Offensive ·

2026/02/07

In this episode of Morally Offensive, co-hosts Bill and Stephanie continue their series on X-rated films with Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Originally released with an X rating, the film remains one of the most controversial titles in cinema history, raising enduring questions about violence, free will, censorship, and state power.Guest John Enroth, composer (Regular Show, Interior Chinatown), joins the discussion to examine Wendy Carlos’s electronic score, Kubrick’s use of Beethoven, and

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114:59

X-Rated: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls w/Matt...

Morally Offensive ·

2026/01/22

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) is an X-rated studio film written by Roger Ebert, directed by Russ Meyer, and still more culturally radioactive than most modern movies. So we had to talk about it.This week on Morally Offensive, the ex-Catholic hosts are joined by Matt Harding of Severin Films to dig into Meyer’s psychedelic cult classic and its strange place in American film history. We unpack Roger Ebert’s involvement in the script, Russ Meyer’s obsession with buxom women, and how that

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111:45

Pink Flamingos: Is John Waters' Last Enemy The...

Morally Offensive ·

2026/01/13

This week on Morally Offensive, Bill and Kevin dig into the origins and impact of John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. The crew is joined by Bryan Wendorf of the Chicago Underground Film Festival and Thomas Bottoms of Bottoms of the Barrel to trace Waters’ early years making films in Baltimore, from DIY shorts and church-basement screenings to cultivating an audience far outside the mainstream.We break down the production of Pink Flamingos, the creation of Divine as a transgressive screen icon, and how the

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120:04

Black Christmas (1974): The Call is Coming from...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/12/25

In this Christmas episode of Morally Offensive, Jess and Bill take a deep dive into Black Christmas (1974), the landmark horror film that helped define the slasher genre several years before Halloween. Joining them is Professor Eric D. Wesselmann, who brings an academic lens to Bob Clark’s deeply unsettling and surprisingly nuanced film.The conversation covers the film’s complex female characters, the origins of the “the call is coming from inside the house” trope, and how Roe v. Wade and

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144:41

X-Rated: Midnight Cowboy (1969) and the Catholic Film...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/12/15

This week on Morally Offensive, everybody's talking (okay its just Kevin and Bill) with singer/songwriter (and former film student) Stefanie Joyce about the ONLY X-Rated Film to win Best Picture, Midnight Cowboy. The film features a young Jon Voight as an aspiring sex worker who runs from his past in a small Texas town, toward the bright city lights of Broadway and 42nd St. While unsuccessfully attempting to get into the game, he runs into Ratso Rizzo (a young Dustin Hoffman), a small-time hustler

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102:45

X-Rated: Caligula: The Ultimate Cut (with Producer...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/12/01

Bill and Stephanie sit down with Thomas Negovan to discuss the restoration of Caligula: The Ultimate Cut and how he and an editor pieced the film back together. Thomas explains how they uncovered hours of never-before-seen footage and used it to assemble a version of Caligula that reflects what was originally filmed, offering a clearer look at the movie’s intended narrative.The episode also explores Bob Guccione’s controversial attempt to reshape Caligula in the edit, the bizarre choice to make an

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123:39

X-Rated: Deep Throat (1972) with Mark Covino

Morally Offensive ·

2025/11/15

Warning: This episode covers an actual adult movie, and contains discussions about graphic sexual topics.In this episode of Morally Offensive, the first in our "X-Rated" series, we explore the cultural earthquake sparked by the 1972 film Deep Throat with special guest Mark Covino, director of the award-winning documentary A Band Called Death. We dive into the rise of 1970s “porn chic,” the collapse of the Hays Code, the creation of the X-rating, and how a low-budget film became a mainstream

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151:53

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975): Don't Dream It....

Morally Offensive ·

2025/10/30

Stephanie and Bill head on up to the lab, to see what's on the slab...and it turns out it's The Rocky Horror Picture Show (celebrating it's 50th anniversary!), a cult classic that started as rebellion and transformed into a midnight movie ritual. With special guest props expert and technical theatre professional Jeffrey Rockey, they dig into the history of the movie that became a cultural touchstone, especially for Catholic school kids who found they didn't quite fit in.Jeff talks coming out, Bill

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132:51

Mortal Kombat (1995): Video Game Ultra-Violence Gets...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/10/17

In this episode of Morally Offensive, we revisit the 1995 cult classic Mortal Kombat, the movie that brought video game violence, bad CGI, and 90s martial arts chaos to the big screen. We dig into Catholic reviews of the film, including one that blames stuffed-crust pizza and child day planners for the future downfall of civilization.We talk about the movie, it's place in 90s pop culture, our mutual experiences with the game series, the panic surrounding video game violence, the mammoth status of

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119:47

Your Vice Is a Locked Room And Only I Have the Key...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/10/04

Bill and Stephanie are joined by film scholar Christopher Hoppe to unlock Sergio Martino’s Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972), a cornerstone of Giallo cinema, laced with gothic unease, which explores the cultural anxieties of 1970s Italy. The film follows a washed-up writer, his abused wife, and the arrival of his seductive niece, as secrets, betrayals, and murders spiral inside (and outside) a crumbling villa. Lurking over it all is the ghostly presence of the writer’s

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168:02

The Brood (1979): Government Subsized Cinematic Birth...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/09/19

