This reflection should be just one paragraph long (worth only 5 points) and is due this Wednesday at 10 p.m.
The following information comes from Wikipedia
Because only 20 imported films are granted permission to screen each year in China, only blockbuster or widely known films are listed. It may be noted that some films which do not arrive in theatres nonetheless become available as pirated DVD editions.
- 1960: Ben-Hur, for containing "propaganda of superstitious beliefs, namely Christianity." (Never given permission to screen)
- 1994: To Live, for its satirical portrayal of various policies and campaigns of the Communist government. (Never given permission to screen)
- 1997: Kundun - regarded as Tibetan nationalism (Banned outright along with director Martin Scorsese)
- 1997: Seven Years in Tibet, for its view on a free Tibet. (Banned outright along with actors Brad Pitt and David Thewlis for life)
- 2000: Devils on the Doorstep, for its controversial portrayal of the Japanese Occupation of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War despite being a Chinese-made film (Never given permission to screen)
- 2005: Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, for its unflattering depictions of Chinese society (Never given permission to screen)
- 2006: Memoirs of a Geisha, over concerns it could rouse anti-Japanese sentiment. (Banned outright)
- 2006: Brokeback Mountain, for its depictions of homosexuality. (Never given permission to screen)
- 2006: Scorsese's The Departed, for suggesting that the government intends to use nuclear weapons on Taiwan, which is a very sensitive political issue. (Never given permission to screen)
- 2006: Over the Hedge was banned due to a difficulty with the DVD copy and some killing scenes to the animals. (Never given permission to screen)
- 2006: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, for its depiction of incest. (Never given permission to screen)
22 comments:
Scott Hamilton
The film Borat has been banned from China because of it’s claimed incest. I tend to notice how all movies usually end on a good note, or have a happy ending. Borat, I think shouldn’t have been banned because of just the incest. They only claim to find the incest of the movie bad. Incest however, can be bad to the youth of the country because they are still young, and learning about those kind of things should be prolonged until they reach late middle school. When you see the other parts of the movie, you actually see there is a good side to the movie besides the incest. Borat went to America, to hopefully make a film, but he traveled away from his home because of that, and there were violent people. So he went to America, hoping to find a better life, and he finds somebody who is truly inspirational to him. So he is basically chasing his dreams of love.
China's history of cinema censorship is an interesting idea to most Americans because of our love for films. China on the other hand, with their fragile veiws on each other and the world after, due to the Communist party being in control of the country. Looking at movies like Mulan , which was a huge hit here in America but was banned in China for promoting "women's independence and free thinking", makes you think about how China still has conflicts with change in their society.
China bans and censors all of these films because of their massive paranoia. We Americans all have our own ideas, influences, etc. But the Chinese on the other hand are all under one influence. They all think that their one ruler is the greatest and only ruler for them and that everything else is weak and insignificant. And if something were to change that way of thinking, then the entire government would fall apart.
-Kyle Sugii
China banned the film we watched To Live for its satirical portrayal of various policies and campaigns of the Communist government. The Chinese government may have banned the movie because it seems sort of sarcastic and almost funny in parts that have to do with the Communist government. For example, they have a scene where they sing a song about Chairman Mao and some of the lyrics that stated how much they loved him were a little bit unbelievable. China may not have liked this portrayal of their Cultural Revolution and they may not have wanted the views of the movie to influence society’s view of it, so the movie was therefore never given permission to screen.
The only reason I can think of why this movie may have been banned in China is because of its sort of negative outlook on China. This movie clearly shows the corruption occurring in the government at that time. It also shows the internal fighting in China was heavily hurting and effecting the Chinese people’s lives. The movie shows the harshness of the communists to the land lord who rebelled. I think the Chinese government forbids these specific movies because various parts put different ideas into the heads of their people. These ideas probably differ and go against what they teach in China. The Chinese government does not want the people to believe that it is acceptable anywhere to do things differently than they are taught in China.
-patrice
Scott Hamilton
In the film, “To live”, was an intense movie to me. How that one guy went through hell and back from gambling. He never learned his lesson, and lost a lot of what was his, including his own. He learned his lesson, but had to take each step by step to get back to the top again where a normal life could be set. What I found controversial about the film being banned was the fact that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Despite the fact that there was blood shed, a lot of communists and very depressing moments should not have banned the film. These moments is what exactly brought the Chinese together as a country. Fighting through these wars brought the unity.
