A French town has been forced to axe an open air-screening of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie after a group of residents threatened to interfere with the event that they claimed ‘promoted’ homosexuality.
The last minute cancellation of the annual event, which was due to take place last Friday in the Parisian suburb of Noisy-le-Sec, has since sparked a political debate over censorship.
Mayor Olivier Sarrabeyrouse issued a press release this week to explain why the screening of the highly regarded feminist film was scrapped, claiming that ‘an extreme minority of thugs, who, no doubt, had not seen the film, [had] transformed a simple free open-air cinema screening open to all into a violent opposition movement’.
‘They said that it advocates homosexuality and that it is an attack on the integrity of women,’ he said, recalling that ‘Barbie is a film for all audiences, which has never been banned in France’.
‘I deplore the fact that a small group from the neighborhood mobilized its energy under pressure from an individual to prevent the screening of this film,’ he went on to say.
The mayor said a group of some 10 to 15 individuals ‘surrounded the offices’ and threatened to ‘take everything down and put an end to your session’.
The cancellation of the screening has sparked political outrage, with political figures blaming the mayor for succumbing to censorship, but the background of those who objected to the film is not known.
‘Algeria, Lebanon, Kuwait, and today Noisy-le-Sec in [France] censor #Barbie… the [mayor] submits to pressures from an ‘aggressive group’! Translation: Islamist religious fundamentalists exert strong and effective social control!’, wrote MP Valerie Boyer on X.
But the mayor clapped back at the politician, telling French radio station RTL today: ‘I never gave in’.
‘I’m mayor, and I’m responsible for the safety of both public service employees and the population. I think all my fellow mayors, regardless of their political affiliation, would have made the same decision’.
‘I condemn this kind of moral censorship, but I also condemn this exploitation,’ he added, noting that ‘transphobia and homophobia are not reserved for a section of the population’ and that ‘the extreme right and the right have been fighting these battles for years.’
The film was banned in many Muslim countries over the perception that it promoted homosexuality, French media notes.
The mayor of Noisy-Le-Sec, a suburb of Paris with a large North African community, did not identify the ‘aggressive’ group who made the threat.
According to the mayor, several municipal workers received violent threats from the group of ‘hooligans’ who vowed to stop the screening and destroy equipment.
‘These threats were motivated by fallacious arguments, reflecting obscurantism and fundamentalism instrumentalised for political ends.’
The mayor also commented on how the film had ‘provoked a reaction from the most reactionary and conservative ideologues, particularly on the far right, by provoking yet another moral panic.’
Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez announced today that he had taken legal action in light of the cancellation.
‘After learning of this deprogramming and that the facts that led to it are based on community withdrawal and separatism, are contrary to the foundations of our Republic and are likely to be subject to criminal prosecution, I have today referred the matter to the courts, in agreement with the Minister of State, Minister of the Interior,’ he wrote on X.