This week, Bill and Stephanie drag Atlanta filmmaker Nicole Kemper into the delivery room to talk David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979), a horror movie which doubles as the world’s worst sex-ed film. We’re talking cinematic birth control, belly-buttonless mutant murder children, slutty vintage men's bathrobes, and why men are absolutely terrified of the female body. Diversions include Oliver Reed's drunken shenanigans, an attempted cult kidnapping, the Canadian public's outrage over finding out their

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119:54

Mae West: I’m No Angel (But the Catholic Censors...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/09/05

Mae West struts into the spotlight in I’m No Angel (1933), the pre-Code sensation that saved Paramount and scandalized the censors. Co-hosts Bill and Jess welcome Sara Shea of Shea Cinema to talk about Mae’s wit, sexuality, and the double entendres that made Catholic watchdogs sweat. Along the way we meet Joseph Breen and Will Hays, the moral gatekeepers who tried to rein her in, and discover how Cary Grant was launched into stardom with her assistance. From her Broadway scandal Sex (and a stint in

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02:08:51

The Pope's Exorcist: From The Crazy, Mixed-Up Files...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/08/22

Bill and Cisco take a deep dive into The Pope’s Exorcist, the horror film where Russell Crowe channels his inner Super Mario Bro, and chews scenery as Father Gabriele Amorth, the wacky, self-proclaimed "Chief Exorcist" of the Vatican (he wasn't). We unpack the real Amorth’s history and his outrageous claims about what opens the door to demonic possession,- from Harry Potter books to yoga classes, from Freemasonry to the soothing music of Yanni. Along the way we compare the movie’s Hollywood

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02:05:38

Stigmata (1999): Bleeding Saints, Banned Scriptures...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/08/08

The wounds of Christ. A chain-smoking atheist. Gabriel Byrne as a brooding Vatican investigator in designer black. Welcome back to Hot Priest Summer.This week on Morally Offensive, we’re going full incense-and-industrial as we revisit Stigmata; the aggressively 1999 Catholic horror film where Patricia Arquette becomes an accidental mystic and Gabriel Byrne has his faith (and sex drive) tested. It’s a heady mix of the Gospel of Thomas, the Nag Hammadi library, anti-clerical paranoia, and…

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02:25:01

Dogma (1999): Kevin Smith vs. The Catholic League and...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/07/25

Dogma looms large in the canon of Morally Offensive films, casting a long shadow over many millennial Catholics. For those of us who were teens when it premiered, Dogma felt like the ultimate “anti Catholic” movie we were warned about, crafted by ”satanic” filmmakers from Hollywood (never mind that Smith is from New Jersey). Written and directed by Kevin Smith, it sparked national outrage and became one of the most high profile targets of Bill Donohue and the Catholic League in their crusade against

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02:31:34

The Devils (1971): The True Story of Witch Hunts,...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/07/11

On this episode of Morally Offensive, Cisco takes a break, so Bill is joined by frequent guest and film presenter Stephanie Sack along with television producer and writer Ken Melvoin-Berg to dive headfirst into The Devils (1971), Ken Russell’s blasphemous, banned, and still shocking masterpiece. Based on Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun, this true story of sex, power, witch hunts, and moral panic in the Catholic Church proves that real life is often stranger, and in this case even more

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02:40:09

Cruising (1980): Kink, Controversy, and Catholic...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/06/27

Jim Marcus (author, musician, and designer) joins us to dissect the controversy surrounding Cruising (1980), the William Friedkin thriller that pushed Al Pacino into New York’s underground leather scene. We explore the film’s legacy, the protests it sparked, and the moral outrage it provoked, including strong reactions from Catholic reviewers. We also discuss the film’s ongoing re-evaluation, its impact on queer visibility, and why it continues to divide audiences over 40 years later. Plus, Bill

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43:26

Bonus Episode: Why We're Going to Hell If We Get in a...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/06/14

This week, we were slightly concerned that we would not have our Freddy Got Fingered Episode done in time, so we prepared a backup episode to buy us time to wrap it up. As it turned out, we were able to complete both, so our listeners get a double dose of Catholic guilt this week. In an early episode covering Barbara Stanwyck's iconic performance in Baby Face, we still thought our average show length should be about an hour and a half, so we removed a large chunk of the conversation with our

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01:55:52

Freddy Got Fingered: The Worst Comedy of the...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/06/13

On this episode of Morally Offensive, Bill and Cisco dive headfirst into Freddy Got Fingered (2001), Tom Green’s aggressively unhinged film that might be the worst comedy of the 2000s, or a misunderstood absurdist masterpiece, according to some. Filled with horse semen, broken bones, and a wildly uncomfortable false molestation subplot, it was a critical disaster. Yet, it somehow features Rip Torn, an Oscar-nominated actor who fully commits to Green’s chaotic vision. With the release of Tom Green

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01:57:30

Blood for Dracula: “Virginity, Vampires, and the...

Morally Offensive ·

2025/05/30

This week on Morally Offensive, Bill and Cisco are joined by Matt Harding of Severin Films to unpack Blood for Dracula, the 1974 cult horror film that’s part vampire flick, part Catholic fever dream, and weirdly anti-communist.Directed by Paul Morrissey (a devout Catholic and outspoken conservative) and presented by Andy Warhol, the film follows Count Dracula as he travels to Italy in search of a virgin bride, because, naturally, good Catholic girls are presumed to still be pure. We explore

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36 results

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