I think the movie was banned because it showed people suffering and having a hard life under the government's rule. The Chinese government probably wanted everyone to think bad things wouldn't happen under their rule, but this movie showed many bad things happening, indirectly on the government's fault. For example, the daughter was mute because of a fever that she didn't get enough medical help for, and that makes the government look bad, becuase they weren't caring for their people, especially the children. Also, when the son died, the guy who hit the wall that fell on him worked for the government. When the guy from the government told the main character guy he had to burn his puppets, the movie made it seem really sad because the puppets were really precious to him. This makes the audience blame the government and think what they're doing is bad, because they see it from the main character's point of view. The Chinese government probably banned it because they didn't want to look bad.
Many parts of this film were controversial, or would at least be considered so by the Chinese government. One thing I noticed in the film was when the shadow puppets were going to be taken apart for the metal, but Fugui and Jiazhen manage to convince Mr. Niu, who is in charge of collecting, that they should keep the puppets. To me, that shows the regular average person being able to outsmart the government, which is definitely frowned upon. Another instance where the film appears to be mocking the government is when Fengxia becomes mute, after the fever. This seems like a way of showing that Chinese women had a very small voice in society. Especially in one line, where Jiazhen says something about poor Fengxia not being able to stand up for herself to bullies – that is exactly what happened to Chinese women, except on a larger scale. There were a few other instances, but I think these two were one of the more important ones., because they address two main issues in the history of China.
-Emily
I think that “To Live” was banned from being shown was because the people of China didn’t really want to expose their culture at it’s worst. Gambling, war, bloodshed, death, and The Cultural Revolution, the 1900’s was not exactly the best compared to it’s long history. It’s like sweeping dust underneath the rug, you know it’s there but you don’t want to tell everyone. Supposedly during The Cultural Revolution, there was supposed to be equality and fairness but in “To Live” it shows that life wasn’t fair even when it is promised. This movie didn’t show about the rich who supported Chairman Mao, which is normally what is portrayed in Cultural Revolution movies; this movie showed the underclass that worked hard just to survive and get food every day. There are definitely more underclass or middle-class people than there are rich. This is how majority of the population lived under Chairman Mao’s ruling. I don’t think they allowed this because they didn’t want to embarrass China further by adding on that not only the rich suffered but the poor suffered more and that equality was never established.
When viewing this film, "To Live," we as Americans may not view the things China would find offensive. In America, the only type of movies that are banned, is well nothing really. We are a lot more lenient in terms of material allowed in films. The Chinese government probably viewed this film as an attack on their government due to the fact that in this film there are lots of times where the actors talk bad about the government, or you get a sense that this is the way the government does things. For instance, when the man comes to marry the daughter, the parents come home to see a portrait of the Chairman. This shows that there is much worship going on in this town, and while that may not be the case in real life, we can only speculate. The government probably thinks that the only way to stop the stereotypes is to ban it. Maybe some of the things depicted in the film are true and the government is trying to cover it up. If that is the case, the government is looking towards a more corrupt future.
The controversial side of the film "To Live" was actually quite subtle and didn’t make a big impact on me until after I realized that everything is a metaphor. The fact the Fugui’s son is supposed to represent the new democratic and un-communist China was part of it. The boy ends up dying at a young age and was somewhat of a rascal and stubborn kid. The same could be said for democracy in China. The idea of democracy never really goes away, but it is snuffed out very quickly once it becomes a threat. Communism, in this way, is still much a part of China’s government today. The fact that this movie challenges that ideal is what leads me to believe it was censored. Even though the movie makes this fact known in such a subtle way, it gives it enough of a reason in China’s eyes to ban it from theaters.
Ryan
I found a lot images in the movie that we watched on Wednesday that could be controversial and set a bad example for the people of China. The most controversial part of the movie, I thought was the scene where the father hit his son with his shoe in public. First of all, it is absolutely wrong to hit a child, and to do it in public just adds insult to injury. This scene alone justifies the movie being banned. But if that scene were not enough, the scene immediately following this scene, the son, with the help of his mother, decided to play a joke on his father by adding vinegar and chili to his father’s tea. The boy then served the tainted tea to his father when his father was performing in front of village members. This joke showed a completed lack of respect for the head of the house, which also justifies the ban of this movie. Just as a side note, I found it slightly disturbing how much the people of China in the movie worshiped Chairman Mao.
