By Umapagan Ampikaipakan, At the Movies

I've seen the now infamous "gay moment" in Beauty and the Beast and I think it's safe to say that there's really nothing there that wasn't there before. If anything, I am amazed that they - our Lembaga Penapisan Filem - actually managed to find four and a half minutes to censor.

Fear not, my dear delicate Malaysians, for there is no hot steamy guy-on-guy action. No bareback brokeback banging. There isn't even any light petting.

So what then did director Bill Condon mean when he said that the movie boasts an "exclusively gay moment"? What is it that has the folks over at LPF in such a tizzy?

At my count, there were maybe four moments which could, at an absolute stretch, be considered "gay". (I say "at a stretch" because these moments also feature some of the most common cliches and stereotypes often associated with homosexuality.)

Allow me to break them down for you.

1. The character of Lefou has always had a misplaced sense of admiration for Gaston. (As displayed in the song "Gaston".) In the cartoon, this admiration comes across as something akin to hero worship while, in this live-action remake, it is also portrayed as romantic longing.

2. In a statement to AFP, the head of the Malaysian Censorship Board, Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said: "The way he dances is "gay and the dialogue and the lyrics of the song are too. In the same scene he also lifts up his shirt and shows a love bite on his tummy. Even I wanted to bring my grandchildren to watch it. But there are rules. We don't support LGBT."

i. While the performance of the song "Gaston" could be seen as being somewhat "camp", it is, no more so, than any other song in any Disney musical.

ii. In the song and dance number, Lefou does lift up his shirt exposing some teeth marks on his stomach. But this is in response to the lyric: "No one fights like Gaston / Douses lights like Gaston / In a wrestling match nobody bites like Gaston. It wasn't a "love bite". And anyone who has either seen or experienced and actual "love bite" would know that it looks nothing like a "love bite".

iii. The lyrics of the song are identical to the animated version of the movie with one small change. The change involves Gaston, played here by Luke Evans, singing about his superior hunting techniques while Lefou crawls away from him on all fours:

"When I hunt, I sneak up with my quiver / And beasts of the field say a prayer / First, I carefully aim for the liver / Then I shoot from behind / Is that fair? / I don't care."

I'm sure you could read that as having sexual connotations. But then again, you could also read the lyrics to almost any Disney song as having sexual connotations.

"Darling it's better / Down where it's wetter / Take it from me." Under the Sea - The Little Mermaid

"Trust in me / Just in me / Shut your eyes / And trust in me." Trust Me - The Jungle Book

"If I don't love it, I don't swallow." Anton Ego in Ratatouille

Not forgetting that Aladdin's "A Whole New World" is really just one long ode to losing one's virginity.

via GIPHY

3. At the climax of the movie, two things happen that could be interpreted as being â€œgay momentsâ€. The first, a clear homage to this scene from the cartoon, features Madame Garderobe dressing up three of her male attackers in womenâ€™s clothing. Two of them are outraged, while one smiles at the camera and then prances away.

4. The second moment comes at the very end of the movie and lasts for all of three seconds. There is a ball at the castle and the villagers are swapping partners as they waltz around the room. Lefou is â€œmistakenlyâ€ swapped with a male partner (the very same â€œStanleyâ€ who looks pleased when Madame Garderobe dresses him in womenâ€™s clothing) and the both of them look happy to have found each other.

For the most part, the "gay moments" in the movie can be reduced to nothing more than a series of smiles and glances. In fact, by LPF's measure, we probably experience more "gayness" in one hour of a local cooking show than we do in this entire movie.

Given all of the purported outrage over the desecration of a children's classic, my initial reaction was that Disney didn't go far enough. Why make such a deal about an "exclusively gay moment" and then have it be something so innocuous? Then again, maybe we should celebrate any and all progress in this direction. However small it may be.

For us, however, given how muted these moments were in the movie, the question remains whether or not our LPF would have independently come to the same conclusion - to censor four and a half minutes - if it weren't for all the noise? My answer is "no".

Photo Credit: Disney

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