Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country that criminalizes homosexuality, will not censor the new live-action “Power Rangers” film, despite a main character being portrayed as openly gay, said The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday.
“Power Rangers” is a live-action reboot of the 1990s series about a group of teenagers who becoming superheroes. As THR explained on March 20, the relevant scene in the movie is a “small moment” where the group learns that one of their own, yellow Power Ranger Trini, is “coming to terms” with her sexual orientation.
“I think what’s great about that scene and what that scene propels for the rest of the movie is, ’That’s OK.’ The movie is saying, ’That’s OK,’ and all of the kids have to own who they are and find their tribe,” director Dean Israelite told THR.
The formal approval by Malaysian regulators comes a day before the scheduled release of the action flick and on the heels of government censors backing down from an earlier decision to cut out one scene from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” in which a minor male character admits his homosexual attraction to another character.
For its part, Disney had refused to screen the edited film, postponing the planned March 23 release to March 30, a move THR reported last Wednesday as aimed at allowing for pressure to build on government officials to reverse course.
“It’s not clear whether the Malaysian authorities were cowed into reconsidering their policies after the wave of international media attention that followed the Beauty and the Beast imbroglio,” THR said Wednesday.
Since its March 17 release, “Beauty and the Beast” has raked in $410.5 million at the box office globally, with the majority of the earnings being foreign receipts, according to Box Office Mojo.
• Ken Shepherd can be reached at kshepherd@washingtontimes.com.
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