After viewing today’s film in class, I considered the list of films that China has banned. China, if you did not know has a long history of censoring any film that would change the way that they look at society. Only 20 imported films are granted permission to screen each year in China, although many are available as pirated DVDs. One of the movies is called Ben-Hur and was banned because it told the story of Christ. The Chinese people were not allowed to watch it because they thought that it included very strange beliefs and could result in the Chinese viewing the world differently. The movie that we watched today in class was a very moving film of a family that lived in China during the communist take over in 1949 and continues even into the 60’s and 70’s. It portrays the stereotypical women of China through the husband of Jiazhen and how she broke that. It also shows the way the Communists took over China and the gruesome things that they did to the soldiers in China. The movie portrays a lot of what the Chinese valued and what was considered high class and what was considered low class. The film could be considered controversial because it shows some of the aspects that the Communists maybe didn’t want the world to see. Also, it shows how the Chinese system could lead to you becoming a poor working class and what the troubles are. The family in the movie loose everything through gambling and that could leave the people in China not wanting to gamble or spend money freely. These are all reasons why the movie could be justified as being banned throughout China. This idea of banning movies is very interesting, considering that Americans are movie lovers. It gives the impression that China is socially unsecure and is very scared that the Chinese people will revolt when they see what other countries are allowed to do.
I think the film "To Live" that we watched today was banned from China because it is sort of puts down China in many ways. Some of these ways include the harsh government and the fact that the family suffers through a long part of their lives all because of the man gambling. It shows how the family had to give up everything that they owned and even later on when the couple had the jobs of serving water, they still didn't have much and this sends me the message that if you mess up once in China, you can mess up the rest of your life. Also, that once you have messed up, its really hard to get back on track because the government doesnt really help out these people struggling.
Georgia Kelliher
After watching today’s movie and looking over the movies that have been banned so far, it seems that China is trying to control its citizens and keep them from seeing anything that they deemed inappropriate. Movies such as Over the Hedge, is a harmless cartoon animated video that has no reason to not be allowed to screen. They claim it has animal killing scenes but they animals aren’t even real nor are they life-like. In today’s film it had scenes where the young son and wife disrespected the father and this could be one of the reasons for keeping the movie from being viewed. There was also some violence but hardly enough to ban a video for.
The film To Live showed its background and me a lot about Chinese history. This film was very realistic in the way China use to be. This film showed the communist views that China had. I thought the film showed how bad the Chinese government treated China with communism. The China Government has not let this movie be played in China because it is banned. I believe that it’s wrong to hide the fact that Chinese Communism treated its citizens the way they did in the movie. It is good that this movie was played in the rest of the world because we can learn a lot about the culture in China.
There were a number of reasons why the movie, "To Live", was banned in China. This movie showed the negative side of the government with corruption and showing people suffering, like when Fugui's family had to give up iron pots and such. Another couple of things were how some of the character's actions that wouldn't have been tolerated in China. For example, when the son put chili sauce and vinegar into the tea for his father shows disrespect for elders. Also, when the child poured his noodles with chili sauce on top of one of the boys would be unacceptable. This action would give bring dishonor and shame to his family. The mom Jaizhen doesn't even punish her children at all when they do wrong. Which isn't like Chinese society because strict rules and punishments are what make their children learn right from wrong. Overall, this movie showed the bad side of communism and bad influences for the common people.
-kayla
I think that the film we watched today was banned because of the negative portrayal of Chinese government that was shown throughout the movie. It is set during the time of Chairman Mao which is said to be China's most embarrassing time and they may not want this portrayal to be shown eternally. Some of the characters also question the government and this is probably seen as something that should not be shown to the citizens of China. It was a realistic look at how things were and it was a very blunt view but I could see how one could find it too upfront. Based on this list, I think the Chinese government is trying to keep the citizens far too sheltered just to ensure they don't step out of line.
-Kanoe
I think most of these movies, not just one in particular, were banned of weren't given permission to screen because of China's thoughts that they are the Middle Kingdom. I know they don't think they're superior to other nations anymore but by not allowing certain movies to show in their country they are keeping the Chinese people sheltered from the outside world. By sheltering the people of China from certain movies they're putting up a wall just like they used to in ancient China. They used walls, just like the Great Wall, to keep their enemies out of the Middle Kingdom. They're protecting their people from images that plants doubt about their culture or government. By censoring movies their still keeping the Chinese people in the Middle Kingdom.
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