A festival in Malaysia has been cancelled after British singer Matty Healy attacked the country’s anti-LGBT laws.
During the performance by his band The 1975 at the Good Vibes Festival, Healy addressed the audience in a profanity-laden speech before kissing bass player Ross MacDonald.
The band then ended their set, claiming officials ordered them off stage.
Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia and punishable by 20 years in prison.
The band were headlining the Good Vibes Festival in the capital Kuala Lumpur on Friday.
On Saturday the festival’s organisers said the remaining schedule for the festival had been cancelled following the controversy.
A statement said the decision came after an “immediate cancellation directive” from Malaysia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital, as part of its "unwavering stance against any parties that challenge, ridicule or contravene Malaysian laws.
In footage shared online, Healy could be seen telling the crowd that the band’s decision to appear in Malaysia had been a “mistake”.
“When we were booking shows, I wasn’t looking into it,” Healy said. "I don’t see the [expletive] point, right, I do not see the point of inviting the 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with.
“Unfortunately you don’t get a set of loads of uplifting songs because I’m [expletive] furious,” the frontman continued. “And that’s not fair on you, because you’re not representative of your government. Because you’re young people, and I’m sure a lot of you are gay and progressive and cool.”
Healy and MacDonald then kissed as the band played the song I Like America & America Likes Me.
Soon after - just 30 minutes into the set - Healy and the band walked off stage, with the singer telling the audience: “Alright, we just got banned from Kuala Lumpur, see you later.”
A source close to the 1975 confirmed the incident to the BBC.
“Matty has a long-time record of advocating for the LGBTQ+ community and the band wanted to stand up for their LGBTQ+ fans and community,” the source said on Friday night.
In an initial statement to local media on Friday, festival organisers said the band’s set was stopped due to “non-compliance with local performance guidelines”. But at that stage they said the festival would continue as scheduled for the rest of the weekend.
Malaysia’s Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil hit out at the band’s performance on Twitter, calling it “very disrespectful”. He added that he had contacted festival organisers and asked them to provide a full report.
Healy has previously used appearances on stage to highlight anti-LGBT laws.
In 2019 he invited a male fan on stage during a gig in Dubai to hug him, before sharing a quick kiss. The incident attracted criticism in the country, where homosexuality is punishable by 10 years imprisonment.
Posting on Twitter after the show, Healy said: “Thank you Dubai you were so amazing. I don’t think we’ll be allowed back due to my ‘behaviour’ but know that I love you and I wouldn’t have done anything differently given the chance again.”
Other performers at the Good Vibes Festival include the Strokes, Dermot Kennedy and Ty Dollar $ign.
Thanks to The 1975 for showing the world visiting Malaysia is like visiting Taliban Afghanistan. Bye bye tourist dollars.
Hey… he got bad rep during the time he dated Taylor Swift but this was pretty cool.
Props to him and being consistent about it.
Or he got caught saying some racist shit and then doubled down on it… not a cool guy.
“I don’t think it’s racist to say~”
mic cut, riff immediately starts, front man left angrily mouthing words to bandmates
What did he say?
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How about y’all go build houses and toilets for some uncontacted tribe and force them to change their lifestyles?
Kinda off topic but I was so surprised when I visited Colombia and found poor communities living in shacks on the beach. Their properties are worth 10s of millions of US dollars and they refuse to sell because they don’t want to give up the lifestyle and community that they have. Really puts into perspective how wrong we can be when we think we are helping people.
Same thing in Hawaii. Pigs running around, people living in shacks, on land worth 10s of millions. Not as much anymore, but its still there. I actually don’t agree with the person you replied to though, that’s more about human rights which should be universal and not a choice for how people live. Although I really like how both The Orville and Star Trek have explored this
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Edit: Lol pro-LGBTQ people be like: negative sentiment = downvote irregardless of current social affairs in the region. 🤷🏻♂️ Typical.
