China has censored LGBT content many times over the years, but it left the Star Wars franchise’s first same-sex kiss untouched.
The scene in The Rise of Skywalker featuring two female Resistance troopers kissing in celebration remains uncut, according to moviegoers we spoke to who watched Wednesday’s preview screenings in China. One Weibo commenter exclaimed, “Don’t know if I saw it right, the final group sequence has a one-second shot of a pair of women kissing that wasn’t cut!”
Homosexuality was decriminalized in China in 1997 and declassified as a mental illness four years later, but the topic remains largely taboo to government watchdogs.
Scenes in Bohemian Rhapsody that touched on Freddie Mercury’s sexuality were removed this year. Call Me By Your Name, which depicts a love story between two men, was pulled entirely from a film festival. But notably, the brief gay moment in Disney’s 2017 live action Beauty and the Beast involving Gaston’s sidekick LeFou was left intact.