Editor's note

Walt Disney Studio’s live-action version of Beauty and the Beast will open in Malaysia two weeks later than it was supposed to after a short stand-off between the film’s makers and the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia. The censors, who have now relented, had requested a short sequence featuring two men dancing be cut because it supposedly promoted homosexuality.

But this change of heart comes despite continuing objections from conservative NGOs that this “gay scene” goes against Malaysian values. And, as Joseph N. Goh explains, while all Malaysians live within a broader framework of policing for those considered “immoral” gay men and male-to-female transgender people are subject to a moral panic that makes them particular targets of discrimination and violence.

Reema Rattan

Global Commissioning Editor

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Walt Disney Studios

Beauty and the Beast censorship attempt shows the good, the bad and the ugly of LGBT rights in Malaysia

Joseph N. Goh, Monash University Malaysia

Objections from certain sectors of Malaysian society to the film neatly illustrates both the fear and lack of understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the country.

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