Read as “waah the mean westerners wont just let us deny people their fundamental rights waah”
cry more please
Every party should include ridicule of ridiculous Malaysian laws.
As an aside, here’s Doug Stanhope’s experience with insulting Thai royalty.
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Thanks for that. Stanhope is always amusing.
The act of opposite sexes kissing on stage in this country is still breaking the law.
The law contravenes basic human rights, so fuck the law.
“Somebody told me to do it, so I obeyed.”
If anyone was wondering how totalitarian come to power, this is how.
I’ve always had the opinion that anyone who can’t handle those being free to love who they want must have repressed feelings - I don’t see why that should apply any different depending on what country you live or whether you grew up in a society where the first repressed person made the original rule
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LOT OF ANGER IN HERE GUYS
What a legend.
Fuck the Malaysian government and fuck any of the cowardly Malaysians that dont stand up for the rights of the other people. Maybe if enough of their pointless entertainment gets cancelled then the apathetic masses will start to give a shit.
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What values? That LGBT+ people should be able to live their lives loving whoever they want without fear of repurcussions? How fucking ground breaking. They’re people same as us.
Absloute fuckwit
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“Westoids” didn’t invent homosexuality. Nor did colonialists. Plenty of societies had no problems with it, long before current religions condemned it. Plenty of cruel leaders have tried to exterminate gays from their populations but you can’t breed it out or kill it out, only oppress it temporarily. It is a fundamental part of being human and always has been.
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You’re the dumb kind of anti-imperialist that thinks it’s a binary system of good guys v. bad guys and also doesn’t believe in nuance.
Get educated. Stand up for human rights
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Also in this thread, a bunch of regressives that don’t have any regard for human rights.
it’s not a western value by any means. look at oceania countries, historically things were far more fluid, it was the westerners who went over and installed Catholic god squad values which forced everyone into little binary boxes. Boxes which are now being broken down as the west understand more about themselves.
Do a learn.
I understand his stance, but that’s not the way to protest. His actions were selfish—immediate repercussions include festival cancellation, adversely impacting vendors, attendees, and everyone else that might’ve benefited from having international musical acts in Malaysia.
But in the longer-term, he’s made it that much harder for other international artists to bring their music to a country that sorely needs it and brought more scrutiny upon the LGBTQ+ community (who struggle as it is).
If he wanted to protest the anti-LGBT laws, 1975 should’ve just not come to Malaysia. Poor form on his part.
If you don’t want to inconvenience anyone, then it’s not a protest.
Yea but who is he inconveniencing really? I guess Malaysians who have the means and interest to go to this kind of event must have relatively progressive views already, meanwhile it gives the government an easy opportunity to grandstand and score point with their base…
Like they said: Vendors, organizers, and everyone else that might’ve benefited from having international music acts in Malaysia.
And protests aren’t about scoring points. They are about flexing muscle, about reminding everyone that inaction has consequences.
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The issue is, social change should be driven by the locals, through civil organizations, grassroots movements, education, etc. If foreigners want to help, they can help local LGBT groups with support, know-how, expertise.
If, instead, you just go to a foreign country, tell people there how backwards and evil their society is, and demand they change it, at best you’ll be wasting your time, and if you’re high-profile enough, boost local reactionary sentiment.
The advance of LGBT rights in the west has been a long process. And other societies aren’t going to just magically internalize the results of it. They still need to walk the path. But, since it’s already been done once, they can hopefully do it faster.
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think most people can tell that majority of African and Asian countries have anti-LGBT law without needing “international attention”
Until I read this very article, I had no idea that being gay in Malaysia was punished by 20 years in prison.
In 2015, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that “Discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people is pervasive in Malaysia.”[6] Over the years, there have also been cases of violence against individuals in Malaysia based on their sexual orientation, and are tolerated by the state.[7][8] Conversion therapy is practiced regularly in the country and is openly promoted by politicians and religious leaders, with many coerced into doing so.[9] In 2023, the Global Trans Rights Index ranked Malaysia as the second worst country in the world in terms of transgender rights, only after Guyana.[10][11][12] With widespread anti-LGBT conversion practices, discrimination, and violence in the country supported by the state, Malaysia is one of the most homophobic countries in the world.
