‘Wicked’ banned in Kuwait, reportedly due to “lesbian and gay portrayals”

Queer actress Cynthia Erivo and pop singer Ariana Grande as the witches Elphaba and Galinda in “Wicked.”

Wicked has reportedly been banned in Kuwait.

On Wednesday, December 4, Variety reported that screenings of the film had been removed from cinema listings in the Persian Gulf state ahead of its scheduled December 5 theatrical release.

According to the outlet, local media in Kuwait speculated that the ban was due to the film’s queer cast members. The film, based on the long-running Broadway musical which in turn was based out author Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, features out actors Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey in starring roles, as well as Bowen Yang and Marissa Bode in supporting roles.

However, as them notes, the Kuwait edition of the Arab Times reported that the decision to ban the film came amid reports that it includes a gay character. On their recent press tour, both Erivo and co-star Ariana Grande, herself a vocal LGBTQ+ ally, have played up the film’s queerness and appeal to LGBTQ+ audiences. In one interview, Grande suggested that her character, Glinda, “might be a little in the closet.”

“Everyone is just so beautifully queer,” she added of the characters who populate the Land of Oz in the film. “Every day in the Emerald City is a Pride parade.”

However, despite Grande’s take on the film, Wicked features exactly zero explicitly LGBTQ+ characters.

“Apparently it was because of lesbian and gay portrayals in the movie,” Australian entertainment journalist Peter Ford said of the Kuwait ban on Melbourne radio station 3AW. “Which, I guess if you look for it you might’ve seen it.”

3AW host Ross Stevensom noted that he took his eight-year-old daughter to see the film and didn’t clock any LGBTQ+ content.

While Ford described Kuwait as “not the most conservative” of the Gulf countries, Variety notes that the nation has become one of the strictest in the region when it comes to film censorship. The country banned director Greta Gerwig’s Barbie in 2023, claiming that the film promoted “ideas and beliefs that are alien to the Kuwaiti society and public order,” according to a statement from the state-run KUNA news agency. As them notes, the country also banned the 2023 horror film Talk To Me citing nonbinary and transmasculine actor Zoe Terakes’s role in the film.

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