While TF1 was broadcasting an unreleased episode of “Miraculous, the adventures of Ladybug and Cat Noir” this Sunday, the channel chose to shorten certain scenes, much to the surprise of viewers.
Like every Sunday morning, TF1 yesterday broadcast a new episode of season 4 of Miraculous, the adventures of Ladybug and Cat Noir. Entitled “Qilin“, he angered many fans of the animated series, who were surprised to find that several sequences had been removed in the French version. From a usual duration of 22 minutes, this episode was thus reduced to 18 minutes about.
In this chapter, while Marinette, the heroine, is taking a RATP bus with her mother, the young girl decides, on the way, to go and buy her flowers during a stop. So she gets off the bus alone with her purse and the transport tickets.
Unfortunately, the bus departs without Marinette, leaving her mother alone. She will then be confronted with an inconvenient controller who refuses to believe that her daughter will join her with her wallet and her ticket. “This one had never been done to me. No ticket, that’s 50 euros. How would you like to pay ?“, he replies coldly.
In the first censored sequence, which lasts 30 seconds, the controller remains incredulous at the explanations of Madame Dupain-Cheng, a character of Asian origin, and even questions her nationality and the existence of her daughter.
In the second sequence cut during the editing, which lasts 3 minutes, the RATP agent takes Marinette’s mother to see Roger, a policeman that the latter knows very well since their daughters are in the same class.
“I have a client for you, she has no ticket, no money and no ID. This thief even invented a family with a daughter”, he said to him. Even though Roger knows who she is, he still wants to carry out an identity check in order to enforce the law. “Jam the victim of an injustice, are you humans or robots?“, she complains before being handcuffed by four helmeted CRS.
The creator of the series reacts
The creator of Miraculous, Thomas Astruc, returned to this censorship via his Twitter account, explaining that the cut was not his decision. “This should not be seen as a bad intention, but probably an unfortunate excess of caution.“, he thus lamented.
“When talking to little ones, you have to take into account a number of much larger parameters than when talking to adults. The point of this episode was to show the mechanics that can lead to injustice.”
“I think the episode does a good job of avoiding that pitfall, not stupidly saying cop=bad guys, but showing how when a person becomes the holder of some kind of authority, there is the possibility of abuse of power if that authority is used indiscriminately.”
However, he understands the reasons that could have pushed TF1 to modify the episode. “TF1 is legally responsible for the content broadcast. So if for whatever reason they feel that it might be a problem, that history might be misunderstood, that institutions might feel under attack, or that it might harm the trust that every child should rightfully have in institutions, or, quite simply, that this story is too complex for them, in short, if they finally feel that what we have tried to do has not convinced them…”
“So, while it saddens me, I can understand them cutting this passage. Not out of authoritarianism, as many will say, but out of caution.”
For the moment, TF1 did not wish to respond to this controversy.