After a long debate and wait, the battle of “Barbie” reached its happy conclusion in Lebanon, and the Lebanese Public Security Censorship Committee decided to approve showing the film in cinemas, according to what an informed source told Asharq Al-Awsat, albeit an official statement from Public Security. It has not been issued, as of this writing. It is assumed that the screenings of the “film” will start on the 31st of this month, which is the date that was previously set, without submission or delay.
It is worth noting that some countries allowed the screening of the movie “Barbie” for those over 13, and other countries raised the age to over 18, which is the case in Lebanon, and Arab countries such as Kuwait prevented it.
In Lebanon, there was a wide debate about the film, in which the Minister of Culture, intellectuals, deputies, and ordinary citizens participated. Various factions engaged in heated debates over a movie that no one has likely seen yet. However, there were those who won to prevent it out of concern for morals and values, and others, on the other hand, set out to defend the screening of the film, out of their belief in the principle of defending freedoms without restriction or condition.
Barbie to the Lebanese Halls (AP)
Despite all the news that was written and promoted about the banning of the movie “Barbie” in Lebanon, in reality it was not banned, and it was a subject under study, because the only authority authorized to ban it is the oversight department of the Lebanese General Security of the Ministry of Interior, which did not announce its official decision. Yet, but she is forced to respond to journalists who are in a hurry to know the result.
The Censorship Committee studies any cultural product to prevent or permit it, when it receives a complaint or a protest is submitted to it, from a party. Complaints are often about a product that affects the religious feelings of this or that sect that is presented by religious bodies, or a complaint of abuse by partisan parties and the like. However, with regard to the movie “Barbie”, the one who submitted the protest and the proposal to ban it was the Minister of Culture, Judge Muhammad Wissam Al-Murtada, who was supported by Muslim and Christian clerics. This sparked anger from some intellectuals, writers, and media professionals.
The Minister of Culture, Al-Mortada, considered that the film “contradicts the moral and faith values and with the established principles in Lebanon, as it promotes homosexuality and sexual transformation and promotes an ugly idea of rejecting the father’s guardianship, undermining and ridiculing the mother’s role, questioning the necessity of marriage and building a family, and portraying them as an obstacle to the self-development of the individual, especially for women.” .
And since Minister Al-Mortada, in his capacity as Minister of Culture, does not have the authority to prevent, he directed a letter to the Lebanese General Security, through the Minister of Interior and Municipalities, to take all necessary measures to prevent the showing of this film in Lebanon, and everyone waited for the meeting of the committee that made its final decision regarding showing the film.
However, the storm since the time the Minister of Culture made his decision regarding the film did not subside, and dozens of Lebanese intellectuals signed a book in which they said: “While the lives of the Lebanese are endangered by weapons and impunity, and their livelihood is subjected to a terrible decline due to looting and theft, their minds are also exposed, as well. An attack that is no less dangerous and lethal.”
The statement, which was signed by writers, filmmakers, journalists, artists, writers and academics, complained that “the policies of intervention and prevention are increasing, almost becoming systematic, and the aggression this time is targeting artistic, cinematic, and creative works in the broadest sense of the word.” The protesting intellectuals denounced that “what has become permissible in neighboring countries, which until yesterday considered Lebanon a beacon of freedom, will now be suppressed in Lebanon itself. Instead of imitating the experiences that surpass us in freedom and progress in the world, we have become emulated only by models that are more backward and narrow than us in the region. This is in reference to the start of showing the film and allowing it in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, noting that the shows in most of these countries came with a delay of about three weeks from the international halls.
The intellectuals’ statement is part of a broad campaign rejecting bans and all forms of censorship on cultural productions in particular. And the statement stated: “In this way, our Minister of Culture has become that supreme censor who pushes our cultural life to decline, instigating phenomena from which it is only understood that they contradict his fanatic consciousness and his reactionary ideology.”
A shot from the movie “Barbie” (AP)
And the signatories considered that the ultimate goal is “exactly robbing us of the freedoms that gave our country some of its peculiarities in the past, and it also gave us that sense of dignity for daring to take for granted and taboos, and subjecting us to authorities, some of which are armed with guns and some of which are armed with murderous beliefs and beliefs.” Declaring categorically, “Our adherence to our freedoms, and to freedoms in general, To the same degree that we condemn this ignorant McCarthyism that attacks us. The signatories demanded experimentation, testing, and learning, and that they not have to end up being programmed, “like His Excellency the Minister of Culture, who is programmed by ideas driven from dry wood.”
As for today, when the film is on the doorstep of the halls, what everyone is waiting for is to know the opinion of the broad Lebanese audience about “Barbie”, which arrived after battles and disputes, and with profits that were not written for anyone else before.
