Fantastic Beasts The Secrets of Dumbledore: Warner Bros defends cutting same-sex romance reference for China release

The recently released Harry Potter universe film Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore courted controversy in its first week itself. It was revealed that for the film’s theatrical cut in China, the studio Warner Bros had approved cutting two lines of dialogue that talked about a same sex romance between the film’s protagonist and antagonist. Having come under fire for this decision–which many labelled homophobic–the studio has now defended its stand. Also read: Fantastic Beasts The Secrets of Dumbledore movie review: A poorly crafted, painfully disjointed joyless slog

JK Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter books and the Fantastic Beasts stories, had announced in 2009 that Albus Dumbledore was gay. The books even hinted that the character had a relationship or at least love for friend-turned-foe Gellert Grindelwald. The third instalment of the Fantastic Beasts series finally addresses these. A line in the film has Albus telling Gellert “because I was in love with you” while another line has him say “the summer Gellert and I fell in love”. As per News.com.au, these have been cut from the Chinese theatrical release version.

Calling these cuts minor edits, in a statement released to Variety, Warner Bros said, “As a studio, we’re committed to safeguarding the integrity of every film we release, and that extends to circumstances that necessitate making nuanced cuts in order to respond sensitively to a variety of in-market factors. Our hope is to release our features worldwide as released by their creators but historically we have faced small edits made in local markets.”

The studio added in its statement that want the Chinese audience to see the film, which is why these cuts were made. This implies that the studio may have been told by the Chinese authorities that the film wouldn’t be allowed to release in the country if the lines stayed. “We want audiences everywhere in the world to see and enjoy this film, and it’s important to us that Chinese audiences have the opportunity to experience it as well, even with these minor edits,” the statement concluded.

Chinese authorities are known to be stringent about censorship of content and expression of LGBTQ romance on screen is disallowed in the country. Given that it is a huge market for foreign films, several production houses and studios have in the past too, made concessions to release their films in China.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore stars Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, and Mads Mikkelsen along with a large ensemble cast. The film released in China and India on April 8, while it will hit the screens in the US this Friday.