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China Bans Horror Movies
KublaiKhan writes "According to an article on Reuters, the Chinese censors have decided that horror movies are verboten. 'Offending content included "wronged spirits and violent ghosts, monsters, demons, and other inhuman portrayals, strange and supernatural storytelling for the sole purpose of seeking terror and horror," the administration said. This is apparently a sort of Chinese version of the Jack Thompson effect, as the "mental health of adolescents" is cited as one of the reasons for the ban. Presumably, this ban — much like the spitting ban — is intended to improve China's image in the rest of the world before the Olympics open; but given the Streisand effect, would this ban perhaps unintentionally spur a surge of horror movie popularity in China?" Blizzard has had trouble with skeletons in World of Warcraft , and I imagine this decision stems from similar objections.
I'm now coincidentally watching (and recording) 'The Host', an Asian-made monster/horror story on pay TV. It's quite good, actually, with all the usual undertones. Then again, I like Godzilla movies.
And maybe I'm suffering from old fartism, but some of the more shlocky stuff lately seems to be, uh, more of the same gore for gore's sake.
At least you can still get dog in your stir fry :)
Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
I guess "An Inconvenient Truth" can't be aired in Chine now... This is only half a joke.
And just how exactly is it supposed to improve their image with the rest of the world to look like a bunch of censorious tyrants?
Figured it came from Southpark or something but it didn't...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
The Carnival is comming to town, so you change the town to suit the Carnival?
If anything (provided this is only because of the Olympics) they should be promoting it, most other countries appreciate asian horror... did Greece remove all their statues because of homophobic people?
If this is irrelivant to the Olympics... then, uh... WHAT THE FUCK?... is about as good of a response as I can muster... I suppose next they'l be burning the history books? (again)... too much violence there...
How about sci-fi horrors? Instead of ghost and spirits with supernatural powers, we have gray goo rampaging cities, must as well throw in some aliens as well.
Seriously, how do you classify horror?
Mao Zedong killed a hell of a lot of people, mostly with his idiotic policies that produced a famine. Who in that country needs horror movies when their grandparents were swapping babies to eat ?
Searching for "Horror" on http://www.google.cn/ still works... (But I am inside the United States):
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&ie=GB2312&q=Horror
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&ie=UTF-8&q=Horror
-I am sure the Chinese will "kindly suggest" to Google.cn that they "voluntarily redirect" all search request traffic on these topics to the friendly 'Golden Shield Great Firewall of China'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Shield_Project
(Imperfect as the US might be, I truly love having a Bill of Rights!)
does this include horror movies in ascii?
...in the supposedly democratic bastion of Hong Kong for disseminating explicit photos of numerous high-profile local celebrities including possibly sensitive implication of Jackie Chan in aforementioned explicit photos who happens to be torch bearer in the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
"And maybe I'm suffering from old fartism, but some of the more shlocky stuff lately seems to be, uh, more of the same gore for gore's sake."
Al Gore:The movie and it's Sequal Al Gore gets gored.
Cute and cuddly, boys. Cute and cuddly.
How long will the Chinese people tolerate this stuff? They have to meet with their Western colleagues, and explain that they may not be allowed to visit a certain internet sight, see a certain movie, etc. because their government doesn't think they can handle it.
It's embarrassing.
expandfairuse.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Is china able to get ALL of china to clear their households of this, but not able to stop illegal copying, stealing of secrets, theft of business, etc? Hmmmmmm.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
These guys are the next world power. America: you had a good run, but in the end it was more about SUVs and extra fries than liberty and democracy. Just think, we'll all be choking on this "harmony" and "what's good for society is good for you" shit for the next 100 years. Not something to look forward to.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Strangely enough movie revenues to Hollywood from China seem unaffected.
Who needs horror movies in China to corrupt their youth when all of the love stories end in suicide pacts?
Based on this, I can't help but wonder what a Korean horror movie (The Host) and a Japanese horror movie (Godzilla) have to do with the Chinese government banning horror movies...
What makes this a coincidence?
It just seems like saying, "Oh? You are from the United States? Coincidentally, there's a special about Costa Rican rain forests on TV right now."
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
The appropriate movie terminology for what China is doing about the history of the Mao era would be "director's cut".
You can dilute and diverge the argument over more trivial cultural differences (nice try), but the topic is about censorship and more generally human rights, and not more specifically (as you imply) about a cultures spitting habits.
Dragons count as monsters do they not?
They wont allow horror-movies, but they'll allow this : http://friendsoftibet.org/main/execution.html
By analogy americans should arrest Jack Thompson on pre-crime suspicion.
Their movie industry will be totally lost for plot lines...
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=chinese+ghost+stories
This is obviously a terrible thing, but of course this is China after all; not exactly a shining beacon of freedom and democracy. Not something we would want to model ourselves after. Banning an entire genre of movies is an incredible and bold act by a government, but in my opinion the thunder is stolen by the more egregious human rights violations in that country that are also government policy.
As a a movie watcher, fan of the genre (My all time favorite movie is Alien), and fellow human being who enjoys being able to watch, read, and listen to whatever I damn well please, this is quite offensive. But banning movies? With that they're just piling it on now--and it was a big pile already. China sucked before this, it just sucks a little bit more after. This is a symptom of a larger disease, so I hope I don't see any groups spring up to fight for the rights of Chinese horror movie fans. How about you try and stop them from executing political dissidents first, and work from there. Not being able to legally buy scary movies seems a tad frivolous by comparison when there are people getting a bullet in the head for speaking out against the party. This is the same country that has a "Great Firewall" (that doesn't work) so does it surprise us that they'd have the audacity and arrogance to think this is a good idea and one that can actually be effective?