How is it not surprising? It’s a Muslim country. Just look at Dubai or Qatar.
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No it does not make more sense. People sleeping around less or more has nothing to do with whether it is fine to imprison and discriminate people for their sexual orientation.
That’s like saying it is okay to imprison muslims because people still go to church every sunday.
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Fuck your whataboutism. Of course anti LGBT policies are fucked in a lot of other places and that should be condemned on an international level. If you defend locking away people for loving who they want (in a consensual manner) you are an enemy of the free world and this issue definitely has nothing to with drunk people pissing in a pool or whatever.
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Interesting move to project my criticism about your whataboutism (can’t hear that word anymore at this point) back on myself when I was talking about the events reported in the article. THEN you’re talking about OTHER events unrelated to what is discussed in the article. If you try to avoid talking about the issues at hand and all you bring to the table is projection your opinion is trash.
This obsession of politicizing everything is disturbing.
Imprisoning people for who they are / who they love isn’t politics, it’s human rights. If you think someone saying that’s bad is imposing their views on you, that suggests your views run counter to that. I feel sorry for you if you’ve been raised in an envrionment that mandates hatred.
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Letting people fuck any other consenting adult they want is a fundamental human right that transcends politics. Every piece of shit backwards nation or person will come to understand sooner or later that this is a settled matter culturally. The sooner they get over this, the better for all of us.
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Are you saying that conversion therapy, extrajudicial killings, canings and decades of imprisonment are great things that should be happening in Malaysia?
It’s not cool how you equated supporting LGBT rights with tourists being shitty.
And yes, the white saviour complex is real, and I would love to hear more about the views of the Malaysian LGBT community on the incident.
But jumping from a critique to white saviourism to the crap you say about “homogenizing” and “imposing views” is also not cool.
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Culture is not some sacred thing that is to be blindly respected. Malaysia is not a monolith, its laws represent the interests of the current ruling elite. And if they’re criminalizing homosexuality, the laws are shit and don’t deserve respect, they deserve being abolished. There are people in Malaysia right now who want to do exactly that, who are organizing and fighting for that. Not because they are disrespectful to some unchanging, universally accepted, sacred Malaysian culture, but because it’s their lives, their country, their rights. So this is a struggle that should be lead and won by exactly these people, who are currently being oppressed by the Malaysian conservative elite.
I’m not Malaysian and I should not be telling Malaysian lgbt people and Malaysian progressives how to do this fight of course. But I’m squarely putting myself in their camp, and if they want to tell conservatives in their country to go fuck themselves, I’m more than happy to bring a megaphone.
Blaming him for the authorities cancelling the festival is absurd.
That is like blaming someone who calls the police on the neighbour beating his wive, when he beats her again for that.
You are absolutely right that this is no way to protest, it was done too hastily and impromptu. I mean that is just unprofessional.
He should have planned it more, maybe have a whole set of songs specifically addressing in the matter, banner drops, audio visuals etc. Hell, he could have gone all in with like a themed concert, with a unifying storyline, to show the tragedy and stupidity and cruelty of the laws.
Also he did not apparently coordinate with the local lgbt+ activists, to speak to specific issues affecting that community. He could have anchored the agitation on the actions of specific officials, named and shamed them for their cruelty. Or he could have brought attention to specific cases, specific people being persecuted, make their case known to a wider audience.
All in all, you are correct, it does come off as a bit selfish and it is not the way to protest. Poor form indeed.
/S
You really had me there.
That’s kind of a bad take I think. Protests should have impact. It’s now in the world media and bringing attention to stupid bigoted laws. If they don’t want it to happen again they should stop being bigoted asshats. Easier said than done if course, but change has to start somewhere.
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