‘Friends’ is released in China, but with censored LGTBIQ+ stories

China first officially broadcast Friends in 2013 through its giant streaming platform iQiyi. At that time, he did it without cuts and gave millions of fans the series that many already knew through the successful pirate copies of it that had been circulating for years. It was, apparently, a nice exception and that is when HBO Max broadcast Friends: The Reunion in China he already had to censor, in addition to Lady Gaga and BTS, the LGTBIQ + moments of the special.

Despite this, the program was so successful that there was a clear popular demand so that the series could be legally consumed again. With iQiyi no longer broadcasting rights, two local channels, Bilibili and Tencent Video have come together to re-license the series. The problem is that this time, following the meeting cuts, all LGTBIQ + plot has been removed from the series. Yes, the Chinese can no longer see anything from, say, Ross’s lesbian ex-wife. Beyond the censorship of complete parts, English subtitles have also been faked (although without modifying the audio) to reduce the eroticism of other parts. For example, a moment where Ross says that “women can have multiple orgasms” has been subtitled as “women have endless gossip.” The word “lesbian” is also replaced by “ex-wife” or “I have a penis” by “I have organs different from those of a woman”.

Of course, Chinese citizens have not remained silent and immediately went to their great social network, Weibo, to protest with the hashtag #FriendsCensored. It reaches 60 million interactions before being removed and replaced with the message “This topic is not displayed in accordance with relevant laws and regulations.” In short, let us hope that, little by little, China advances as much in some aspects as it is doing in others, and stops worrying about erasing things from the world that its audience surely knows, accepts no matter how much they hide.

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