After a swirl of online rumors, distributor Square Box Pictures has confirmed via their Instagram account that the Jennifer Lopez film Hustlers has been banned by the Malaysia Film Censorship Board (LPF).
The film had been slated for release yesterday, but less than 24-hours before it was set to hit screens, TGV cinemas pulled tickets from online sales, and informed patrons the film had encountered “technical issues.”
At the time, they assured customers they would be screening the film the following week.
Late last night, message board of grievances and appalling grammar Low Yat Forum carried a post that claimed the LPF was banning the film, which tells the story of a merry band of strippers who scammed their Wall Street clients during the peak of the 2008 Financial Crisis.
While we can’t imagine what could possibly have roused the LPF’s ire, we’re gonna take a wild shot in the dark here, and deduce that all that scantily-clad dancing didn’t go over well with officials.
Pole dancing is ART and athleticism, LPF. Get with it. And the sooner we accept that everyone, at some point in their lives, has seen a titty and survived, the sooner we can all just grow tha f*ck up, amirite?!
We digress!
We reached out to the LPF earlier this morning, and after being pushed from one number to the next, to being put on hold for a solid 10 minutes, were told that any official statement would have to come from “The Chairman,” and he would be out of the office from 11am til 3pm. We’ll update if and when we ever hear back.
Hustlers certainly isn’t the first film to face the LPF’s ire, and it joins fellow banned flicks that include, but are not limited to, The Shawshank Redemption (cruelty, profanity and violence), South Park (both the film, and television show), Fight Club (a heavily edited DVD was eventually released), American Beauty (strong sexual content, including *gasp,* homosexuality), Black Swan (sex, again), that shitty-a** rom-com Friends with Benefits (too many “benefits”, Mila Kunis!), Ted (soz, Seth McFarlane), The Wolf of Wall Street (ironic, since we paid for it) and Babe (can’t have pigs being cute, k?).
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