‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Fight Club’ Have Been Censored Earlier
Even the Friends reunion special had some changes made to it- the cameos by Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, and BTS were removed before it was aired in China. Even in the Chinese version of the Queen biopic titled Bohemian Rhapsody, the scene wherein Freddie Mercury tells his fiance that he is gay was removed.
Recently, in January, the last scene in Fight Club was changed to make the authorities win. In the original film, many buildings storing credit information were blown up but the Chinese version ended with a note saying that authorities reached the spot on time and sent the character Tyler Durden to a ‘lunatic asylum’. The original version was later restored following social media outrage.
Only the first season of Friends has been released on China’s streaming sites for now and soon after, #FriendsDeleted started trending on Chinese social media site ‘Weibo’. However, the hashtag has also been censored, according to the South China Morning Post.
(With inputs from SCMP and The New York Times)