‘Barbie’ banned in Kuwait, under fire in Lebanon for ‘promoting homosexuality’

Original cast members of the Broadway and Off Broadway hit Avenue Q will reunite tonight for a Stars In The House sing-through of the musical to benefit victims, both human and non-human, of the devastating Maui wildfires.

Blac Chyna is continuing on her health and wellness journey as she takes another step toward fully dissolving her facial fillers. On Monday, the 35-year-old model, whose real name is Angela White, shared a video posted to Instagram of her recent trip to Allure Laser Beauty & Wellness Spa in North Hollywood, California. On her Instagram Story, White thanks the certified physician assistant, Armita Amini — shown dissolving her fillers in the video — and explains that she regularly gets her treatments done at the spa.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is sharing a message of support and solidarity amid the devastating wildfires in Maui and Southern California’s Hurricane Hilary.

Dwayne «The Rock» Johnson is sharing a message of support and solidarity amid the devastating wildfires in Maui and Southern California's Hurricane Hilary. Johnson took to Instagram to give his love and strength to the people of Hawaii as they work to rebuild Lahaina town amid the fires that left destruction on the Island of Maui and took over 100 lives.«This message goes out to our Hawaiian islands back home, our Hawaiian people.

EXCLUSIVE: In a major legal victory for the Art Directors Guild and Chuck Parker, its national executive director, the National Labor Relations Board has dismissed a complaint filed by the guild’s former head accountant who claimed that she was fired back in 2020 because she’d been a leader of the successful campaign to unionize the guild’s office staff.

Barbie has become the highest-grossing film in Warner Bros. history in the US, overtaking Christopher Nolan’s 2008 film The Dark Knight.As reported by Variety, Barbie has crossed $537.5million at the domestic box office to take the record.

Barbie has been banned in multiple countries following its release.Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the fantasy comedy has become the second highest-grossing film of 2023 worldwide behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie, passing the $1billion mark earlier this month at the box office.The film’s success also crossed another milestone, becoming the highest-grossing live-action movie solely directed by a woman.Ahead of its release in July, Barbie was banned in Vietnam due to a scene featuring a map depicting China’s contested territorial claims in the South China Sea.As reported by Reuters, the scene shows “an offending image” of the “nine-dash line”, which is used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over large areas of the South China Sea, which is contested by Vietnam.A number of films have recently been banned in the country for the same reason, including Sony’s Uncharted and Dreamworks’ animated film Abominable.Kuwait subsequently banned Barbie after the film promoted “ideas and beliefs that are alien to the Kuwaiti society and public order”, according to Lafy Al-Subei’e, an under secretary of the Ministry for Press and Publication in the country (via the New York Times).Around the same time (August 9), Lebanon’s culture minister, Mohammad Mortada, made moves to ban Barbie, saying that the film was found to “promote homosexuality and sexual transformation”.

Ellise Shafer “Barbie” has been banned in Algeria in its third week of release, according to Reuters. In a statement to the news site, an unnamed “official source” said that the film “promotes homosexuality and other Western deviances” and “does not comply with Algeria’s religious and cultural beliefs.” The news was first reported by local site 24H Algerie on Monday, which wrote that the North African country’s Ministry of Culture and Arts had asked theaters showing the film to immediately remove it from their schedules.

A fire has ripped through an abandoned hotel in Edinburgh this evening.

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Talk to Me has found itself embroiled in a wave of unexpected controversy after being banned in Kuwait. The movie is no longer allowed in the Middle Eastern country due to its inclusion of a transgender actor. The ban, enforced by Kuwaiti authorities, is ostensibly aimed at safeguarding “public ethics and social traditions,” according to a statement from the state news agency.Zoe Terakes, who identifies as non-binary and trans-masculine, takes on a pivotal role in the spine-tingling A24 production as the enigmatic character Hayley.

Barbie movie has been banned in Kuwait and now faces calls for a ban in Lebanon amid complaints in the Arab nations about the film’s social values.Kuwait’s state news agency said that the nation acted to protect the country’s “public ethics”, while Lebanon’s culture minister accused the film of “promoting homosexuality”.The film is however still being shown in other conservative parts of the region, including Saudi Arabia.Barbie, which is directed by Greta Gerwig and stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has grossed more than $1bn (£784m) worldwide within weeks of its release.Lafi al-Subaiei, the head of Kuwait’s board of film classification, said that the board usually asks for movie scenes to be cut if they are deemed to flout the country’s culture. But when a film promotes behaviour the state considers unacceptable, it is banned outright.The film “promulgate[s] ideas and beliefs that are alien to Kuwaiti society and public order”, a spokesman for the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information said (via BBC News).On Wednesday, the Lebanese Culture Minister Mohammad Mortada asked the interior ministry to “take all necessary measures to ban” Barbie.He said the film “promotes homosexuality and transsexuality… supports rejecting a father’s guardianship, undermines and ridicules the role of the mother, and questions the necessity of marriage and having a family”.Meanwhile, in the US, comedian and actor Marc Maron recently hit out at the film’s conservative critics, describing them as “insecure babies”.“The fact that certain men took offence to the point where they, you know, tried to build a grift around it in terms of their narrative as right wing [expletive] is so embarrassing for them.

Lebanon has banned “Barbie” screenings entirely.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Lebanon, once thought of as among the most liberal parts of the Middle East, is poised to ban global hit movie “Barbie.” More conservative Kuwait said Wednesday that it had gone ahead with a ban due to its promotion of homosexuality. Lebanon’s culture minister Mohammad Mortada said on Wednesday that the Warner Bros. film was found to “promote homosexuality and sexual transformation” and “contradicts values of faith and morality” by diminishing the importance of the family unit.

The Barbie movie isn’t going to be found in Lebanon anytime soon.

Deadline has confirmed that Warner Bros’ billion-dollar grossing Barbie won’t be getting a release in Kuwait, and it’s skating on thin ice in Lebanon.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Mark Ronson roasted Bill Maher on social media over the latter’s response to “Barbie,” for which Ronson served as music producer and oversaw the film’s original soundtrack. Maher slammed “Barbie” as “man-hating” and “preachy” and criticized the scene in which Barbie (Margot Robbie) confronts the Mattel board of executives, which is depicted as 12 white men in the film.

A pre-school in Rochdale has been scorned by Ofsted in a recent inspection for putting ‘children at risk’ and having ‘failures in leadership and management’.

Follow OK! on Threads here: https://www.threads.net/@ok_mag Helen Skelton is under fire from BBC bosses for breaking the rules in her Morning Live contract after posting an Instagram post with brand names, it has been reported.The Countryfile presenter, 40 took to Instagram this week to share details of her Morning Live outfits and tagged a number of brands behind the creations. This included a striped shirt and trousers from the UK-based retailer Boden, along with a blue jumpsuit. Fans went wild for the stunning outfits worn by last year's Strictly Come Dancing star, but all the brand tags have since been removed as it was seen as breaking the BBC rules on promotions.

Tory Ministers have been accused of “racist” and “inhumane” plans to cram another 900 asylum seekers into Scots hotels by forcing them to share bedrooms.