Censorship battles can outlast the cultural moment that made them urgent.

Evidence

In the aftermath of the Crisis, the New York State Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in the film’s favor and on November 9, The Connection reopened at the D. W. Griffith. After more than a year of legal maneuvering, the film reappeared intact and passé. Late 1962 was not mid-1959 or even September 1961; The Connection failed to justify the outrage or excitement it had once provoked. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 404

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the reader’s shelf question about cultural stagnation — the tempo of scandal-cycles here shows how fast scenes turn over.