Family Films Banned in Some Countries Around the World
photo credit: The Wrap
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Banned by China
Reason: ghosts
Out of all the countries in the world, China perhaps censors foreign films the most. This puts Hollywood in between a rock and a hard place. China is a ginormous market where you can make a huge profit if your film is a hit there, but you have to play ball. Before any film is played in movie theaters in China, a censorship board in their government called The China Film Bureau makes sure it’s suitable for their people. Whether you agree with that or not, it’s reality. And China has some pretty strict (compared to here) censorship rules.
One of these rules is that the censors do not like anything they think is “superstitious.” Especially when the superstition comes from another culture. One of these superstitious examples are ghosts. In fact, ghosts are near the top of their list for reasons to ban a film. Ghosts are such a key part to horror films, so if you make one keep in mind that it won’t be shown to the biggest population on earth. This is what happened to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, that came out in 2006. In one single scene of the two and a half-hour film ghosts appear. The China Film Bureau said they were against Davy Jones and his crew of “souls of the dead.” This was enough to keep a big Hollywood blockbuster film out of China. They also said they didn’t like the film because its portrayal of human cannibalism.
Wonder Woman
Banned by Lebanon, Qatar and Tunisia
Reason: Gal Godot
Wonder Woman, released in 2017, is about an Amazonian princess who leaves her home to fight a war, discovering her full powers and destiny to help mankind. The film was a commercial and critical hit, making over $800 million in the US alone. The lead actress who played Wonder Woman, the Israeli actor and model, Gal Gadot, was highly praised for her performance. She started playing Wonder Woman in 2016’s Batman v. Superman and then again right after her solo film, in Justice League. In 2018 she was named in Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” and was one of the highest paid actresses at the time.
Not everyone is a fan of Gal Gadot though, particularly the government of Lebanon. They don’t like the fact she is Israeli which means she served time in her home country’s army the Israel Defense Forces. Most citizens must serve a mandatory 2 years in the army. Because of Lebanon and Israel being in conflict with one another, Lebanon has put a ban on anything Israel produces. Even though technically Israel didn’t produce the film, it was enough having a lead Israeli actress. Lebanon stated that if they distributed the film in their country it would be “normalizing relations with an enemy state.” The countries Qatar and Tunisia boycotted the movie for the same reason.
Abdominal
Banned by The Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia
Reason: territory dispute
Abdominal was a film released earlier this year by DreamWorks Animation. It’s about a Chinese girl who finds a lost Yeti on her apartment rooftop. With the help of her friends, the girl sets out on a quest to find the Yeti’s family, while being pursued by a wealthy man who wants to capture the Yeti. It was a joint project produced by both Hollywood and Chinese producers.
Abdominal came under some controversy in one of its scenes showing a map that uses what’s known as “the Nine-Dash line” on the region. The Nine-Dash line is a highly disputed demarcation line, which means agreed upon ceasefire, that claims China has control over most of the South China Sea, that includes many groups of Islands. But other countries and states like Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines say that China has no historical claim to these areas. Like I said before, if you’re going to make a film with China then you going to have to do everything in their favor, and if you’re going to show a map, it’s going to be a Chinese map. I’m sure Hollywood knew this was going to be a big deal but it’s simply a money question for them. China has way more people than all these places combined.
Noah (2014)
Banned by several Muslim Countries
Reason: Blasphemy
Noah, released in 2014, is a film about the story of the Biblical character Noah and the great flood. Noah was chosen by God to build a huge arc (boat) to survive the flood and thus carry on human’s existence on the planet. The movie received mixed reviews because it strayed quite a bit away from the original story. Some people liked Darren Aronofsky’s (director) take on the famous tale and some did not.
Regardless of the retelling of the story, several Muslim countries banned the film from being shown to their populations. The reason is that in Islam it is blasphemous to show any effigies of a Prophet (Noah is a Prophet in the Koran). An effigy means a sculpture or a model of a person. So someone portraying a Prophet onscreen counts and is strictly forbidden. In Islam you can either only speak or write their name, nothing else. So, I don’t think the producers were surprised that the film got censored.
Little Women (1994)
Banned by Manila
Reason: actress insulted their country
Little Women is one of the most acclaimed American novels ever written. It has been retold on screen many times before in both silent and films with sound. The story is about four sisters and their journey into womanhood during the beginning of 19th century America. There will be another adaptation of the famous novel coming out this December in theaters, starring Saoirse Ronan.
There was a version released in 1994, produced by Columbia Pictures. It starred Kirsten Dunst, Christian Bale, Gabriel Byrne, Winona Ryder and Claire Dane. The film became an instant family classic all over the world. In 1998, Claire Danes, one of the main actresses in the film, spoke of the Philippines’ capital city, Manila, in a negative way. She described the city as “smelling like cockroaches and having rats all over.” Then proceeded to say several other bad things about the city. Because of her remarks, the Philippines’ government named her as a “persona non grata,” which means an unwelcome person and banned her from the country. They also banned all her films as well. Claire later apologized for her comments but her ban still remains in effect.
Back to the Future
Banned by China
Reason: time travel
The classic time traveling movie, Back to the Future, was banned by China for exactly that reason. In the film a boy accidentally travels back in time to when his parents were teenagers and mistakenly becomes his mother’s crush. The film came out in 1985 and has since become a classic comedy. China bans all time-travel related films. They state that “time travel in media treats serious history in a frivolous way, which by no means should be encouraged anymore.” That’s a bummer because it’s a great movie.
