Bollywood's first gay romantic comedy banned in UAE

[Kailash Kumar]

Bollywood's first gay romantic comedy banned in UAE

Annie Banerji

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A major Bollywood gay film has been banned in the conservative United Arab Emirates (UAE), home to a sizeable South Asian community, the director said on Friday as his new movie hit theatres in India.

Touted as India’s first gay male romantic comedy, “Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan” (“Be Extra Careful About Marriage”) stars popular actor Ayushmann Khurrana as an openly gay man, who battles traditional attitudes to be with his boyfriend.

The film will not be screened in theatres in the predominantly Muslim UAE, a desert country of around 10 million people where gay sex is illegal, said filmmaker Hitesh Kewalya.

“Yes, it’s banned,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by text message, adding that he had no further details about the move.

“I am just happy and proud that I live in a country where homosexuality has been decriminalised and we are able to make and watch films like these in a commercial space.”

Regulators in the UAE could not be reached for comment on Friday.

India scrapped a ban on gay sex in September 2018.

The move paved the way for more depictions of LGBT+ people in cinema and television including gay men on dating shows and drag queens in singing competitions.

Bollywood films are popular in the UAE, home to nearly 4 million Indian migrants many of whom work in construction.

The UAE - and Dubai specifically - is a globalised hub for tourism and trade and seen as more tolerant than other parts of the Gulf.

In deeply conservative Saudi Arabia, movie theatres were opened in 2018 after a nearly 40-year-ban.

The UAE censors or bans films to varying degrees, which it deems offensive to social, moral and religious values.

Openly gay performers, including singer George Michael, have played concerts in the UAE. But in 2016 the country, along with Qatar, Oman, Bahrain Jordan and Kuwait, banned from cinemas “The Danish Girl,” a movie about an artist who undergoes gender reassignment surgery.

“Lamhaa”, a Bollywood film focusing on the insurgency in Kashmir - a disputed Himalayan region between India and Pakistan - was banned in the UAE in 2010.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...y-romantic-comedy-banned-in-uae-idUSKBN20F2AV

 

[Skywalker]

Is it about modi and doval.

 

[Pakistani Fighter]

Good.
Can't believe how disgusting the liberal South Asians can be. Unfortunately, I am seeing these same type of disgusting movies here in Pakistan in Future if the things go as they are going.

 

[Omar Al-Deek]

Islam over 1,400 years ago knew exactly how the homos should be dealt with! There is a simple solution!

 

[Dalit]

What a homosexual does in his own private space is up to him.

Now through movies they are trying to promote and spread the unnatural idea. This is what you get after putting a medal on Modi's hairy chest. UAE and other Arab nations should get ready for more surprises.

 

[Yankee-stani]

As long as the American Empire exists expect Globo Homo to be normalized in every inch of the earth tho backlash will come

 

[Dalit]

As long as the American Empire exists expect Globo Homo to be normalized in every inch of the earth tho backlash will come

LOL it has already begun. The Muslim and immigrant hating far right-wing groups aren't particularly fond of homosexuality.

 

[Omar Al-Deek]

LOL it has already begun. The Muslim and immigrant hating far right-wing groups aren't particularly fond of homosexuality.

the anti-Muslim right-wingers are idiots

they are being manipulated by the Zionists

being a conservative and anti-Islam is one of the dumbest strategies I can think of

 

[Mangus Ortus Novem]

Perhaps we must not critique Indian culture... each to his own.. some IndianPosters might feel hurt by our comments.

 

[Dalit]

We all know these cunning RSS scum are playing the West. The RSS doesn't tolerate homosexuality. Yes, the RSS rapes, but homosexuality is not a thing even RSS would promote. These fvckers are appeasing the Western audience.

 

[newb3e]

Is it about modi and doval.

oranje and baboon!

 

[Gangetic]

Time to ban Bollywood as it promotes degenerate Indians all over the world.

 

[Juggernaut_Flat_Plane_V8]

Time to ban Bollywood as it promotes degenerate Indians all over the world.

Living in UK and being a UK citizen and an Anglo I presume (?),what demonstration have you taken part in to oppose normalization of homosexuality and legalization of homosexual marriage?

PS: On another note, May God bless their anus, cause they will need it

 

[Dual Wielder]

Perhaps we must not critique Indian culture... each to his own.. some IndianPosters might feel hurt by our comments.

Nay.. He who chooses a heedless lifestyle, is he who chooses to live like a fool.

Perhaps a renowned historian can dwell in uncharted territories and uncover the hidden mysteries of the forbidden scrolls of 'kama sutras' maybe finding the arcane raaz will consummate the burning desires of our neighbor, and quench their thirst of preying on their own women folk, clearly this epicdemic has evolved to a new form of metamorphosis by the means of unparalleled mutation that now even man cannot take refuge from. The ancient vedic tablets forewarned of an unconventional nympholepsy apocalypse to doom man if it's children ventured outside of the boundaries of ganges; yet they the outsiders were oblivious not heeding to its wisdom; but alas it too late for the King of the distant barren kingdom, for they are many amongst his own people.. the corruption cannot be quarantined by decree alone.. as they will whisper... and whisper they will.

 

[Mangus Ortus Novem]

Nay.. He who chooses a heedless lifestyle, is he who chooses to live like a fool.

Perhaps an renowned historian can dwell in uncharted territories and uncover the hidden mysteries of the forbidden scrolls of 'kama sutras' maybe finding the arcane raaz will consummate the burning desires of our neighbor, and quench their thirst of preying on their own women folk, clearly this epicdemic has evolved to a new form of metamorphosis by the means of unparalleled mutation that now even man cannot take refuge from. The ancient vedic tablets forewarned of an unconventional nympholepsy apocalypse to doom man if it's children ventured outside of the boundaries of ganges; yet they the outsiders were oblivious not heeding to its wisdom; atlas it too late for the King of the distant barren kindom, for they are many amongst his own people.. the corruption cannot be quarantined by decree alone.. as they will whisper... and whisper they will.

Yes, Brother mine,

The Whispers... minute..minute ..whishpers!

For we are not against mere flesh and blood...but a mutation of the deep... darkness does arise, shaping itself without form!

For now the force is paralysed...unsure of its being... yet darker is the 'mutation'...and corruption, coruption of the soul, forewarned, as says you correctly, how can the Children of Ganga be free...for now it the Rise... DarkAge creeps...

Nay, says I... critique must we not... it is their culture, their being... we can only dig in our defences...keep Indus Green!

Sutraz... yes, Sutraz... but now it is just echos and them too mere recitations...without sense, purpose or meaning. Lost is the spirit...shell remains...wherein Darkness creeps...

I do rather feel bad for Children of Ganga... they have now fallen... all antics, rhetoric and brovadoz.. makes them dangerous... skeletons without flesh.

I say...let them be... it is their being, their culture... we should just let it be!