Gay Banner Deleted from Pride's U.S. DVD Cover

2014's Pride tells the story of gay and lesbian activists supporting striking miners the 1980s and their joining of forces to keep the pits open. The film was released last year to great acclaim in the UK and after a limited release Stateside, has even received a Golden Globe nomination.

Despite all the positive press surrounding the movie, the film's American distributors saw fit to remove references to "gay and lesbian activists" and to omit a banner reading "Lesbians & Gays Support The Miners" from the back cover of the DVD.

Pink News reports the wording on the DVD's back covers--which originally featured a line reading "a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists"--now says "a group of London-based activists."

CBS Films released the DVD alongside Sony Pictures.

Representatives from CBS Films told Pink News "We're looking into this now and our page for the film remains the same as it has for months." The CBS Films page has the original wording-- "gay and lesbian activists"--and shows the banner.

The BBC reports that Ben Roberts, the director of the BFI film fund, which backed the movie, stated, "I'm not surprised that the U.S. distributors have taken a decision to sell more copies by watering down the gay content. I'm not defending it, it's wrong and outmoded, but I'm not surprised.

"It's an unfortunate commercial reality both here and in the US that distributors have to deal with and consider in getting films onto the shop shelf. LGBT material is largely marginalised outside of rare hits like Brokeback Mountain."

See a copy of the bowdlerized cover below.