...that does improve one's image to westerners. Banning horror movies? That just wakes people up to the fact that they are still an authoritarian government, for any olympic visitors that were already unaware. Strange tactic, even if one sets aside how bad the act itself is.
It would be interesting to hear your non recursive definition of a 'dictator', as I wonder how many other leaders may fall into this category.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It has been shown that watching porn will make people more likely to allow another person to be hurt. Basically if you shown porn to a group and then run the Milgram experiment the subjects are even less likely to step in while another person is getting shocked. So if watch porn is actually damaging to our ability to be decent to those around us how can horror be better? If something makes causes widespread brain damage in society do we as a society want to allow it? We have "freedom of speach" but we don't have freedom of drugs because "its bad for us." Dictatorship allows for unpopular decisions to be made. A enlightened democracy might archive the same end but remember most Americans are fuck wits. Fuck wits who are stupid enough to borrow money at 23.5% interest rates to buy plastic shit made in China using oil and then bitch about expensive gas. We as a society, oh wait no... that is, an unelected body created by constitutionally dubious administrative law decides what we can and cannot see what's the difference between the FCC and the Chinese decision? Nothing, nothing at all.
It is a matter of degree. For the sake of this topic, and the Western perspective given this Web site, I will let the definition rest with people's pre-conceived notions.
This is a non-answer for sure. I almost feel like a politician
Who scares?
It has been shown that watching porn will make people more likely to allow another person to be hurt.
I would be very curious to see this paper.
(There's incoherent rambling, and then there's incoherent rambling that states some pretty tenuous claims as fact)
sic transit gloria mundi
WOW. For wont of feeding an Off-topic Troll spouting Flaimbait; I must say I will not even attempt to discredit anything you say. Your fallaciousnous is too obvious. I'm sure the Moderators will so judge you even before I finish typing this.
I am not passing judgment on the Chinese. I am passing judgment on human beings. More specifically I am passing judgment on human beings who are dictators.
You can dilute and diverge the argument over more trivial cultural differences (nice try), but the topic is about censorship and more generally human rights, and not more specifically (as you imply) about a cultures spitting habits.
Dilute and diverge, huh? To be fair (and not to offer an defense of the original post), using the term "dictators" in a vague, hand-wavy ill-defined manner, implying that "cultural differences" are generally "trivial", and then using that overbroad dismissal to imply that "human rights" is a singular, absolute and universal truth suggests to me you're not a student of history, politics, or human nature.
I'd suggest folks with a similar politically-correct set of assumptions start with a slow reading of Wikipedia article on human rights and make a list of all shit they they haven't read, studied, or heard about, all the while keeping in mind that China is a permanent member of the Security Council. Learning something about China and its history and culture wouldn't hurt, either. Spitting habits may not play much of a role, but I'd wager that there's plenty that does.
The leaders of China stifle free speech, do not hold elections, and imprison political opponents: therefore they are dictators. The same goes for the leaders of countries like Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, arguably Pakistan, etc.
On the other hand, the leaders of countries like the USA, Canada, Britain, France, etc. encourage free political speech, hold elections that the majority even of their opponents believe are free and fair, and do not intimidate or imprison peaceful dissidents; therefore they are not dictators, by my definition.
Seems fairly clear and consistent to me, but I'm sure you'll find something to nitpick.
Don't say that westerners find spitting disgusting. Many love to spit and do so whenever they/we can get away with it. It's certainly more disgusting to watch someone swallow a loogie than to spit it into a bush. Some people just don't like to watch other people spit as much as they like to spit themselves. So they could be dicks about and looch all over the place (as many do), but it's not so fun when you track someone's phlegm onto your carpet.
Maybe growing up it was OK in my family to fart at the dinner table. Don't you pass judgment on me when I cut one in McDonald's... just breath it in as you eat your McNuggets.
from the article:
... is keen to step up its control of the cultural arena ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August, which are widely seen as a coming-out party for the rising political and economic power.
China, where graphic
what's scary to me is, the last time that I can think of when the olympics were used as a "coming out party for a rising political power," was this.
To me "human rights" is not a UN definition, nor is it based on any one political entity or historical fact or process. If I wanted to define it as such I would have referenced a specific definition. Human rights to me are rights that are applied to humans. In this case we are talking about censorship; and so my arguments are presented. I do not need a Wikipedia article to tell me what human rights are; and in the same vein a victim of a robbery does not need to know the laws or Wikipedia definitions of robbery. A person does not need to be a history expert to comment on historical events, nor a cultural expert to comment on culture. A good argument needs no propping up.
The "spitting ban" that article mentions is nonsense; it may exist, but it's made no impact whatsoever on the amount of it that goes on. You still can't move for people hawking and flobbing everywhere.
:(
It's the one thing as a Westerner I could never come to terms with there. Especially when the person doing the flobbing is upwind of your bicycle on a bike of their own
In what way did Karl Marx endorse this kind of behaviour on part of the government?
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
The Chinese people I know learnt that it happened in 1989. It was the turning point because the soldiers were reluctant to run people down at the end of it. Next question?
I'd rather live in a weak country with freedom than a powerful oppressive one.
But that's the problem. What we're turning into is an oppressive weak one.
Blame 9/11 and politicians for the oppression, they've exchanged occasional terrorism by outsiders for permanent oppression of the population by its own government. And it's not even an exchange, since nothing they've done could stop a repeat of 9/11. Like Schneier says, it's just an illusion of security, and freedom's gone bye byes.
