Disney and Pixar introduced their first LGBT character in the animated film Onward. This character is a cyclops police officer named Specter who appears in one scene, where she mentions a girlfriend. While the scene is short and casual, it apparently was too much for Russian distributors who have censored the character.
According to the website Kinopoisk, the version of the movie that was dubbed in Russian changed the world “girlfriend” to “partner” and did not mention Specter’s female gender.
This isn’t the first time Russian distributors have done something like this. Any gay scene in Elton John’s biopic Rocketman was cut and Avengers: Endgame’s gay character was also altered.
Russia has been intolerant of the LGBT community for some time. There are no laws against discrimination against gay people and there is still is a large sense of disapproval towards same-sex individuals. In 1999, homosexuality was deemed a “mental illness” and the military still have the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in place.
Russian distributors have also altered other aspects of foreign movies, such as changing “Stalin” to “Hitler” in last year’s Hellboy. They’ve also banned movies such as ‘Child 44’ and ‘The Death of Stalin’.
Source: The Moscow Times
A girl with too many fandoms to count.
