Tag: Censorship

Kids movie ‘Abominable’ removed from Vietnam

On By William StroughIn Censorship, China, Content Restriction1 Comment
Image result for abominable map
The “nine-dash line” that caused Vietnam to remove Abominable from theaters

As we have recently seen, nothing is spared from Chinese international politics not even a cute animated movie. The Dreamworks animated film “Abominable” has recently been pulled from all Vietnam theaters for showing a chinese map that contains the “nine-dash line” The movie which follows a chinese girl who befriends a yeti has no intention of starting a political outrage but yet here we are. The nine-dash line in question is a hotly contested border created by the Chinese that includes a lot of territory that the governments of Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei all claim they have. 

Since China has made the claim in 1940 and created the nine-dash line, they have defended the territory their extensively. They have created islands and added infrastructure on those island so people can live there. They also have their navy defend the waters from other governments.This comes during a very problematic time for China or more importantly human rights, with China erasing any content they deem insults the government. South Park released was completely erased from the Chinese internet after they insulted China’s censorship laws. China has a 8.87 billion dollar movie market and Hollywood and other companies want to get a piece of the market but are sacrificing their rights or at least bending to Chinese censorship. The inclusion of the nine-dash line in the movie was there to appease the Chinese government but failed to respect the other countries involved in this dispute. It is scary to see so many companies and corporations give up their rights to appease a foriegn government based solely on money but I do not think this is going to stop and moving forward I think China is going to start threatening more companies into this censorship. Hopefully more media companies like the creators of South Park take a stand against this kind of censorship because if movies like Abominable can not escape the limelight any movie or show is a target for censorship.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/world/asia/abominable-vietnam-china-map.html

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China bans all mentions of ‘South Park’

On By William StroughIn CensorshipLeave a comment
Last week’s episode of “South Park,” titled “Band in China,” mocked Chinese censors and American businesses that bend over backwards to appease them.
Randy Marsh with Mickey mouse wearing an “I heart the president of China” shirt

This past episode of South Park titled “Band in China” has found itself at the heart of a huge Chinese censorship scandal. The episode released this week on Comedy Central poked fun at China’s extremely heavy censorship laws and how American Companies bend over backwards to meet China’s criteria so they can show their content to the multi-billion dollar market China has. 

The Chinese government has since removed all mentions of South Park from the Chinese internet. Search inquiries for South Park come back saying, “According to the relevant law and regulation, this section is temporarily not open.” These messages appear on all Chinese social media and video websites. South Park fired back at the censorship by releasing a fake apology mocking the Chinese President, calling him Winne the Pooh. The apology also calls out American companies for confirming to these strict laws to make more money. Which calls into question whether companies would be willing to give up their freedom of speech to show their work in China.  South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone call out Disney and the NBA for giving up their right to free speech just to make some extra money in the Chinese market. At one part of the episode we see the cast of South Park taking a plane to China with the Avengers and Star Wars characters as a way of saying DIsney gave in to Chinese censorship in exchange for their market. 

Trey Parker and Matt Stone bring up a good point about not conforming to censorship in any part. Part of the charm and reason why South Park has lasted 23 seasons is because they do not change their work to make people happy. They use their platform as a way of bringing attention to bigger issues like Chinese censorship because they have every right to.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/arts/television/south-park-china.html