Being seen as a new frontier in censorship, the Chinese version of Hollywood stars Dave Franco and Alison Brey’s thriller has changed the penis of a gay character, converting the same-sex relationship into an heterosexual.
China version missing gay couple together
The move, which possibly included the use of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) model, has provoked a wave of criticism on social media, calling it an abusive and an overrach.
Together, the face of one of the men in the same-sex relationship was replaced with a woman’s face for the release of the film in China. Edit instigated the backlash from the audience, many of which only compared the changed view with the original only after social media posts.
Viewers react
Four people who watched the film in China-where he told K-Bloomberg News to start pre-relief screening on 12 September that the version he saw showed an heterosexual duet in the minute-and-a-Scene scene. He said that nothing seemed unusual at that time, and he only learned about editing later through social media.
On social media, the Chinese audience called the local distributors of the film. “It is derogatory to the original work and is another challenge to the audience tolerance,” a user has written on the film rating and social networking website Daban. “They want our money, but will not show us the full version. It is also derogatory for the LGBT community.”
Bloomberg reported that the China film administration did not answer questions about immediate change or whether AI was used. The film’s Chinese distributor, China film Digital Movie Development (Beijing) company, its US distributor Nonon Rated, and Australian director Michael Shanex did not respond to the inquiry of the email.
As criticism was done online, the Chinese distributor of the film stopped its widespread release a day before its scheduled start, cited “changes in the distribution plan of the film”. It did not provide a new release date. The film currently holds a 90% approval score from critics on rotain tomatoes.
Censorship in China
This is not the first time a Western film is censored or edited for release in China, especially in the context of the presence of LGBTQ characters.
In 2019, a version of the Bohemian Rapsodi shown in China removed the context of the sexuality of Freddy Mercury. Warner Brothers removed two lines of dialogue about a homosexual relationship for the Chinese release of their Harry Potter film in 2022. Such censorship extends to TV – the same year Chinese streaming platforms removed the reference to homosexual character of hit NBC SICOM friends.
While homosexuality has been reduced to almost three decades in China, in recent years, the Chinese government has tightened its hold on civil society, LGBTQ has contributed to squeezing space for advocacy groups and closing organizations such as Beijing LGBT Center.