And blame lawyers and politicians and markets for the weakness, since they've become preoccupied with litigation and protection of crap like "intellectual property" and making money by speculation instead of actually producing real things. All that's left is an illusion of wealth, like living gloriously on your credit card.
The US is history, and ultimately the responsibility for it rests in one place alone: the people. In continually returning one of the two main parties to power, the moronic masses have cemented the end of a great country. When you're dumb enough to vote how you're told, you get what you deserve.
Just out of interest, do you actually give a shit what happens to the average Chinese person, or are you just happy to have cause to spout your smug, holier than though bullshit?
We all should know that China has been censoring Tiananmen Square issues.
It's interesting that they are trying to harmonize the population by controlling their fears, rather than use their fears against them. It seems to be one step above of the traditional method. The Chinese government takes the position of moral authority and moulds itself to be the source of the ultimate bliss. Or that is what the population should at least think of it. I don't think there will be much dissent around the issue in China, because the material is available to everyone interested in anyway. I can imagine this action being accepted because it means well, even though through control. It doesn't promote individuality, but something communal, which is typical to eastern societies. Of course it is a power tool, but the difference to western societies is evident.
(IMHO, that is the politically-correct viewpoint -- the crazy idea that we must respect every culture equally and demand that all cultures be allowed to continue whatever practices they have developed over the centuries, however oppressive. Demanding that everyone, regardless of culture or history, should respect universal human rights, is far from politically correct in the age of multiculturalism.)
With the exception of truffle smelling pigs, there are no other examples of working pigs that I can find. Many dogs are not pets - they have jobs -hunting, herding, police work, guarding things, drug sniffing, guide dogs for blind.
So even if there is a quote on Wikipedia, I would still think that dogs are more trainable and useful to people.
..........FULL STOP.
Learning about China is all well and good, but none of that gives an excuse for select group of elites with no legitimacy to impose total arbitrary will over others. That's the hallmark of a totalitarian regime, and that's always wrong.
And before you say anything America's human rights standards, yes, the United States is torturing people in Cuba and in secret locations around the world. And yes, it's a war crime, punishable by death even by America's own standards.
Just out of interest, do you actually give a shit what happens to the average Chinese person, or are you just happy to have cause to spout your smug, holier than though bullshit? I do give a shit. You're just too close minded to read without defensive bias. The whole point was to say that although this is bad for them up-front, it is better for the long term struggle that this kind of shit happens at a quick rate (as opposed to the slow, masked, controlled violations in countries such as ours). I'm not being smug at all, just putting up an idea for debate, comrade. I have no idea why you're all worked up.
Ask the Cubans, North Koreans, Chinese, Soviets (shall I go on..?) and all other totalitarian oppressors who idolized him and his writings and are far more familiar with communist literature than myself. I'm sure they'll do a better job.
Horror monsters as revolutionary heroes anyone? In Glasgow, where I come from, one of the most notorious youth gangs was born in the 70s when a cheesy Hammer horror flick was shown at the local cinema in the poorest area of town. After the film, legend has it the young men of the area emerged shouting "Tongs ya Bass" (tongs the name of the flick's vampire-monsters).. which became their collective moniker.
Historically, superstitious and supernatural beliefs have a tendency to unite rebellious factions within China. This is also the reason why the CCP represses Falun Gong, and also the reason why Marxist materialist dogma is so rigorously enforced there.
The vengeful star-monsters from horror films, especially American ones, could become a metaphor for the people's vengeance against the regime. This is one of the few remaining cultural threats to the CCP, since anything else disseminated on a scale suitable for propaganda is already totally controlled by them.
Since the cultural revolution and the proscription of all classical culture, Chinese youth are also probably in a dangerously impressionable state. The CCP is no doubt terrified about what sort of cultural effect the Western entertainment media could have on them.
Child slavery, execution delivery vans, getting jailed for blogging, and so much more. But not to worry- lead is a lucky mineral that brings much good yang!
It is quite often that /. are commenting not about the main subject of the post, but about general attitude or racial prejudices expressed in the post. That is what AC did. And this is normal.
Thanks for input, offtopic police.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
With other words, you have no clue about his writings.
Suspected that much, but thanks for the confirmation.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Thanks for input, offtopic police. The fact is the AC is using racism as an excuse for bad behavior. Human rights are colour-blind. And yes the AC is being racist for suggesting that Chinese are immune from human rights because of their race.
Another fact is that governments have always played the race card against their own citizens: that is excusing their own malignant behavior to other governments that would dare condemn them. Excuses are just that.
People in China don't go to the Cinema a lot, and they don't buy many legal DVDs either. So this won't change anything, since pirated movies of all genres will still be available.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Title: Effects of long-term exposure to violent and sexually degrading depictions of women.
Abstract:
Investigated the effects of emotional desensitization to films of violence against women and the effects of sexually degrading explicit and nonexplicit films on beliefs about rape and the sexual objectification of women. Males viewed either 2 or 5 R-rated violent "slasher," X-rated nonviolent "pornographic," or R-rated nonviolent teenage-oriented ("teen sex") films. Affective reactions and cognitive perceptions were measured after each exposure. Later, these men and no-exposure control Ss completed a voir dire questionnaire, viewed a reenacted acquaintance or nonacquaintance sexual assault trial, and judged the defendant and alleged rape victim. Ss in the violent condition became less anxious and depressed and showed declines in negative affective responses. They were also less sympathetic to the victim and less empathetic toward rape victims in general. However, longer film exposure was necessary to affect general empathy. There were no differences in response between the R-rated teen sex film and the X-rated, sexually explicit, nonviolent film, and the no-exposure control conditions on the objectification or the rape trial variables. A model of desensitization to media violence and the carryover to decision making about victims is proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)
Authors: Linz, Daniel G.; Donnerstein, Edward; Penrod, Steven
Affiliations: Linz, Daniel G.: U California, Communication Studies Program, Santa Barbara, US
Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1988 Nov Vol 55(5) 758-768
They're already living in one.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
During a world wide zombie outbreak, it's best to avoid traveling to areas such as China. During the 00's the Chinese government took steps to ban horror movies and scary story telling. Unfortunately this prevented the Chinese public from being prepared for a zombie outbreak and could leave China as one of the most heavily infested areas of the world.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Every Spanish speaking American that I know call you "gringos". Perhaps you should adopt that denomination, it's short, simple, and easy to pronounce in many languages.
