Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar have banned Disney's new Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but not because they do not want their sweet Marvel fix. Decency laws in their nations ban LGBTQ material, and Doctor Strange includes a lesbian character America Chavez, played by Xochitl Gomez.
According to Nawaf Alsabhan, Saudi Arabia's general supervisor of cinema classification, there is one 12-second scene in the movie with Miss Gomez that needs to be cut.
"It's just her talking about her moms, because she has two moms," Alsabhan said. "And being in the Middle East, it's very tough to pass something like this."
He added: "We sent it to the distributor, and the distributor sent it to Disney, and Disney has told us they are not willing."
"There's no reason to ban the film. It's a simple edit ... So far they have refused. But we haven't closed the door. We're still trying."
Disney, on the other hand, pretty much told the Saudis to take a hike.
Of course, this is not the first Marvel movie to be banned in Saudi Arabia. 2021's Eternals, which featured a gay couple, also got banned because Disney refused to make cuts.
Movie ticket sales in Saudi Arabia totaled roughly $238 million in 2021, so Disney is making the choice to leave a lot of money laying on the floor to support their agenda.
That seems to be the play Disney is making lately, considering their row with Florida over teaching children about sex as early as kindergarten cost them millions of dollars in tax shelters in the state. Clearly investors are starting to sour on Disney's go woke, go broke strategy as the company's stock has lost nearly half its value (tens of billions of dollars) since last year.
Will Disney take the hint and stop pushing its self-destructive agenda any time soon? Only time will tell.
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