Malaysia is likely to ban the new Ben Stiller comedy Zoolander since it concerns a plot to assassinate the country’s prime minister after plans are revealed to shut down the sweatshops serving the American fashion industry, the BBC reported Friday.
A report from Kuala Lumpur said that the Home Affairs Ministry Film Censorship Board has called the film “definitely unsuitable,” and Malaysia’s leading theater chain, Golden Screen Cinemas, said they had not picked up rights to the film. On Friday several critics questioned why the comedy used the name of an actual country instead of a fictional one. And Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times: “If the Malaysians made a comedy about the assassination of the president of the United States because of his support of slavery, it would seem approximately as funny to us as Zoolander would seem to them.”
