China Has Censored The Lesbian Storyline (And Chandler And Joey’s New Year’s Eve Kiss) On ‘Friends’

Last month, it was reported that the version of Fight Club, the rabidly anti-capitalist Brad Pitt starrer from 1999, streaming in China had a bafflingly censored ending. No longer did the buildings get blown up in a terrorist strike; instead, our newly cured hero (Edward Norton) and his crew got rounded up by the cops and jailed. The furor (plus some requisite Ted Cruz dunking) was such that the nation un-censored the ending, restoring it to its original glory. But now we’re learning that China’s censors have struck again.

As per Entertainment Weekly, they’ve now come for Friends. Censors have extensively (and, let’s presume, awkwardly) excised any and all references to Carol (Anita Barone) leaving Ross (David Schwimmer) for another woman, namely Jessica Hecht’s Susan. It’s not a major subplot, but nor is it minor. Carol leaving Ross is a big part of the pilot, upending his domestic bliss and thrusting him back into mid-‘90s New York City single life — and into the arms of five buds, one of whom is his sister.

And yet all bits featuring or alluding to Carol leaving him for another woman have been removed, as have all her scenes in the second episode. It’s unclear how extensive the censors were. Carol and Susan pop up repeatedly, in large party because when Carol leaves Ross, she’s pregnant with his child, which she delivers, with Ross and Susan as sometimes dueling co-parents. Eventually Carol and Susan wed (by Newt Gingrich’s half-sister, no less) in American prime time television’s first gay wedding, in an episode called, of course, “The One with the Lesbian Wedding.”

Carol and Susan weren’t the only ones surgically removed from Friends. A scene where Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) kiss on New Year’s Eve was omitted, while a line where female characters discuss “multiple orgasms” was changed in the subtitles to “women have multiple gossips.”