Despite taking the international box office by storm, one place Barbie hasn’t yet conquered the big screen is Lebanon.
After opening on July 21, Greta Gerwig’s candy-colored cultural critique blew past the $1 billion dollar mark at the worldwide box office in only 17 days. It even reached the milestone faster than James Cameron’s original Avatar, and that film had the benefit of the revived 3D trend.
However, Deadline reports that Lebanon’s culture minister thinks the movie promotes “homosexuality and sexual transformation” and “contradicts values of faith and morality.” Said culture minister, Mohammad Mortada, is reportedly supported by the powerful (and armed) Shi’ite group Hezbollah.
Although many see Lebanon as one of the few parts of the Middle East that accepts LGBTQ+ lifestyles, the leader of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, is apparently very opposed to anything resembling queer expression.
None of this really explains why they feel Barbie promotes homosexuality, given there’s not a single character who identifies as gay and the dolls at the center of the movie don’t even have sex. Perhaps too much pink makes the Hezbollah imagine buff, sweaty men for no reason at all. Or, maybe they’re really afraid of the film’s message of female empowerment and just don’t want to admit that outright.
Although it tears us up that people in Lebanon might not be allowed to see such a culturally significant (and long overdue) narrative about both women and men emancipating themselves from the patriarchy, we do love the idea of an armed Shi’ite group — which according to the New York Times has been classified as a terrorist organization — quaking in fear of a movie where Ryan Gosling says, “I have all the genitals.”
Meanwhile, local censorship authorities in Kuwait have already decided to block the release of Barbie in their country, saying it goes against their values. As expected, the censorship board is made up entirely of college-educated women and — oh wait, that’s not true at all!
However, the film will play in the Middle East’s two biggest markets, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. So there’s some hope that people on vacation from Lebanon and Kuwait will be able to see the film there.
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