Anyhow, the first continent to be named "America" was South America, named after Amerigo Vespucci traveled along the coast of what is now Brazil. Therefore, if one continent should be called just "America", it's the southern one. Calling North America simply America is like calling West Virginia simply Virginia, and the other state "East Virginia".
I, like the Chinese government, have had problems with skeletons in World of Warcraft. Damn things keep killing me. :(
How I loathe the ghost runs...
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
My own definition of "oppressive means" is using physical coercion to keep people from expressing their opinion. Whenever people are allowed to express their opinion, the leadership will be removed from power if their government strays too far from what the majority of the people want.
It's considered very bad luck / poor taste to begin the Chinese new year with this type of entertainment, imagery, discourse as it opens the door to bad spirits and can then set the tone for the entire year. That's all.
However you not only fail to prove your point, you give evidence to completely invalidate your point: There were no differences in response between the R-rated teen sex film and the X-rated, sexually explicit, nonviolent film, and the no-exposure control conditions on the objectification or the rape trial variables. And in no way does this abstract conclude that there is a cause and effect relationship as you so blatantly state: watching porn will make people more likely to allow another person to be hurt. However, I'm sure any advocacy group could do their own research and come up with their own unscientific and unverifiable conclusions. Nor is this research on-topic. "Horror" movies != "whore" movies.
- QED (I will not comment on this matter further)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100014/
Plot Keywords: Female Masturbation / Female Frontal Nudity / Sex / Infidelity / Lesbianism
The vast majority of Chinese firmly believe in spirits and ghosts.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
A few people from S. America told me that besides "gringos" (which means white U.S. citizens if you were just born yesterday), they call (Americans/Gringos/United Statians) "north americans" or informally just refer to everyone as american(o/a)s from either North or South.
/.ers follow common sense lines of thinking, but it's common sense to refer to YOUR America as THE AMERICA. It brings people together, and helps create an "other" that you can berate and if push comes to shove, steal their oil!
Not all
--
Double Sigs!
A whopping 120 characters to take your mind off topic. Tested in MS Word.
So, no more Chinese hopping-zombie/vampire movies anymore ? ;_;
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
"The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get."
Is the current fortune at the bottom of the page.
Can I moderate the fortune +1 ?
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
There are literally thousands of Chinese ghost movies some with and without some form of flying through air shit. They're not considered horror though, as they just mask their intention with Chinese art cinema (don't laugh, I know). But if you show them to some kids in the west they'd be a scared. As Marty from Back from the Future said 'I guess you folks aren't ready for that yet, but your kids are gonna love it' pretty much fits.
Bully for the Chinese! You all can scream about freedom of speech and how you "have the freedom" to see, read, watch whatever you want but the Chinks are right. Most "horror" movies are simply stupid and disgusting. I wish 90+% of what passes for modern entertainment doesn't exist. That includes 99% of TV shows and 99% of Hollywood movies, 95% of books and so on. Most of it IS TOTAL stupid useless crap designed to make money and nothing else. Keep on filling your heads with this crap instead of studying how the real world operates and no wonder the saying "People get the governments they deserve" comes true.
fuck karma, I like saying the truth better
Streisand effect applies when some private information is leaked about a public figure, and the person tries to protect his/her own privacy while inadvertently making that information more popular. It has to do with people's curiosity to peer into someone else's private life, but anti-censorship is most often used as an excuse.
In the case of horror movie ban, there is no person's private life involved, so Streisand effect doesn't apply. It is perhaps more similar to public ban of pornography in some countries, where people still try to stealthily distribute pornography by various means. However, pornography is fueled by people's curiosity about sex. I don't think horror movies incite people's curiosity about anything.
My own feeling is that there will still be a small percentage of people who are fatally attracted to spirituality, psychic, voodoo, and witchcraft. They will continue to smuggle these horror movies and perform cult worship. However, most people will live happily without being bothered with annoying horror movie advertisements.
Speaking of which, I was eating at a food court that has some television, and it showed a trailer of a horror movie with green slime, deteriorated tissue, fermented blood, and all this crap. Though I didn't react outrageously about it, it really disturbed my appetite. Such a dining experience!
I once had a signature.
Have you ever wondered what non Western societies make of flicks like "Saw" and "Hostel?"
> Learning about China is all well and good, but none of that gives an excuse for select group of elites with no
> legitimacy to impose total arbitrary will over others. That's the hallmark of a totalitarian regime, and that's
> always wrong.
If you learnt a bit more about China, you'd know that the guys at the top are nowhere close to imposing total arbitrary will over others. There are numerous social problems that the guys at the top wish to fix, if only to reduce civil unrest, to prevent "peasant uprisings", and ultimately to secure their own jobs as China's leaders. And they're nowhere near fixing those problems, such as corruption, abuses of power by local authorities, etc, and let me tell you that unless your proposal is to divide the country into smaller, easier-to-administrate regions, democracy and all those human rights silver-bullsht doesn't work. (and if you knew a little bit about the history and culture of China you understand why that wouldn't work either)
If you're going to spend time criticizing the Chinese government, at least learn a bit more about China before proposing "solutions" to the wrong problems. And by "learn" I mean exposing yourself to all perspectives, not only what "the Falungung people says"....
