Censors versus zombies. What a Russian streaming service cut from The Walking Dead universe

This spring, one of the major hits of the 2010s, The Walking Dead, returned to Russian streaming services. Mediazona studied how the streaming service Amediateka, which distributes the franchise, handled the original series, its numerous spin-offs, and related documentary projects.We found that more than two and a half hours of content had been censored across The Walking Dead universe, with cuts affecting scenes related to LGBT characters, abortion, BDSM, and the Black Lives Matter movement.WARNING! This article contains spoilers. Proceed with caution if you haven’t watched these series.

The Walking Dead: gay couples, abortion, and crude jokes

From 2010 to 2022, a total of 117 episodes of The Walking Dead were released. In the Russian version, we found 46 minutes of censorship across the entire series.

More than 80% of these cuts affect plotlines and scenes related to LGBT topics. Since the end of 2023, the non-existent “international LGBT social movement” has been banned in Russia as an “extremist organisation” and fines for “LGBT propaganda” became commonplace. However, chronologically, the first edits in the series were made due to content conflicting with “traditional values”.

Russian courts regularly issue fines for thousands of dollars to streaming services (Kinopoisk, Okko and Wink) and TV channels (Channel 1, TV-Center) for “LGBT propaganda” or for showing scenes with LGBT characters in films and TV series without an “18+” label.

The first season of the series, in which the zombie apocalypse merely begins and people are just learning to live in a new world, remained intact.

Censorship begins in the second season: Lori Grimes, wife of the series’ main character, Deputy Rick Grimes, discovers that she is pregnant. The baby’s father is most likely another police officer, Shane Walsh, Rick’s partner and best friend, to whom Lori turned when she believed her husband had been killed by zombies.

Lori is unsure if she is ready to bring a child into this cruel new world and does not want to tell Rick about the situation with Shane. She seriously considers an abortion. However, the following plot points had been removed from the Russian version of The Walking Dead:

• Lori obtaining several packs of “morning-after” pills;
• discussions of a possible abortion (and even the phrase “That’s a hell of a choice”);
• Lori taking the pills, then changing her mind and vomiting them up;
• Rick finding the empty pill boxes;
• Rick arguing with Lori after his discovery (most of Lori’s arguments against keeping the baby were cut).

While examining censorship in The Walking Dead, we noticed that episodes 9 and 14 of season 4, as well as episodes 6, 8, 14, and 16 of season 8, are significantly shorter on Amediateka than on the AMC website. In total, this difference amounts to 17 minutes.

However, this is not due to censorship: Amediateka used a slightly shorter TV version of the series, which was translated into Russian by Fox.

This difference is not taken into account in our censorship calculations.

The next layer of censorship relates to the appearance of the first LGBT character in the series, former police academy student Tara Chambler. Her flirtation and tender but short-lived relationship with former U.S. Army reservist Aisha, shown in episode 7 of season 4, was cut for Russian audiences.

In seasons 6 through 8, many scenes depicting Tara’s relationship with medic Denise Cloyd are also cut.

But even more screentime was cut in the case of another LGBT couple: Aaron, a recruiter for the Alexandria survivor settlement, and his boyfriend and assistant, Eric. In seasons 5, 7, and 8, a total of 14 minutes focusing on their relationship was removed.

One more couple whose relationship was affected by cuts is former waitress and leader of a small group of survivors, Magna, and her girlfriend, former lawyer Yumiko. In seasons 9-11, more than 11 minutes depicting their romance were cut.

Amediateka’s censors demonstrated remarkable vigilance; they removed not only plotlines involving LGBT characters but also associated symbols. For example, in the 17th episode of season 10, frames (about 50 seconds in total) showing a trans flag on one heroine’s T-shirt were carefully removed. In some instances, the frames were cropped to ensure the flag was not visible.

Sometimes the censors’ vigilance turns out to be excessive. For example, all the scenes where Kelly and Connie, two survivors from Magna’s group, take care of each other were cut from seasons 9-11. But these scenes had no sexual pretext or subtext: Kelly and Connie are sisters.

Another layer of censorship worth mentioning concerns crude and homophobic jokes of Negan Smith, a character that appears in season 5 of The Walking Dead.

