Word: film
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...only Ukrainian sensibilities that Brüno has managed to upset. Universal Pictures has decided to release a toned-down version of the film in Britain, after cutting out some of the more explicit scenes in the hope of taking it from an 18 rating (meaning only those over...
...office, but the Ukrainian Culture Ministry has failed to see the funny side. It has decided that Brüno's edgy parody of homophobia, with its numerous risqué sex scenes, is too much for Ukrainian citizens to handle and has nixed the film's distribution. Maksym Rostotskiy, a member of the Ministry of Culture's Expert Commission on Film Distribution, says he felt obliged to ban the film "as a psychologist and a lawyer," adding that it contains "scenes of homosexual relations with elements of sexual perversions." (See pictures of Baron Cohen's outrageous Brüno promotions...
...film, which follows a gay Austrian reporter's quest for fame in the U.S., was due to be released in Ukraine next week. But the commission felt that the country, with its conservative Catholic west and Orthodox east, was just not ready for Brüno and the character's over-the-top sexual antics, including an explicit romp with his pint-size boyfriend and oral sex with a ghost...
...Nine out of 14 experts on the commission voted to ban the film, Deputy Culture Minister Tymofiy Kokhan, head of the commission, tells TIME. In their reports they noted that the film "contains artistically unjustified pictures of the sexual organs, homosexual acts, homosexual perversions, sadism and anti-social behavior that could damage citizens' moral health." Kokhan says he would have been inclined to allow the film to be released on DVD, but the majority vote took the decision out of his hands. (Beyond Brüno: See TIME's Summer Arts Preview...
...Critics have lambasted the ban, saying it reeks of moral censorship. "It's a very worrying sign if the Ukrainian authorities say they are banning the film because of homosexual scenes," says Evhen Minko, chief editor of media-watchdog magazine Telekritika. Given the way the film lampoons intolerant attitudes toward homosexuality, the joke seems to be on them. "They didn't understand it," says Minko. "The commission's interpretation of the film is a parody in itself...