Don't quote me on this.
Chinese communications officials saw Army of Darkness and decided that if a single American could travel back in time, make himself a prosthetic arm, defeat an army of his little clones, defeat his evil self, unite 2 warring factions in medieval England, then defeat an army of skeletons, the Chinese are in major trouble from our super-store employees. There's no way the general populace could see that. Also included in the ban are any movies containing an ex-Vietnam special forces agent who makes prolific use of exploding arrows.
I'm not saying that censorship is right.
But a lot of mentions of the Tiananmen Square are not to inform, but to incite. I know this is hard to understand for you westerners, but if you were to remove prominent political figures from office, you might as well kill them as well. Inciting people to doubt the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not really too far away from inciting people to revolt, or at least perform a bloody coup. Unless you're Chinese you probably have no idea why this is the case, but it just is.
The reason why I'm going through the trouble of explaining this to you is that most people don't realize that trying to "educate" the Chinese people on Tiananmen Square actually hurts everybody. The Chinese authorities will get even more paranoid on the issue since those who have a vested interest in seeing the fall of the CCP usually use Tiananmen Square as a battle standard, and it's actually partially the western media's fault that the issue has become so politically sensitive that nobody in China with a right mind would mention it.
Don't quote me on this.
In that case, could you define human rights? The right to have sex with random adults before marriage and even after marriage? The right to kill your neighbour when they stumbled upon your house "as self defense"? The right to show pornography to minors? The right to abuse substances?
I don't know, but human rights seem like a very bad thing if that's the case.
This from a country that executes prisoners for political crimes and then sells their bodies for use in art exhibits...
Thank you for posting. I appreciate different view points. If a person like you appears to post an honest and unbiased opinion of a different point of view, then I am sure that me and others will appreciate it.
Yes it is certainly harder for people (like me) to understand how posting these things can be viewed as bad or dangerous. I wish there were an easy way to get rid of bad policies or bad governments. The US has certainly showed us that the simple approach (like using brute force) doesn't always work.
Regards,
UTW
Mainland China is under the yoke of an officially Atheist dictatorship. Horror movies have two qualities that atheists are opposed to: 1) Objective right and wrong above and beyond the will of the State. 2) the supernatural.
where is Bela Lugosi when you need him?
What about Casper? He's a friendly ghost.
...
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Banning horror movies is an act of foolishness not a manifestation of culture.
I don't know, but human rights seem like a very bad thing if that's the case. For me at least, it means the right of an individual person to have the freedom to do as he/she feels like it as long is there is no direct physical and unwanted harm done to that person or his or her property.
I will defend this right with as much force as I can. I will attempt to be as fanatical as my opponents are to do me harm if I exercise these freedoms.
To answer your direct questions: The right to have sex with random adults before marriage and even after marriage? Yes, this would be one example of a human right. The right to kill your neighbor when they stumbled upon your house "as self defense"? No. Killing to protect your life is self-preservation and is understandable and very human. Killing merely to protect your property is wrong (though some people in the West would disagree). Killing to protect your property in a military sense (protecting one's land from invaders) is a more complex subject, but there are reasons where it can be justified. This is a tangent and I won't elaborate. The right to show pornography to minors? If there is no force or coercion involved (that is, no harm done to the minor), then yes this is a right. Granted a lot of people will say that a minor does not have the intellectual capacity to consent. But to me the consent issue here is irrelevant, since the viewing of pornography is not harmful. You will have to give me the benefit of the doubt here because arguing about this issue would be a tangent and off-topic. The right to abuse substances? It depends what you mean by "abuse substances". If you mean drink alcohol or use other mind / mood altering substances then yes. Sex and drugs are moral issues. They do not cause harm to an individual. Of course they MAY cause harm depending on how they are used. Again I'm not going to argue here.
But more important to having these freedoms, however trivial they may appear to you; is the right (not so much) to be free to do something, but to have the right to be free from oppression and punishment. If what a person "hurts" is nothing more than some religious, political, ethnic or traditional dogma or moral; then these rights should be paramount and superceding. I don't mean to insult a persons traditions, but these traditions cannot harm me, or anybody else. If a person imposes their own morals or traditions on me then this would be offensive. In the same vein, I will not impose my morals on you or anybody else. And no, giving somebody freedom is not imposing. I don't know, but human rights seem like a very bad thing if that's the case. To me puting people in jail, breaking up families, and destroying a person's career just because you do not like that person's morality is wrong. Some cultures even kill people because of their morals. Even in the West we have vigilantes who kill people because of their morals: this is wrong and violates human rights. If you disagree with this then you are wrong and I will do everything possible to stop you. When you say "I don't know", I certainly hope that you do indeed have some doubt's about your beliefs. Keeping an open mind and having the ability to feel empathy and have tolerance can be very helpful in having a peaceful and happy world.
I will say that the issues you bring up do not reflect on my personal moral outlook (for example, adultery is something that I personally feel uncomfortable with) or lifestyle, but I wish for people to have freedom of choice and more importantly freedom from repression.
Best regards,
UTW
Except here you can get thrown into prison for illegal drawings (loli)
Actually, gringo in actual use translates more accurately as "white guy" or even "white boy." It's a racial term, not an designation for the intersection of a particular ethnicity and a particular nationality.
