We spoke to Indian officials and found that CBFC has already released the certificate in February and Fox Star Studios India haven’t announced any release date. So who is responsible for the rumours that spread like wildfire in the community?
Mumbai: A coming of age LGBTQ romantic comedy titled ‘Love, Simon’ has been making waves across the world for its story and characters. It came as no surprises that the Indian LGBTQ community was looking forward to watching it in their country.
Early this week, it was reported that it was going to release on June 1. It also happens to be International Pride month and the community couldn’t hold their excitement to see it in their nearby theatres. GayStar News released a report saying that CBFC board had banned the film in India on the day of its release due to its gay content. The writer Shannon Power, who lives in Melbourne, Australia also wrote that the Indian Certification board has a history of silencing or banning films with LGBTQ themes.
We spoke to the Regional Officer of the Mumbai Branch of CBFC who cleared the rumour mongering and said, “My system shows that we have already released the certificate for Love, Simon in February. Now it is Fox Studios lookout when they want to screen it in theatres.”
Love, Simon is produced by 20th Century Fox and we also contacted the Fox Star India Studios representative, whose name was on the certificate, to know what the actual news was. She said, “I don’t know where you heard this from. We are not releasing the movie in India. If you’re saying that tickets were being booked on BookMyShow, I don’t know where you got that information because we didn’t declare a release date. That’s the only information I can give you.” She also said that it’s their prerogative when they release or whether they release the movie. There was no reliable source online to verify the films release announcement in India.
The community was proverbially up in arms online, requesting and bashing CBFC to release the movie. We also tweeted Shannon Power, to ask what her sources for this news were as she didn’t quote any relevant Indian sources in her article. That article is being cited as the original news by many. We are yet to receive a reply. It surprising that many Indian blogs and websites decided to carry this unverified news without contacting Indian officials and the studio responsible for its release.
Noted equal rights and animal rights activist Harish Iyer spoke at length about the ban on Twitter yesterday before the news was cross-checked.
“I do regret posting without verified facts about the ban but I don’t regret calling CBFC a regressive body, which it is. We do tend to believe the news we read online and not everybody cross checks it. You don’t expect a common man to call authorities and find out for themselves. But this new development isn’t a reason to rejoice either. In this case, the CBFC was misquoted and was receiving misdirected hate but the truth is that it acts as a censor board when it is just a certification board. Many LGBTQ films are still languishing and are in trouble because CBFC is regressive,” he said.
He tweeted saying that, “Every year scores of children commit suicide, slide into depression, adults and the young battle loneliness, mental health issues because of unjust laws and the idea that sexuality is a monolith. More depiction would lead to more acceptance. #LoveSimon.”