Kuwait has banned the film Barbie in order to defend “public ethics and social traditions,” only days after a Lebanese minister petitioned authorities in his nation to remove it from theaters for “promoting homosexuality.”
According to the official KUNA news agency, a spokesman for the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information said late Wednesday that the Warner Brothers film, which has topped $1 billion in box office ticket sales worldwide since its debut, “promotes ideas and beliefs that are alien to Kuwaiti society and public order.”
On identical grounds, the government has prohibited the Australian supernatural horror film Talk to Me.
In Lebanon, Culture Minister Mohammad Mortada declared on Wednesday that he has urged the Lebanese interior ministry to “take all necessary measures to prohibit the showing” of Barbie in the country.
“Homosexuality and transsexuality are promoted in the film… “supports rejecting a father’s guardianship, undermines and ridicules the role of the mother, and calls marriage and having a family into question,” he said.
Following Mortada’s request, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi ordered the country’s censorship committee, which reports to him and is normally in charge of censorship decisions, to study the video and provide a recommendation.
The film was due to be screened in Lebanon’s cinemas from August 31
The petition to prohibit the Barbie video comes amid a growing anti-LGBTQ campaign in Lebanon, led by the powerful military group Hezbollah.
In a speech last month, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah urged Lebanese authorities to take action against materials he deemed to promote homosexuality, including “banning” them. He stated that homosexuality was a “imminent danger” to Lebanon and that it should be “confronted.”
Nasrallah stated that “from the first time, even if he is unmarried, he is killed” in the instance of a homosexual act.
According to Ayman Mhanna, executive director of the nonprofit civic Samir Kassir Foundation, the decision to ban the video came after a “wave of bigotry.”
