By: Will Cantono

Disney has released a recent animated film, “out of the depths of the coronavirus pandemic.” ‘Lightyear,’ has been prohibited in the Islamic community for a lesbian kiss, which harmed Disney’s overall reputation and profit.

This animated film includes a contentious scene of a female character kissing her female spouse. After drawing attention to the Muslim world, where same-sex marriages are illegal, they soon barred the film from being watched. Additionally, Lauryn Overhultz proclaimed, “The United Arab Emirates also announced it would ban the Pixar animated feature from showing in movie theaters because of the kiss.”

According to Malaysia, the “promoting [of] homosexuality” harmed Disney’s reputation. The board of Film Censorship stated, “[the scene was] found to contain elements promoting the LGBT lifestyle which violate key aspects of the Guidelines on the Film Censorship.”

Disney is now facing a plethora of backlash for the scene and the consistent refusal to withdraw the scene. Jon Gambrell said, “Disney has faced protests from activists and its own staff over what they described as CEO Bob Chapek’s slow response in publicly criticizing Florida legislation that opponents dubbed as the ‘Don’t Say Gay bill.”

Disney stated that nations that refused to authorize the film to be shown include “Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates. Earlier this week, the UAE, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, announced it would not allow the film to screen.” This issue causes significant losses in revenue for the movie.

One of the most expensive movies produced by Disney, “estimated it could gross over $100 million in its first weekend,” earned $51 million on Friday. Disney is in a challenging position to recover.