It’s a blink-and-miss moment, but eagle-eyed viewers watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker caught a milestone, sort of: During the post-climax celebrations, minor female characters shared a chaste kiss in the background of a group shot. It’s a first, but not much of one — the first queer moment in a franchise that many spectators may have missed. But at least the majority of the globe had the chance to miss it. As per Deadline, Singapore has removed the brief moment entirely.
The news came from one of the country’s media spokespeople, who told the BBC that the incredibly brief, partially blurry kiss between two characters we’ve barely seen prior was edited out to retain the PG-13 rating. This implies that a moment of non-graphic intimacy between two people of the same gender that one can barely see is enough to push things into R territory. (Actually there is no R in Singapore, their versions being NC16, forbidding children under 16; M18, for those 18 and above; and R21, for adults 21 and over.)
The incredibly brief kiss was not elided in China, which is known for cutting up queer cinema moments. Sadly, audiences in Singapore won’t be able to witness a watershed moment that, like the also barely detectable gay moment in Avengers: Endgame, has been criticized for doing the absolute bare minimum.
