Marvel is still struggling with strict censorship in the Middle East. In order to get the movie ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ released in Kuwait, a sequence from the most recent release allegedly had to be deleted. According to a story in The Hollywood Reporter, the sequence included a touching exchange between two female characters, Michaela Coel and Florence Kasumba.
Coel is seen kissing Kasumba’s forehead during the LGBTQ+ moment, which is barely 10 seconds long but was apparently trimmed at the censors’ request. Not only was this scene omitted from the 2-hour 41-minute movie, but so was another one with delivery and the statement ‘A god to his people’.
Interestingly, while Kuwait has applied the modifications, the movie will reportedly be screened unaltered in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar, all of which typically restrict LGBTQ+ content. The Eternals’ similar-themed moments prevented Saudi Arabia from seeing the movie last year.
Kuwait is not just rigid on same-sex relationships, but it also had issues with T’Challa and Nakia’s kissing in the 2018 film ‘Black Panther’. For the Kuwaiti audience, the scene—which featured a heterosexual couple kissing—was also cut from the movie. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the 2018 sequel, had a successful global opening. In only the US on Thursday, the sequel brought in $28 million.
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