The Barnyard Battle
Banned by Germany
Reason: a battle scene
The Barnyard Battle is the 7th Mickey Mouse short film ever made. It was released in 1929 and is about a battle between mice trying to defend their home against an army of invading cats. It was the first Mickey Mouse short where a character actually said a whole sentence. The battle isn’t apart of any specific war but it sort of implies that the mice represent America and the cats represent Germany. The mice march into battle to the song “Dixie”, which was a tune popular among Confederate forces in the American Civil War, and when they win, the song “Battle Cry for Freedom” is played, which is another Civil War song but used by the Union. The cat soldiers also have spiked helmets very similar to the German Empire helmets during World War I called pickelhaube. Germany stated they banned the film because it was offensive to their national dignity. They felt it showed Germany in a bad way.
Shrek 2
Banned by Israel
Reason: a joke
Shrek 2 is the 2004 sequel to the classic computer-animated comedy film, Shrek. Mike Meyers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz all reprised their roles of Shrek, Donkey and Fiona. The film is about Shrek and Donkey meeting Fiona’s parents and her Fairy Godmother, who plans to destroy their marriage so Fiona will marry her son, Price Charming. The film was extremely successful, like its predecessor, and is actually DreamWorks most profitable film to date.
Shrek 2 got in hot water with Israel of all places. The reason being, in a scene of the film, in the Israeli dubbed version, they put in a joke involving the popular Israeli singer named David D’Or. D’or is a countertenor, which means he has the same vocal range of that of a woman’s. So, in other words he can sing very high. In a scene in Shrek 2, a character threatens to emasculate (neuter) another character. In the Israeli dub they said “let’s do a David D’Or on him.” David did not take the joke well and said they insulted him by presenting him as a man with no manhood. The film was taken out of theaters until the line was replaced.
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Banned by Kuwait and Malaysia
Reason: “gay elements”
In 2017, Disney did a live action/CGI remake of their classic animated film, The Beauty and the Beast. Controversy broke out after its director, Bill Condon, prior to the release, said there was a “gay moment” in the film. There was a lot of talk about this all over the world, about whether or not it is appropriate or not to have a gay moment in a kid’s film. This was enough for Kuwait and Malaysia to ban the movie from being distributed in their countries. They are both Muslim dominated countries that believes homosexuality goes against God. When the film came out and it was revealed that the “gay” moment was two guys dancing together for just a few seconds, Malaysia decided to let it play. They said the gay undertone was slight and did not effect the positive elements in the film.
2012
Banned by North Korea
Reason: portrayed the year 2012 negatively
Remember when 2012 was suppose to be the end of the world because of the Mayans or something? Whether it started off as a troll or someone being serious, we got a mediocre end-of-the-world action thriller out of it. 2012, is about the elite leaders of the world plan to save only a select number of people in the world during the planet’s destruction in 2012. It wasn’t actually released in 2012, but in 2009. It’s reviews were poor but it made money. Foreign films are already illegal to view in North Korea but especially 2012. The year 2012 was the 100th birthday of Kim-II Sung, their former leader. It was an extremely sacred year for them and anyone caught with the film 2012, that treats the year as a negative event, would be punished severely.
The Simpsons Movie
Banned by Burma
Reason: their yellow skin
This is one of the most bizarre cases why a government banned a film. While the classic adult animated tv show, The Simpsons is not a stranger to controversy, they’ve had many over the years, they have never gotten in trouble for their signature yellow skin. In 2007, The Simpsons got a movie (called The Simpson’s Movie) about more adventures of America’s most notorious animated family. While most of the world was talking about the fact that in the film you see a completely nude Bart Simpson, from the front, the government of Burma banned the film altogether. They never officially gave a statement of their decision to do so but its rumored it was because the yellow skin might represent to their people of a rebel group in the country trying to take over the government. Basically, they were afraid of a revolution being started after people saw the film.
All the Marx Brothers films
Banned by Germany
Reason: actors were Jewish
The Marx Brothers were a group of comedian brothers who made and acted in some of Hollywood’s best early comedies. From 1905 -1949, the Marx Brothers made 13 feature films, many of which have become classics. Their clever gags and witty lines have gone down in film history.
However, during 1933-1945, if you were in Germany, you couldn’t watch a Marx Brothers’ film. The reason being that they were Jewish. Germany was under Nazi rule at the time and no films starring Jews were allowed to be played. In fact, Hitler just showed his own Propaganda films. The Italian dictator, Mussolini, also banned the Marx Brothers’ film Duck Soup, because he thought it was a personal attack against him. Ireland banned their 1931 film, Monkey Business because they thought it promoted Anarchy.
Barney’s Great Adventure
Banned by Malaysia
Reason: not suitable for children
You wouldn’t think in a million years that the most lovable purple dinosaur, Barney, would ever get banned from a country. But it happened. Malaysia banned the 1998 film, Barney’s Great Adventure, about Barney and 3 kids finding a mysterious magical egg in a barn. Malaysia gave no other reason than it was “unsuitable for children to watch.” When Barney was popular it was criticized for being too happy and too one dimensional for children. But it was meant for like 2-5 year olds. They don’t need to be shown heartbreaking things yet. They have their whole lives for that.
Christopher Robin
Banned by China
Reason: a meme
This is a special case because the film wasn’t blocked because of its content, it was blocked because of an internet meme. In 2017, one of the most famous YouTubers in the world, PewDiePie, help spread a slew of memes about how the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping and Winnie-the-Pooh kind of look a like. The memes were spread to mock the leader and his politics. China put Winnie-the-Pooh and PewDiePie on their blacklist. Anything that has to do with Winnie is banned from their internet and culture. That’s why the 2018 film, Christopher Robin was never allowed to be seen in China.
