Russia Cancels Screening of BTS Film for Being “Gay”
A screening of a BTS concert film has been cancelled in Russia over concerns that the group is gay.
The movie, BTS World Tour: Love Yourself in Seoul, was scheduled to play in the city of Makhachkala, in the southern republic of Dagestan, after hundreds of local fans led a social media campaign to screen the documentary in their city, The Moscow Times reports.
Cinema Hall, the theater where the movie was set to be screened, canceled ticket sales a day after its opening, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant, following an online boycott campaign claiming the group promoted "over-the-top immoral behavior," and using an anti-gay slur to describe its members.
The concert film is set to play in a number of Russian cities starting January 26.
In the meantime, fans disappointed by the cancellation have been encouraged to travel to the neighboring city of Grozny, in Chechnya; Strangely, as the region has been engaged in a violent crackdown on the LGBTQ community.
Following the banning of the BTS movie, social conservatives are now going after Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, being staged in a local medical school, according to Kommersant, due to a video of the novel’s devil’s ball shared on social media.