Smith, a former used car salesman from Virginia, leads of one of the most brutal and effective squads of survivors, the Saviors. He repeatedly jokes about women “with balls” and men with “dicks in their mouths.” But Russian users of legal streaming services are deprived of his witticisms.

That said, at least one of his jokes appears to have fallen victim to an inaccurate translation. Back with his gang, Negan gives a speech in which he says he needs a shower, a sandwich, and—in the official Russian version which aired on cable TV—“and a good massage for the decrepit lion that Frankie learned in San Francisco. He’ll give me one for once.”

In the English original, the phrase goes like this: “Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I am in deep need of a sandwich, a shower, and some of that wilting lion orchid deep-tissue shit that Frankie learned in San Francisco. Hell, I might do it all at once.”

Frankie is one of Negan’s wives. Apparently the censors were working with the official Fox translation, in which she was turned into a man. The mention of “decrepit lion” and San Francisco reinforce the ambiguity of the fragment; all of this together probably led to the scene being cut.

Other notable examples of censorship in The Walking Dead include:

• an attempted rape of young Carl Grimes by one of the members of the gang feuding with his father Rick (episode 16 of season four);
• voyeurism of a character named Eugene;
• a story about a farm where a group of survivors make opiates from poppies (season 11, episode 11).

Spin-offs: drag shows, BDSM, and polyamory

The Walking Dead has become one of the most successful franchises of the last 15 years, and the series has spawned many spin-offs, sequels, and prequels. Most of these were released after the full-scale war with Ukraine began, with the most recent series available on Amediateka and premiering at the same time with the rest of the world.

We found no censorship in The Walking Dead Stories (2022) and The Walking Dead: Survivor (2024).

Less than a minute was cut from the first, and so far only, season of another spin-off, The Walking Dead: Dead City (2023). This includes a very brief sequence with a man standing in a defiant pose near the entrance to a club, as well as an emotional and heartfelt correspondence between two brothers that censors likely misinterpreted (similar to the case of sisters Kelly and Connie).

We found slightly more censorship in The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (2023). Over three minutes were cut from the two seasons of the show and, without exception, all affected scenes are LGBT-related. One of the main characters from the original series, Daryl, finds himself in France. The most heavily censored scenes were a burlesque show (season 1, episode 3) and an LGBT-BDSM performance (season 2, episode 5) in the survivor communes of the Old World.

Amediateka’s catalogue also contains two documentary series related to The Walking Dead universe.

One of them is Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics, hosted by the creator of the zombie saga. A total of 43 minutes has been censored from it.

Amediateka removed one of the six episodes of the show completely: it tells the story of psychologist and feminist theorist William Marston, who created Wonder Woman for DC Comics in the 1940s. She was based on Marston’s wife, Elizabeth, and their polyamorous partner, Olivia.

In addition, half a minute was cut from the episode about Superman. This segment concerned one of the artists who started his career drawing BDSM scenes in erotic comics (with work from that period shown on screen). Another 30-second segment featuring the comic book Sex Criminals was cut from the episode about the creation of Image Comics, an independent competitor to Marvel and DC.

The second documentary series is Ride with Norman Reedus, in which the actor who portrays Daryl Dixon travels across America on a motorcycle. 50 minutes were cut out of this series, including the entire episode 6 of season 3: it is devoted to a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, and one of its characters is musician Marilyn Manson.

Mediazona was unable to determine the exact reasoning behind the censors’ decision to remove this episode from Amediateka’s catalogue. Perhaps Manson’s colourful personality played a role, but it could not have been the sole reason. As we have previously reported, a fragment featuring Manson was also cut from The New Pope, but only the part where he discussed drugs.

Moreover, a long scene was cut from an episode about New York (season 2, episode 6), in which Norman Reedus and his friend, chef Mario Batali, taste pizza at a Greenwich Village eatery. They briefly mention the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the rambunctious lifestyles of actors Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, and artist Andy Warhol. These are all segments of only a few seconds each; it is unclear why the Amediateka censors decided to cut the entire five-minute pizza place scene.

In other episodes, we found nine further instances where small fragments, ranging from 4 to 11 seconds, were cut. These included references to LGBT symbols, jokes about Viagra, and mentions of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Editor: Maxim Litavrin