A theater in a small Oklahoma town found itself in the national spotlight when it announced plans to “fast-forward” through a scene in the Walt Disney Co.’s (NYSE:DIS) new Pixar animated film “Lightyear” that involved a same-sex kiss.
What Happened: The cinema in question is the 89er Theatre in Kingfisher, located roughly 50 miles from Oklahoma City with a population town of about 5,000. According to NBC, the venue posted a sign in its window last weekend that read: “Attention Parents: The management of this theatre discovered after booking ‘Lightyear’ that there is a same-sex kissing scene within the first 30 minutes of the Pixar movie. We will do all we can to fast-forward through that scene, but it might not be exact. We apologize for any inconvenience this late discovery of this scene causes.”
By Monday, however, the sign was gone. Barry Reid, a co-owner of the 89er Theatre, told CNN that the film was not censored during its exhibition and the posting of the sign was “an internal mistake and it's been corrected – it won't happen again.”
See Also: Benzinga's four-part series "The Crisis At Disney"
Why It Happened: The same-sex kiss in “Lightyear” occurs roughly 30 minutes into the film between two female characters. Disney had initially removed the scene but later restored it when the company was criticized for not being supportive of the LGBTQ community in the wake of the controversy surrounding the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation in Florida.
To date, the same-sex kiss has resulted in “Lightyear” being banned in China and 13 Muslim-majority countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Theater owners do not have the legal right to self-censor scenes from films, which are copyright protected. The last time exhibitors took it upon themselves to cut a film to their liking was in 1946 when a handful of Southern theaters scissored out Lena Horne’s sultry rendition of “Love” from the musical “Ziegfeld Follies.” That action would spark the longstanding urban legend that Horne’s numbers from the classic 1940s Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals were routinely excised by Southern theater owners who objected to the presence of the sexy Black singer.
Photo from "Lightyear" courtesy of Disney
