(Dubai) The latest installment in the Spider-Man saga Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Versecontaining a scene showing a poster supporting transgender people, will not be shown in theaters in the United Arab Emirates, a cinema company said on Friday.
The animated film was due for release this month in the wealthy Gulf state, which regularly touts itself as a champion of tolerance and coexistence in the Middle East.
” Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse will not be released in the United Arab Emirates,” VOX Cinema, one of the region’s leading cinema companies, told AFP, without giving further details.
The animated film had sparked reactions online due to a scene featuring a blue, pink and white flag with the inscription in English: “Protect transgender children”.
“Warning to mothers and fathers”, warned a famous lawyer on Twitter, Habib Al-Mulla, deploring “the promotion of homosexuality and transgender people”. “Pay attention to your children,” he insisted.
On Monday, the Media Regulatory Office warned that it “would not authorize the broadcasting or publication of content contrary to the values” of the Muslim country, where more than three quarters of the population are expatriates from all over the world.
This body of the Ministry of Culture, which issues operating visas, did not give details and did not answer questions from AFP.
In June last year, he banned the screening of the animated film Buzz Lightyearcontaining a kiss between two women, evoking a “violation of the standards related to the media content in force”.
In September, he also protested against Netflix’s “shocking content”, promising “necessary measures” in the event of a violation of the “values of Emirati society”.
The references to the LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) communities that are multiplying in big American productions have provoked strong reactions in the Middle East, in particular in the oil monarchies of the Gulf, rich and conservative.
The release of the latest Spider-Man is not planned on the sites of cinema companies in the other Gulf countries: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait.
In 2021, the United Arab Emirates, with a Ministry of Tolerance, had however announced the end of censorship in the cinema, after having long cut scenes considered to be an attack on morals.