China may be more tolerant of gays than Hong Kong. In November, “Fathers,” a Thai gay movie was show over Tianfutaiju, or Heavenly Thai Drama, a platform in China promoting the Thai pop culture through Weibo and other social media sites.
In Hong Kong, the Family School Sodo (Sexual Orientation Discrimination Ordinance), an anti-gay group, wrote a letter to the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration to criticize the movie “Beauty and the Beast” for failure to denounce gay-related behavior or lifestyle. The group referred to a scene in the film in which Le Fou (Josh Gad), a male character, dances with another man at a ball.
Gay Moment of Le Fou
Bill Condon, the film’s director, called the dance a “nice, exclusively gay moment.” Roger Wong Wai-ming, convenor of Family School Sodo, warned such gay scenes could instill in some children some values that their parents do not agree with, particularly the belief that being gay is a problem and not normal, Shanghaiist reported.
He pushed for Hong Kong authorities to ban the entire movie, delete the scene or classify it not suitable for viewers below 18 years old without supervision of parents. But the government had determined that “Beauty and the Beast” is appropriate for all ages. In Singapore, the movie was given a “parental guidance” rating and in Malaysia the censor required the deletion of the gay scene which Disney disagreed with, resulting in the postponement of the movie’s exhibition in the conservative country.
Malaysia & Alabama Ban Movie
Disney moved the release date in Malaysia to March 30 to give the censor’s board time to decide if it would allow the exhibition of the fairy tale without cuts or not, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Even in the U.S., the movie had the same problem with a cinema in Alabama which did not screen “Beauty and the Beast” because of the gay moment.
The owners of Hengar Drive-in Theater explained in a Facebook post which it later deleted, “If we can not take our 11-year-old grand daughter and 8-year-old grandson to see a movie, we have no business watching it. If I can’t sit through a movie with God or Jesus sitting by me then we have no business showing it.”