Not allWell, every adjective used in a self-representation helps create the other, so that's not saying much at all. The oil reference is not only gratuitous, but inaccurate with respect to this hemispshere.
What most vocal /.ers seem unable to grasp is that "American" simply has a wide and a narrow meaning and, gasp, context tells you which one is relevant. That's a feature of natural language. Moreover, how often does anyone have to designate anything as "American" in the sense of 'belonging to North or South America or some other place in the Western Hemisphere'? Outside of some specialized academic discourse, where people are smart enough to understand linguistic usage and not politicize everything. Should women start demanding that a male not be called a "man," since "Mankind" and related expressions include them too? Oh, but people went the other way with that one and decried the wide application of the term.
It's a non-issue, unless you are so weak that you cannot formulate an image of yourself and your culture without explicit, incessant references to the United States.
Disclaimers:
- I am a natural born American citizen.
- I absolutely love my country.
- My heritage is Taiwanese.
I'm saddened by how many posts have been a categoric bashing of the Chinese government. I agree that the dictatorial approach to governing people is short sighted and, often, abusive.
I can't help but think that the US has problems of its own, though, and I feel hypocritical pointing a finger at them while our own issues are so whacked. While not as obvious as abusive child labor and cultural censorship, we have a war out of control, education being shortchanged, national infrastructure crumbling, and more.
I'm often quick to blame our current administration, but they couldn't have done all the damage we're faced with. More importantly, the larger point is that we're trying our best to figure how to keep our society governed according to principles laid by our founding fathers. We're still pretty off the mark in a lot of ways, though.
I propose that, before we bash on China, we get our own house in order.
Methinks you didn't devote much time to looking for examples. I Googled service pig and the first link was this, which indicates "Pigs are very smart are sometimes used as service animals. Pot bellied pigs are small and favored as service animals by persons who are allergic to dogs. The New York City Transit Authority has passenger who travels as a service pig (sic)."
...Well, censorship is generally bad, but in this case - considering what TV and movies have done to America - maybe this is not such a horrific action. Americans tend to emulate and mimic. I suppose the Chinese do too. At least in China its not like they are violating their own system of governing.
While yelling, "Oh noes teh chinese teh sencors!" is excellent mod material on /., a more thought provoking discussion might involve the themes that horror movies embody.
It probably isn't nightmares that the Chinese government is against but some element of society that horror critiques.
Mary Shelly's Frankenstein critiques the notion of the outsider, conformity, beauty and justice for example. Distopian film has been a powerful tool in contextualizing societies problems since Metropolis (1927).
Can anyone with a study of horror themes beyond the obvious ( catharsis towards human frailty and the proximity of sexuality to violence) give us an indication of the social consciousness being repressed here?
China allows only twenty foreign films theatrical release each year.
There are periodic "blackouts" to protect the domestic product. China bans Hollywood movies to protect its own film industry Protection comes at a cost.
The domestic product competes against the pirated Hollywood DVD with a street price of $1.
It is the export product that makes money for the Chinese studio - meaning the Chinese studio has to "go Hollywood" to survive.
This comment, and your ID, were mentioned in a recent Economist article. Thought you might like to know in case you weren't aware.
I don't know where are you from, but here gringo means someone from the United States.
White people? depends on how they speak. English accent, unless they say they're Canadians they're gringos by default. Otherwise it depends on their local accent, can be called 'paisa', 'rolo', etc.
Lots of white people here, and NO ONE is a gringo unless they say so.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I don't understand how you could surprised of this.
....
:(
Please read this before criticizing China:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editing_of_anime_in_American_distribution
Extract:
"Religious symbols are commonly airbrushed out if they appear in contexts that are not acceptable in the U.S. Religious terminology is often removed from dialogue for the same reason. Sometimes a character appearing to be crucified by being bound to two wooden beams in the shape of a cross is enough to be considered unacceptable[1].
For example, representations of the Christian cross were airbrushed out of Pokémon and One Piece, while references to Hell were replaced with "HFIL (Home For Infinite Losers)" in Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT. Alleged demonic imagery is also commonly removed or toned down, as are uses of pentagrams, because of their religious meanings and their apparent association with Satanism and Paganism.
Commonly, the censorship of violence is done by removing the exact moment when a physical attack, such as a punch or kick, connects with a person. In some cases this is achieved by airbrushing the scene to include a caption or object (such as an explosion or movement lines) over the point of impact, or by flashing the screen so that the impact is never seen. In other cases, the frames containing the connecting blow are removed and the frames immediately before and after it are extended to procure a slow motion or comic book frame effect.
"
The problem with this, is that other countries receive a translated version from the English censored version
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
yes, see the child comment about gringos and the oil comment may have been a stretch, but it's applicable in the southern Americas, as well as the north. I forget which country is the top crude oil exporter tothe U.S. but it's either Canada or Mexico.
yes i do find things to nitpick.
in particular, "encouraging free speech" is restricted on many levels in US especially.
elections where millions are disfranchised, uses primaries, and not to mention the radical race division in the current election...surely just? most people beliving that it's fair means nothing-most people in china believes the gov there is fair also for the most part. furthermore, many parties don't even appear on every state's ballot at all.
and "not intimidating or imprisoning peaceful dissidents"- things calling for overthrow of the communist government are SEDITIOUS and not "peaceful". have you heard about the seditions act in the us? Not to mention the relatively more recently arresting of candidates for trying to join a debate
regarding the cultural differences: if americans believe it unacceptable to have porn movies and ban those, but are less appalled by brutal violence don't try to judge China's actions. This step by China is something the US should follow rather than criticize unless you believe that extreme violence is something that our society should accept. If that's the case it's no wonder.....sad indeed
Moderators: I've been writing up retorts to the above AC when I realized that ALL of the arguments this Asshat is using are not even worth arguing about. The above poster is a Troll, and more than likely some American middle class teenager who has nothing better to do on the weekend. If you look at my user page you will realize that I am serious about having serious discussions. This asshat is just a Troll.
