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As Indian cinemagoers watched the latest Superman film, many noticed something was amiss. On two occasions as the superhero leaned in for a kiss with Lois Lane, the film suddenly jumped forward, cutting to the aftermath of an embrace.
India’s censor board had deemed the kissing scenes, including a 33-second smooch, to be “overly sensual” for Indian audiences and demanded they be cut from the film before its cinematic release.
The cuts have prompted an outcry from some viewers, who accused the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) of making arbitrary, overly moralistic demands and having double standards by allowing heavy violence and misogyny to be depicted in Indian films but cutting a kissing scene from a Hollywood film.
“CBFC would allow horrific scenes of violence and sexual assault in a U-certified film that kids are freely allowed to watch, but won’t allow consensual kissing in a U/A comic book movie that kids should watch under adult supervision,” one viewer said on social media.
Another said: “So, Superman is NOT allowed to kiss Lois Lane on Indian screens. But all sleazy leading men of Indian films are allowed to pull, grope, assault, stalk, slap, and do whatever they want with their heroines. Are you serious, Indian censor board?”
Another fan criticised the jarring interruption caused by the crude cuts. “The Indian censor board has embarrassed itself with the abrupt cuts they’ve made to the film. The ‘morality’ of censorship aside, the way they’ve managed to mangle the flow is atrocious,” they said.
Indian cinema has long had an uncomfortable relationship with on-screen kissing. With the exception of a four-minute kissing scene in the 1933 film Karma, up until the 1990s on-screen caressing was largely kept to hugs or symbolised through imagery such as flowers.
While attitudes have relaxed in recent years, the country remains largely conservative and widely religious, particularly outside of urban areas, and more intimate kissing scenes are still subject to the censor’s knife.
The censor board has also faced accusations of being overly political. The Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice was blocked from cinematic release last year after its director, Ali Abbasi, refused to make cuts demanded by the CBFC. “I ran away from Iranian censorship only to meet corporate censorship of the US. Now India. Really?” Abbasi said. “Censorship seems to be an epidemic at the moment.”
Similarly, earlier this year censors in effect banned the release of Santosh, an internationally acclaimed film addressing police violence and misogyny in India, after demanding a list of cuts. Sandhya Suri, the film’s director, called the cut requests “disappointing and heartbreaking”.
