In the state of Punjab in eastern Pakistan, the start of the movie “Barbie” was postponed due to what the authorities described yesterday, Friday, as “shocking content” in it, as films are shown in Pakistan after the approval of the censorship authorities, which prohibits any paragraphs that it considers contrary to the social and cultural values of the country.
Farooq Mahmud, secretary of the Film Censorship Office in Punjab, the country’s largest state in terms of population, said in a press statement that “a full review of the film will be conducted, and it will be subject to censorship where necessary.” He added that the film, in which Margot Robbie plays the role of Barbie, while Ryan Gosling plays the role of her friend Ken, will be shown in cinemas upon completion of this review and censorship procedures. Islamabad cleared the show Although the office did not specify the scenes it considered “shocking” or the reasons for this description, the censorship offices in the capital, Islamabad, in the state of Sindh (southern Pakistan) gave the green light to start showing the film, as of Friday. And last November, the Pakistani government banned the movie Joyland (“Joyland”), which won an award at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and was chosen to represent Pakistan at the 2023 Academy Awards, as it considered it, under pressure from Islamic parties, to violate “the standards of morals and ethics.” However, the National Censorship Board, which reconsidered the issue by order of the government, returned and eventually agreed to show the film, which deals with the relationship of a married man with a transgender woman, but the ban remained in place in Punjab. In 2019, the movie Zindagi Tamasha (“Circus of Life”), which tells the story of a cleric caught dancing at a wedding, was banned and its director accused of blasphemy by a far-right religious party.