Saudi Arabia has asked Disney to remove a brief scene referencing the LGBTQ+ community from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness before it allows the Marvel film to play in the country’s theaters.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has not been officially banned yet, but The Guardian reports that if the cuts are not made the film will not be allowed to screen in the country. Disney has so far refused to edit the Marvel sequel. The scene in question reportedly lasts for “barely 12 seconds” and has lesbian character America Chavez mention that she has “two moms.” Nawaf Alsabhan, Saudi Arabia’s general supervisor of cinema classification, explained that “because [Chavez] has two moms … it’s very tough to pass something like this” in the Middle East.
However, Alsabhan denied that Saudi Arabi will ban the film. “There’s no reason to ban the film,” he said. “It’s a simple edit … So far [Disney has] refused. But we haven’t closed the door. We’re still trying.” The Doctor Strange sequel marks the second time in less than a year that Disney has refused to omit LGBTQ+ references in a Marvel film for the kingdom. In November 2021, the studio refused to edit Eternals to remove any mentions of the same-sex relationship between Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos and his on-screen husband. The film did not end up playing in Saudi Arabia, among other countries,
Egypt and Kuwait have already banned Multiverse of Madness over LGBTQ+ content, a move that doesn’t surprise the film’s lead, Benedict Cumberbatch. “It is, I’m afraid, an expected disappointment,” said Cumberbatch in April 2022. “We’ve come to know from those repressive regimes that their lack of tolerance is exclusionary to people who deserve to be not only included but celebrated for who they are and made to feel part of a society and a culture and not punished for their sexuality. It feels truly out of step with everything that we’ve experienced as a species, let alone where we’re at globally more as a culture, but frankly, it’s just even more reason why this isn’t tokenism to include an LGBTQ+ community member.”
Xochitl Gomez is set to make her MCU debut as America Chavez, a character with the ability to punch holes through the multiverse, in Multiverse of Madness. The film’s production and development manager Richie Palmer revealed in February 2022 that Marvel had been trying to get America “into the MCU for a long time.” He added that the Doctor Strange sequel “felt like the best place to do it, because ‘Multiverse’ is in the title and her powers specifically have to do with the Multiverse …That’s something we haven’t seen in our movies, a character who can actually walk from one universe to another. That’s maddening in itself for characters such as Doctor Strange and Wong, whose jobs are to protect those barriers.”
Directed by Sam Raimi, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness stars Cumberbatch, Gomez, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong and Michael Stuhlbarg. The film opens in theaters on May 6.
Source: The Guardian
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