Black Panther 2 Is Being Censored In Some Places
Black Panther 2 is being censored in Kuwait over a 10-second scene involving an LGBTQ+ kiss.
The Hollywood Reporter has reported that the amazing (and profitable) Black Panther 2 is getting censored in Kuwait over a brief kiss on the forehead between two women. The scene in question is about 10 seconds long and features Michaela Coel’s character Aneka kissing Florence Kasumba’s on the forehead. The censors have also requested that a scene where a woman gives birth be cut along with the line “A god to his people.”
Interestingly, it appears that Kuwait is the only territory requesting cuts in a region that includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar. While these territories often crack down on LGBTQ+ content in films, Black Panther 2 won’t be censored in these areas. In fact, some films in recent years have been banned outright from hitting Saudi Arabian theaters due to depictions of same-sex relationships.
While Black Panther 2 is making it through these international censors relatively unscathed, Disney in particular has seen a lot of its films stopped from hitting the big screen in these areas. Some films that didn’t make it through include Lightyear; Thor: Love and Thunder, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Eternals, and West Side Story. For now, it seems like most of the world will get to see Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in its entirety.
As The Hollywood Reporter mentions, Kuwait requesting Black Panther 2 to be censored isn’t too much of a surprise. Kuwait has been notoriously strict about intimacy censorship in general, even when the relationship is heterosexual. Encanto and the original Black Panther both got minor edits from Kuwait due to characters kissing.
Of course, if you’re watching Black Panther 2 almost anywhere else, you’ll get the full story with no censored scenes. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the long-awaited sequel from Ryan Coogler, which, unfortunately, has the unenviable job of moving the story forward without Chadwick Boseman after his tragic passing. The series is in good hands though and bringing the antagonistic Namor (Tenoch Huerta) into the fold will certainly make for an interesting showdown in the MCU.
If you want to see Black Panther 2 for yourself (Kuwait-censored scenes and all) you can catch it in theaters everywhere now. The film is once again helmed by Coogler, who also co-writes the script with Joe Robert Cole. The cast features many returning names from Black Panther as well as some new faces, including Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke, Florence Kasumba, Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Tenoch Huerta, Martin Freeman, and Angela Bassett.
While people in Kuwait will get to see Black Panther 2, albeit censored to remove an important relationship, China likely won’t be seeing the movie at all. The same-sex relationship depicted between Ayo and Aneka is as innocuous as the romance scenes may be, are unlikely to get past their strict media policies. While Disney will be missing the box office dollars that a release in Chinese theaters would bring in, it seems like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hardly needs them since it already has raked in $330 at the worldwide box office.
