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| Artwork by Patrick Chemali |
I am not sure you heard but it seems that teenagers are being banned in droves worldwide from movie theatres when they wanted to see the new Minions film (The rise of Gru) in their full Sunday attire - meaning wearing suits. They are being labelled #genteminions - just to be clear, there is no connection between wearing suits or the characters in the movie, rather it's because there is no connection that - what started as a meme took over and is now a trend.
Thankfully, in Lebanon we don't have such a problem. Why? Because the whole film has been banned from cinemas. Why? Because of - wait for it - a same sex kiss and an "evil nun" (apparently evil nuns tend to sow discord and play with religious sensitivities in Lebanon). I mean from The Sound of Music to Sister Act (and I am not going to go to films about scary nuns outright) the idea of a nun being scary is a Hollywood plotline onto itself.
Never mind Hollywood. You want a scary nun? Let me introduce you to Soeur Marie-Michele. The same woman who gave me constant nightmares when I was seven by saying "even if there's a bomb dropping in this church I am going to have a first communion for these children". Cue: Nightmares about shelling in the church for months on end (bombs tended to fall conveniently from the round window with colored glass above the altar - if you wanted details).
Of course at this point, with cinema tickets being an average of 100,000 Liras - and that's a lot of money for you nowadays for Lebanese - the target audience whose morals might be corrupted (and no, I am not talking about the children because children would find same-sex kisses and evil nuns funny) are not even within the financial scope of buying a ticket (and therefore have their morals corrupted).
So first Lightyear gets banned, now Minions: The rise of Gru.
What's next? Soeur Marie-Michele, hopefully...