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China Censors "The Big Bang Theory" and Other Streaming Shows
dryriver (1010635) writes in with news that the Chinese government has had enough of the antics of doctor Sheldon Lee Cooper. "Chinese authorities have ordered video streaming websites in the country to stop showing four popular American TV shows, including The Big Bang Theory and The Good Wife, senior staff from two sites said Sunday. The move suggests government attention is intensifying on the online streaming industry, which is freer than state television and China's cinemas to show foreign productions and other content and has stretched the boundaries of what can be seen in the country. A spokeswoman for a leading online video site, Youku, said it had received notification on Saturday not to show sitcom The Big Bang Theory, political and legal drama The Good Wife, crime drama NCIS and legal drama The Practice."
All terrible shows that the world could do without.
China. Not Russia. Yes, I am a fucking moron.
:)
But I ninja'd all the haters who will now repeat this correction, at least.
The road to first post is plagued with face plants.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This was the Chinese, Putin is in Russia. RTFA.
They're such a large market, though, so will we see television programmers tipping to the Chinese government's caveat?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
From CBS blocking me from watching it in the UK?
BaZinga!
Putin does not control China
yet
You seem to assume that all Chinese censorship is purely politically motivated. The Big Bang Theory probably just fails basic quality control standards.
China is much more concerned about "cultural contamination", not just political contamination. While the Chinese are Communists, they are not the hyper-political communists of the Soviet Union where culture such as religion and traditions were a plague to be eradicated, they are Communists with an eye towards preserving their very ancient culture.
The Chinese Ministry of Culture reports a 3-point increase in the average urban IQ.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Excellent movie, but it was missing almost all references to the banking system and TARP funds. For example, the entire scene at the end, where Derek Jeter hands them documents regarding banking fraud (their "next case"), was cut. The info graphics credits sequence omitted everything but the Ponzi scheme part (but it wasn't just cut off after that; the credits continued with the part after the info graphics). You can view the sequence on Youtube, but that's not complete either: It's missing the AIG and TARP bits.
So China bans Big Bang Theory. What is being hidden from you?
tBBT shows enough pure unadulterated American freedom that is in conflict with sanitized state controlled media.
China isn't the only country whose govts are pissed with pure uncensored internet freedom. Even my Brazil "democracy" has tried to police twitter, facebook, google plus to censure critics of politicians specially right before elections. Remember Turkey has banned twitter and facebook.
Realize that without serious state controlled media, China will fracture into dozens of states. It's internal language, cultural and social disparities rival only the former USSR.
China invented the technique of legalism back in (259 BC – 210 BC) when "China Qin Shi Huang" gave his name to his country, in the past having even censured attempts to use history against current rulers.
American companies stream movies to China. ... I would like to have an uproar that we are forced to pirate movies because they get published here (in Europe) months if not years after they were made ... ...
But they don't do the same thing to Europe (Game of Thrones as an example).
How is that even billed? And now we have an uproar that China is censoring it.
Wow
I'm fed up with movies/books being available in Europe months or years after they where made, for what ever reason
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Maybe because early episodes alluded to Leonard having a brief relationship with Joyce Kim, who turned out to be a North Korean spy...
Three CBS and one ABC. Production companies don't align either.
The shows themselves may not be objectionable, keep in mind. It may be payback or threat for other things, movies or something. In Iron Man 3, it's probable The Mandarin was converted from an evil actual Chinese guy to a lame cover story so as to not offend lest that and future movies be banned...or taxed extra hard.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
IIRC they did an episode where Chinese researchers apparently faked scientific results synthesizing a super heavy element. In episode before that said Chinese researchers claimed that this discovery was the greatest thing besides of the communist party, and one of the main characters of the show said that the communist party made them say that.
Perhaps this was enough to cross the line.
The Big Bang Theory is hugely popular among young people in China. It's one of the most famous American TV shows there, and it is (was) very widely circulated. There are many jokes they don't really "get," but they still really like it.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
Hopefully we can get China to censor Big Bang Theory here in the U.S. too.
Maybe in the past, but the more we centralize everything, the more censorship-tolerant (and surveillance-tolerant) the internet becomes.
It needs to move to p2p, strongly encrypted communication. If it doesn't, it will die under the force of organizations that don't want freedom of communication.
I think it was more likely to be the idea that a bunch of technical workers is depicted as affording to live outside of a company dorm.
So THAT's why nobody watches MSNBC. I was wondering about that.
I wish Australia would ban these shows too, then maybe the free-to-air stations might have to get off their lazy arses and make some decent home-grown shows instead. It's no wonder the commercial channels are dying out here - lazy content, too many adverts far too often, horrible cheap-and-nasty titling graphics, constant pop-ups. It's unwatchable. They don't get it, and the sooner they die the better. Or they could, you know, improve.
It's maybe becoming more like the TV show "Friends" with everybody in a relationship. It is remarkable the writers can come up with an interesting new script every week considering the show is in its Seventh season.
I suspect it's more like a form of protectionism. They can't slap some serious tariffs due to WTO or whatever. So in order to protect fledgling local production they do a form of bang-bang control: now you can watch that and now you can't.
...they were only trying to cut out the parts that weren't funny.
"... when "China Qin Shi Huang" gave his name to his country ..."
Someone should have suggested to the emperor that he could actually name the whole country after himself. I imagine he would have been very pleased. Of course, he would have had to come up with a name that wasn't based on Indo-European languages. Maybe a cursory look at Wikipedia on the etymology of China is in order.
