The Freddie Mercury biopic, which won more Oscars than any other movie last weekend, will find its way to cinemas in China with some changes enforced by the country’s censors. According to The Hollywood Reporter, at least a minute has been scrapped – including any scenes in which Mercury, played by Best Actor winner Rami Malek, kisses other male characters. Signs of drug use have also been taken out.
The move has sparked a big conversation online: while many are shocked by the Chinese censors’ attitudes, others have been joking that there isn’t much LGBT+ content in the film as it is.
Indeed, a big criticism of the movie has been how it purportedly shies away from digging too deep into Mercury’s sexuality.
One Twitter user said: “Releasing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to China without queer content only further shows that the people responsible for this movie give ZERO f***s for the LGBT community, and only want to profit off of us.”
“Pathetic,” said someone else simply.
China has no clear-cut rules on LGBT representation in film but it has been noted in recent years to be reluctant to show it.
Moonlight and Call Me By Your Name never got releases there, and even Malek’s acceptance speech at the Oscars on Sunday was alleged to have been tweaked in the subtitles such that “gay man” was changed to “special group”.
Meanwhile, here in the UK the movie is the fastest-selling digital release of all time.
According to the Official Charts Company, it sold nearly 265,000 copies in its first eight days.
That was comfortably enough for it to eclipse the record set by Avengers: Infinity War (253,000) last year.
Its DVD and Blu-ray release does not follow until Monday, March 4.
Aside from Malek’s win for Best Actor, other Academy Awards soaked up by the movie included Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Editing.
Bohemian Rhapsody is out on digital download now.