CAIRO — Egypt became the latest Arab country Wednesday to demand that Netflix drop content that runs counter to its “societal values,” an escalation of a battle by regional authorities on Western-produced television shows and films that depict gay and lesbian characters on screen.
The content, in the official telling, is anathema to their majority-Muslim societies.
Egypt’s warning to Netflix, Disney+ and other streaming services, issued by its government media regulator, came a day after six Gulf Arab countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates called on Netflix to take down “offensive content” on its local streaming sites. They said in a statement that such programs “contradict Islamic and societal values and principles.”
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar also joined in the Gulf countries’ request. Egypt’s statement used similar language, warning the streaming services that “legal action will be taken in the event of broadcasting content that conflicts with societal values.”
While Arab authorities avoided spelling out the offending scenes, they have in recent years repeatedly banned or criticized entertainment that shows same-sex romance or what, under the traditional, conservative standards that still hold sway across much of the region, could be considered promiscuous behavior.
Netflix is widely watched across the Middle East, especially by younger Arabs, its programming eating into the traditional dominance of the Arab entertainment industries. But its first film produced by and for Middle East audiences, “Perfect Strangers,” caused an uproar in Egypt and beyond when it was released earlier this year.
Though it was a hit, audiences criticized scenes that would never appear in Egypt’s award-winning but much-censored homegrown productions, including one in which a male character reveals he is gay and another in which an Egyptian wife, preparing to go out, tugs off her lacy black underwear from under her skirt. One Egyptian lawmaker even called for Netflix to be banned from the country.
Several recent Disney films, including this summer’s “Lightyear,” “Thor: Love and Thunder,” “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” “West Side Story” and “Eternals,” were all barred from movie theaters in various places across the Middle East because they included LGBTQ scenes such as same-sex kisses or touched on other LGBTQ topics.
Though it was banned elsewhere, “Eternals” made it to theaters in the United Arab Emirates after Disney edited out public displays of affection.
Disney recently said it would not offer “Lightyear” or “Baymax,” a series that includes LGBTQ characters, on the Middle East version of Disney+, its streaming service, to avoid inflaming regional sensitivities.
Though some young Arabs hold more liberal views than their parents and grandparents on sex, alcohol and other traditional taboos — and such vices, condemned in public, are often practiced in private — being gay is deeply stigmatized, and often criminalized, across the Arab world.
After the public demand to Netflix by the six Gulf countries Tuesday, Saudi state television aired an interview with a woman it identified as a “behavioral consultant” who said that Netflix was an “official sponsor of homosexuality.” It also showed a clip from “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous,” an animated series streaming on Netflix in which two women kissed. On Saudi television, however, the scene was blurred out.
Netflix declined to comment Wednesday.
In Egypt, authorities often prosecute gay people on charges of “immorality” or “debauchery.” Police raids targeting gay men at private parties, restaurants and bars are common.
But Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have taken steps in recent years to loosen rigid social codes, based on strict interpretations of Islam, partly in an effort to appear more welcoming to foreign investors, expatriates and tourists. Saudi Arabia defanged its once-feared religious vice squad and now allows men and women to mix in public. The Emirates made it legal for unmarried couples to live together.
But LGBTQ rights remain all but unthinkable.
When it comes to entertainment, at least, Arab audiences have plenty of ways of circumventing restrictions. Egyptians commonly watch pirated versions of foreign shows on the internet to avoid paying streaming fees.
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