Disney’s live-action remake “Beauty and the Beast” will receive an age restriction in Russia after director Bill Condon revealed an “exclusively gay moment” in the film.
According to Russian film service Kinopoisk, people under the age of 16 will not be able to go see the movie in theaters without being accompanied by an adult.
This comes three days after Vitaly Milonov, an MP of the United Russia party, asked the country’s culture minister to screen the film prior to its March 16 Russian release and to “take measures to totally ban” it if the film contains “elements of propaganda of homosexuality.”
A Russian law enacted in 2013 prohibits the spread of “gay propaganda” to minors.
Culture minister Vladimir Medinsky noted, “As soon as we get a copy of the film with relevant paperwork for distribution, we will consider it according to the law.”
Last week, Condon told Attitude Magazine that “Beauty and the Beast” would feature an “exclusively gay moment” involving Josh Gad’s character, LeFou, the buddy of vain villain Gaston (Luke Evans).
“LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston,” Condon told the magazine. “He’s confused about what he wants. It’s somebody who’s just realizing that he has these feelings. And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And that’s what has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.”
In response, an Alabama movie theater decided to pull its scheduled screenings of Disney’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast” remake because of the film’s inclusion of a “homosexual character.”
The film starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens is set to open in the United States on March 17.