Thanks, and best regards,
UTC
China continues to ignore the slaughter of civilians in Darfur, and they're worried about their image being tarnished by ghost stories? Seems more like a story from The Onion rather than Reuters...
The reason this is an issue to begin with is that a lot of Chinese people take superstitions very seriously. i.e. Wrong a dead ancestor, and he will come and get you. They are trying to correct a behavior among their people that they view as being harmful to the state in general. So.......... They deal with it in the way they deal with everything else deemed generally harmful.
Heck, I'm wondering why they don't ban Hong Kong pop stars.
Man, after this next Olympics, the world is SO in for the new Reich/Cold War/Terror State/Humans V.S. Humans deluxe stage production of "Humanity Gets Screwed Yet Again", this time Made in China.
And all I can think is, "Will somebody please stop this fucking thing. I would like to get off now."
Interesting times, indeed.
-FL
I will go out of my way here to ask you for an apology.
Will you actually admit that you are wrong?
The full text for this isn't freely available (and I'm certainly not paying for it just to argue with a troll), and you can't tell much about a study from just the abstract.
... the X-rated, sexually explicit, nonviolent film, and the no-exposure control conditions". And this is from the group that set out to show how horrible, horrible media makes men want to murder women.
Except to note that:
a) There's no mention of Milgram-type experiments (which is actually good; they are fun experiments, but absolutely useless for interpreting something like this).
and
b) Even their conclusion finds "no differences in response between
so...
c) What the hell is the point of providing a paper that states the exact opposite of what you were claiming?
Nice trolling, anyway.
sic transit gloria mundi
Except that the USA does stifle free political speech (Free Speech Zones), rig elections (Diebold), and intimidate/imprison peaceful political opponents (Guantanamo, Syrian torture camps, extraordinary rendition, removal of habeus corpus...)
Just because it's not as bad as china doesn't mean it isn't a dictatorship.
Not a sentence!
I usually don't make responses like this but... well, I guess I'm just too used to dealing with asshats, so I will give you this advice, and I hope you remember this:
Never underestimate who you are dealing with.
Tell us how we can subvert and overthrow the Chinese government?
Or maybe that is NOT what you want? I'm starting to think that the majority of pro-China dictatorship arguments made here are completely bogus.
is to look at this as an example of how the same arguments that a lot of people hold against certain video games in this country can be used to censor other literary forms of media.
Personally, I don't care what the Chinese government does to the Chinese citizens. That is the responsibility of the Chinese citizens, not ours, provided that China does not cause problems beyond their current borders. I say the same about Cuba, Russia, etc (note that my concern about Russia has to do with things that the Putin administration appears to have done outside the borders of Russia proper-- in places like The Ukraine and the UK).
Dictatorships aren't all bad and the citizens have to decide what form of government they want. I say this because if you look at Indonesia and compare the country with (dictatorial) Malaysia, the latter has a better human rights record, less radicalism and terrorism, and in general a healthier society than the former where the politics of trying to inject Islam into a secular democratic republic seem to dominate everything. Indeed I say this despite the fact that the Malaysian dictator has silenced political speech, imprisoned political opponents, etc. Our only proper response, IMO, is to make our country the sort of country we want and let the rest of the world decide whether or not to follow.
However, the question here is do we want to take this for what it is-- a warning that the same arguments which are made against one medium (video games) can be applied to any other medium with impunity, and that censorship is censorship regardless of how it is approched.
Today video games. Tomorrow movies. Next week the books.
(BTW, I do think that literature affects adolescents. In particular there is enough evidence to argue that the portrayal of suicide of a sympathetic character in a book can help push people in that direction; there may not be enough evidence to conclusively prove one way or another yet though. The underlying question is the extent to which we allow the government to silence artistic expression simply because it is seen as dangerous.)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Someone who can dictate law unilaterally with no legal limits limits.
Presumably the Communist Party in China has that power so that corporate entity is a dictatorship.
A democracy which might be subject to majority rule without limit might also qualify. Fortunately I cannot think of any examples off the top of my head (Singapore might qualify but that seems to me a stretch).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
that's so bad of them! what's next? will they prohibit broadcast of movies with nudity? oh, that would be done to protect the children, so it's ok.
How do you think the Chinese feel about banning smoking in bars in some states of the US?
They'd probably call that an unwarranted and unreasonable encroachment upon your personal freedoms.
This probably has less to do with scary movies than the religious symbolism that tends to be in many horror movies. The Exorcist comes to mind, Fallen is another.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
I have read several articles talking about the perpetual fear of the supernatural that has always haunted the rulers of China. One author presented a theory that the Great Wall was actually constructed to confound a type of demon that the Emperors of China feared. Another stated that the Government in Beijing new the location of the first Emperors tomb but refused to let it be excavated because they feared his curse.
I guess I just see the answer as more complex. Just because there was no difference between R-rated and X-rated doesn't change the effect of reduced empathy.
