One of the most intriguing scenes in Alien: Covenant involves Michael Fassbender snogging himself – or least the androids he plays, Walter and David, lean in for a kiss. However, Chinese audiences won’t get the unusual pleasure of the actor kissing himself, as the censors in the country have cut it from the movie.
As THR reports, Chinese censors routinely cut a lot of the violence from Hollywood films, including 14 minutes from Logan and eight from Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. However, the six minutes that it took from Alien: Covenant wasn’t just about violence, as it also included the android-on-android gay kiss.
The ommission was noted shortly after the movie’s release on Friday, with Yu, a 26-year-old assistant at an advertising agency in Shanghai, quoted as saying, “For the other missing parts you don’t notice or know when it happens, but you can really feel something is missing where the gay kiss is supposed to be.”
Many knew the peck was supposed to be there after seeing media reports, and apparently the way it has been excised from the film is quite abrupt.
The Chinese censors are known to be pretty inconsistent with gay content, allowing it in some films and not in others. Some have suggested this shows divisions between more liberal and conservative parts of the censors’ office, with others saying it’s more political, both internally and externally. For example, allowing the innocuous ‘gay moment’ in Beauty & The Beast was trumpeted in the People’s Daily Worker, while the likes of Brokeback Mountain and even some Chinese-produced movies with gay content have been banned outright.
You can take a look at the Fassbender-on-Fassbender kiss here.