By: Grace Liu
Disney’s new movie “Lightyear” was banned throughout the Palestinian territory when it premiered in cinemas because it included a brief kiss between a lesbian couple. In many parts of the Muslim world, it is a sin to be in the LGBTQ community.
“Lightyear” is one of Disney’s biggest animated movies. The main character, Buzz Lightyear comes from the famous movie, “Toy Story.” This new movie was very popular. “It was estimated to make over 100 million dollars in its first weekend.”
In the movie, a female character that was voiced by Uzo Aduba married a woman in the film so it got banned in the Muslim world where same-sex relationships are not approved of so it was prohibited in many areas. “In some parts of the Arab world, members of the LGBTQ community have been arrested and sentenced to prison. Some countries even maintain the death penalty.”
Recently, many studios have allowed censors to cut the films. Disney had many protests by some activists and some Disney staff because of the CEO’s slow response of criticizing the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The kiss was originally cut from the movie, but in response to the protesters, Disney restored the scene.
Because Disney refused to cut out the scene, many countries including, The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Syria were outraged.
According to Fox News, Malaysia’s Film Censorship Board said it approved the movie with parental guidance for those under 13 on the condition of modifications. Scenes and dialogues that it “found to contain elements promoting the LGBT lifestyle, which violate key aspects of the Guidelines on the Film Censorship,” were ordered to “be cut and muted.” However, the film distributors didn’t comply and instead, they didn’t cut out anything from the movie.
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