If Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain released in China in 2025, the queer storyline would perhaps be transformed into a heterosexual one with deft use of AI — this observation comes in the wake of China using artificial intelligence to alter a same-sex wedding scene in a recent Australian movie.
The version of Michael Shanks’ latest horror film Together that released in China replaced a man’s face with that of a woman at the altar in a wedding scene to make a gay marriage appear heterosexual.
Together, starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie, revolves around Tom and Millie, who move to the countryside and find themselves encountering a mysterious force that causes horrific changes to their bodies.
In the original movie, the cave where the couple gets stranded had a waterbody with magical powers. Drinking from it led to the fusion of the two bodies. This place was originally a church that belonged to a cult, which began the tradition of fusion. And it all started with a same-sex marriage.
The gay couple getting married at the altar stands as a crucial element of the film and its mystery. Moviegoers in China only noticed the change when side-by-side screengrabs of the scene began circulating on social media.
Users on Douban, a Chinese site similar to IMDb, were quick to diss the Chinese censors. “We can re-release Brokeback Mountain, God's Own Country, Lan Yu, and Happy Together, and use AI to remake them into heterosexual romances with just one click. That’s faster and better than taking Chinese medicine. We're so beautiful here. We have hope,” wrote a Chinese movie-goer.
When Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain came out in 2005, it set a benchmark for same-sex romance on the big screen. The tragic romance between the two American cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) received widespread acclaim, winning three Oscars and reshaping conversations around queer love stories in mainstream cinema.
But one country where audiences never got to see it in theatres was China, where the film was banned. Brokeback Mountain had its share of controversies, leading to the sexuality of the male characters under the public knife and its loss to Crash for Best Picture at the Oscars.
The irony is, if the same AI manipulation is applied to the Ang Lee film, it would defy the very idea that it tried to challenge in the early 2000s. What makes Brokeback Mountain so powerful and relevant even in today’s world is how social structures rob the two men of the life they could have had together.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in 'Brokeback Mountain' IMDb
This is not the first time China’s film regulators have brought forth such a case of censorship. In the past, the cinema governing body has removed entire queer scenes — from references of Freddie Mercury’s sexuality in Bohemian Rhapsody to Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald recalling their previous romantic relationship in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Several streaming platforms, too, cut out lesbian characters or sexual references in shows like Friends.
Homosexuality is decriminalised in China, but same-sex relationships are still not legally recognised. Advocacy groups and content creators representing the LGBTQ+ community continue to face restrictions in the country.