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.
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Walt Disney Studios
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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Nengye Liu, University of Adelaide; Michelle Lim, University of Adelaide
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Luis Gómez Romero, University of Wollongong
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Martin Hall, University of Cape Town
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