The visual act of sex isn't the important part, it is the overall treatment of women; empathic vs. objective. For me this is the same as propaganda trying to dehumanize the enemy so that it is easier to kill them. Have you seen Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel's movies on why we should fear the Germans and Japanese? Have you watched the anti-Japanese Bugs Bunny shorts? If our most empathic and funny writers can create systems designed to allow us to harm others is it so hard to imagine that movies made only for the purpose of making money from a low cultural perspective can do harm? Let's not confuse erotica & porn with dehumanizing portrayals. I am sure there are great porn movies that increase empathy and teach good technique but there is also some seriously frightening shit out there. Did you watch the Nightline when they went to Extreme Productions? The Nightline cameraman jerks his head back from the eye-piece and says to the rest of the crew, "we are leaving." There is porn out there that invokes rape, torture, and kidnapping. People are pattern recognition engines with modeling built in. Even if 99% of the population can safely watch it, if 1% of 150 million adult US males see it and goes out and reenacts this stuff is that an acceptable loss rate? Risk is damage X likelihood; what value do you place on a human life or the psyche of someone who is kidnapped, tortured and raped?
So you are right about to a point. Also I read this article 10 years ago so I'm sorry if my recall was not perfect as the methodology and the subtlety of the findings. Either way if watching generally degrading material reduces empathy should be able to control it? The courts think so even if their current definition is weak.
Just yesterday, I saw a documentary about children trained for athletics, i.e. Olympics and stuff in China, on TV.
OK, don't believe TV images, but a lot of very young (about 4-5 y.o. I would say) children where obviously *crying* in pain when there bodys flexed by force to stretch their muscles.
It was pure humiliation, obviously against all human rights you could think of. (That they are physically separated from their parents and stuff, adds to this, but not as much as the physical pain, I think. They can talk to their parents regularly, as it seems).
Yeah, just forbid some evil words and pictures, and the world will recognize you as a "cool country". Sorry, not working for me.
As a Chinese living in the mainland China, i hate those american-made horror movies to the extreme. Those films show nothing but blood, corpus, body parts, and the core technology of making those -- killing. Why would i want watching those damned american waste? Why would i want my friends watching those?
So the horror ban to me personally is in my pleasure. I have nothing against the ban. Besides, those people who still want to watch those video can still find them in website downloads, on "non-genuine" CD/DVD copies,on some rural video-cast assemblies and so on..
Basically the ban just show the official stance against those horror movies, not our common people's adoption to the movies. People will still watch those movie if they want. Remember?this is a country in where anything can be put on CD is non-genuine. My commie overlords also have been banning the piracy on intellectual properties for decades and people still copy everything they can.
I agree with the hongkong folk i saw above that we hate our dictatorial gov as well as we hate american's international impudence. I don't trust anyone without they showing me the real goodie, including the govs of both the middle kingdom and the US.
I also believe that watching too much horror movies can cause more school shooting. take care..
China, in fact, is very fragile.
Yes China, go ahead and haul Freddy away and shoot him. He'll just attack you in your dreams.
I have nothing compelling to say
... what was the context?
The US believes it has a birthright to mess up with the full continent (from pole to pole) no matter what, which it symbolically abrogates by stealing the name of the continent for themselves.
It is not us who have invaded the US, it is the other way around, and if gringo was ever uttered it was against US soldiers in yet another adventurist invasion in which they were defending the rights of banana, oil or other assorted white gentlemen close to the corridors of power in Washington.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
French people are not gringos, neither are Spanish, Russians or Swedes.
gringo was a term used in frustration against invading US troops and 99% of people in America (the continent) know that gringo refers to a person from the US.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
America was named at the beginning of the 16th century, by the time Hernan Cortes, completed the conquest of Mexico (1521) a few years later, it was perfectly clear that America was a new Continent.
There are innumerable cultural and historical references that make clear that the inhabitants of the New Spain (the colonial name of Mexico) had an American cultural tradition radically different from the one in Europe. By the time the Catholic Church was firmly established in New Spain the country began to have customs in the rite that were clearly described as uniquely American, with the inclusion of an advocation of virgin Mary (Virgin of Guadalupe) that was recognized as an American one.
I will not continue this nonsensical discussion. The first printing press and university in America were founded in Mexico, the explored territory of New Spain dwarfed the 13 original US colonies and in general we have been there as a nation at least 100 years before people starting to arrive to the US.
In New Spain there was a system of racial classification btw, to claim that the New Spain was only Spaniards is monumentally ignorant, and sorry to use these words but frankly there is no other way to describe it, Hernan Cortes himself married a local woman, Malintzin, which symbolically started the mix of so called races in the country. At no point in time were the new arrivals a majority (this was first Native American and then people of mixed descent).
To come with such monumental stupidity as claiming Mexicans not being Americans can come from somebody that has not taken the most fundamental due care about the history of other countries. Shame on you.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Very fucking slowly. That is how.
Whenever China goes for radical, wholesale change, a few million die, get displaced or fall in abject poverty.
Stop trade with China and the only thing that is going to happen is that people that thought they were going to be wealthier all of the sudden would be dirt poor again. The political and social turmoil would make look Tiananmen square like a paltry insignificance.
People advocating fast change in China simply do not know what they are talking about. Accelerate change and you will have enough people dissatisfied (1% of Chinese people is 12 million people) ready to wreck complete havoc with an stable Chinese state.
Chinese leaders understand this and have said as much, and of course, since it also serves many of their political and personal short term objectives they follow gradual change fully .
If you have said less than 30 years ago that market economy would be implemented in China, voluntarily, by the Chinese Communist party, you would have been thrown in a mental institution. Change is happening, but the inertias to be fought are of an scale that other countries can't imagine.
Sometimes I think the US should just leave the world alone. You can't figure out Iraq or Afghanistan but are trying to figure out China. Hmmm, good luck with that one if you get McCain..... (or anybody else for that matter).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.