Zhou Dongyu is one of the actresses chained to a bed in the film's promotion. (Photo : Wikimedia)
"Run for Love," a Chinese romance film released on Valentine's Day, is being boycotted by the LBGT community, who claims that the trailer of the film intentionally misled moviegoers to believe that it has a storyline that involves a lesbian relationship, as reported by the Global Times.
The trailer of the film featured two women chained to the bed and hugging each other in what most people have interpreted as a sexual manner. The film was an anthology of romances between straight lovers, upsetting a large portion of lesbian moviegoers who watched the film believing themselves to be represented due to the trailer.
A post calling for a boycott of the movie on social microblogging website Sina Weibo has been trending with the hashtag "lesbians boycott Run for Love," which has had more than 1.5 million views since Monday when it was posted.
"The publicity materials from the producer are quite misleading, since no romance happened between the two women at all. The film company has edited the clips to fool us LGBT people, which is unacceptable," said Li Maizi, a Beijing-based LGBT rights activist who initiated the boycott.
"Me and another 17 lesbian friends went to the movie theater hoping to see some LGBT romance, but the whole movie has nothing to do with that, leaving us feeling humiliated and deceived. It's understandable that some stunts will be used for the movie's promotion, but they should not hurt our feelings," said another Beijing-based lesbian, who asked to remain anonymous.
"It's quite hard for us to enjoy a domestic romance movie involving gay people, as Chinese authorities are conservative on this issue," said Li.
According to regulations on Chinese media released in 2008, content that had to do with homosexuality was considered pornographic. However, this provision was abolished in 2010.
Some LGBT films, like "Lan Yu" which features full-frontal male nudity of popular Chinese actors, have been banned from Chinese cinemas. However, "Lan Yu" has been made available on video streaming websites in China.
"A good movie can help us build self-identification, as well as resolve public misunderstandings of our community. We hope more gay movies will be released in the future," said Li.
In a prior interview, Gao Qunshu, the director of the allegedly deceptive segment, denied that the segment was a lesbian film.
However, Zhou Dongyu, one of the actresses seen chained to a bed in the trailer, said that her character "is a girl who's brave enough to explore and express love regardless of all the adverse conditions," which many interpreted as her character being a lesbian.
