The Mouse House has proven time and again that they can play it a bit fast and loose when it comes to queer advocacy. When the community is on their side, the company is no less sluggish in embracing these progressive standards than all the rest of their competitors, but when it comes to international markets, the name of the game is profit, no matter how hard you’ve blown into the trumpets of diversity and representation.
The latest unfortunate example of this is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a movie already criticized for the tentative way in which it reaches toward that goalpost. It basically comes down to a barely discernible sequence involving Michaela Coel’s Aneka and Florence Kasumba’s Ayo, in which the former kisses her on the forehead.
But according to The Hollywood Reporter, even that shadow of an implication was enough to make trouble for Disney in international markets, particularly in the Middle East. In fact, the version of the movie that is playing in Kuwait has cut that scene in its entirety.
Of course, other scenes have been cut too, namely one that involves a woman giving birth to a child and saying something along the lines of, “A god to his people,” so the LGBTQ+ scene wasn’t the only instance to have raised the pitchforks.
Strangely enough, Kuwait is the only country to insist on these edits, with Wakanda Forever screening in places like Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain untouched. Perhaps the implication of the scene was too subtle for anyone to give themselves a headache over, especially since we’re talking about countries that crack down hard on any minute reference to the queer community. If only Disney had more backbone.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is currently playing in theaters around the world. You can read We Got This Covered’s review of the Phase Four sequel here.