When it comes to language disparities, I think India at least equals China with its hundreds of languages and cultures. And manages to be relatively democratic, if highly flawed and still prone to some censorship.
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One is that they do a pretty good job portraying various kinds of geeks. Since it is a comedy it makes light of unflattering and silly characteristics that those geeks have. Well, many people can't laugh at themselves. Real life Sheldon Coopers can't laugh at themselves any more than the character can, and thus the character would be something they don't like.
Another is jealousy. The characters on the show have generally had a good deal of success in love, despite being geeky, with very pretty women. This is something that many of the real life geeks on Slashdot do not share. Hence, there is jealousy of the characters.
Finally there is the hipster-ish anti-pop culture thing. That somehow, if something is popular, it can't be good. For many geek, part of the identity is being an outcast, being different, and liking different things. So liking something mainstream won't do at all for them, not because they don't actually like it but because it would conflict with their self identity.
Personally, I think it is hilarious. Not quite as good as the IT Crowd, but I enjoy it and it makes me laugh regularly. Being that it is a comedy, that is all I can ask :).
You mean like "Lost Girl" - a chunky succubus and everyone is flaming gay or otherwise ultra-PC?
It's maybe becoming more like the TV show "Friends" with everybody in a relationship
That kind of tends to be the pattern in real life as well.
and poontang is everywhere
I keep thinking that Big Bang Theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the early development of the universe. The key idea is that the universe is expanding. The Big Bang model suggests that at some moment all matter in the universe was contained in a single point, which is considered the beginning of the universe. Modern measurements place this moment at approximately 13.82 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the universe.
But in reality, the Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom serve as executive producers on the show along with Steven Molaro.
If you disagree, it's too late for you.
"paved", roads are paved.
Doesn't the show feature an unmarried couple living together?
Some censors don't like stuff like that.
Good luck with that, Vlad.
Compare China's GDP to Russia's sometime. I don't think Vlad will be annexing any chunks of China any time soon. China's army is just a teensy bit bigger than Ukraine's.
Basically it's a geek zoo to point and laugh at.
Sitcoms Chuck Lorre also created include:
Two and a Half Men
Grace Under Fire
Cybill
Dharma & Greg
Mom
This may give some context to the tone of what you saw. I don't recall having seen any references to biting the heads off of live chickens.
Sesame Street was never on the BBC. It was always on ITV. Therefore this is a lie.
tBBT is quite rude in places. A repeated episode I saw last week had Penny suggesting that she was picked up by a guy in a bar, who then picked up another girl and they went off to have a threesome. Or Sheldon worrying Leonard about Penny being hypnotised by a male friend to 'make her think she's a chicken pecking seed' (moving his head back and forward). If you listen carefully, there are a lot of pretty close-to-the-knuckle lines like this.
I have no problems with this, but am surprised it's so regularly repeated in the daytime here in the UK. Maybe it's because they don't swear? Perhaps that says a lot about the real concerns of censors.
It even gets the stereotypes down, like an obsession with trains.
Copyright is a legal right to monopoly on the distribution of certain media (intellectual property). If they choose to advertise but not release then they are within their legal rights, and those that infringe copyright are disrespecting these rights.
Don't get me wrong, I believe that copyright law itself is unethical, but under no circumstances does your scenario "force" people to infringe copyright. If you don't like the effective censorship, then resist copyright in it's totality rather than being a hypocrite.
Doesn't the show feature an unmarried couple living together?
Who? Not since Howard left Raj to move in with his wife.
tBBT shows enough pure unadulterated American freedom that is in conflict with sanitized state controlled media.
Yes, because a bunch of math nerds sitting around on a couch every Friday night arguing about Star Trek is EXACTLY what every frat house in America is also doing on Friday night...
If THAT is "pure unadulterated American freedom", then WE should be looking to censor our own shit out of embarassment.
depends on what fraternity you're in
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Just that episode explains why I love Big Bang Theory, it is so much fun to laugh at yourself! Maybe I'm just not geeky enough to get offended?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I've no idea what sort of creds the writers have
Considering Mayim Bialik is an actual neuroscientist and several of the consultants for the show are physicists, the creds of the writers are very well established.
Don't forget Danica McKellar who showed up for an episode, with her degree in mathematics (sum cum laude). Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene and Neil Degrasse Tyson have also appeared with Hawking lending his electronic voice to a handful of episodes as well.
The fact of the matter is the show is written to both poke fun at the foibles of the nerd/geek crowd as well as provide a light-hearted commentary of some of the people, similar to yourself no doubt, and how they perceive things. Yes, much of it is formulaic but the zingers are worth ignoring the obvious plot holes (the most common of which is how Penny can survive on a waitress salary).
It's a show. Stop being a nerd and trying to dissect everything as if it's supposed to have some grand, overarching meaning to anything.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Or maybe she's failing at paying her bills and often has her boyfriends loan her the money to pay them? (The actual reason given in the show).
Not really. In fact, The State Media (CCTV) itself is in the process of translating The Big Bang Theory and releasing it in mainland China , and that is probably the real reason for this ban. IOW this isn't about censorship at all, this is simply using the censorship tool to protect the (incompetant) state media from competition by the more competant private media streaming companies.
Considering China's on/off relationship with North Korea I wonder if this is a response to the episode about Leonard dating the North Korean spy - http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com...
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
dear lord, i would love that every CSI-like show to be censored in any country
perhaps this way we would get rid of those clients from hell who think that any image can be zoomed and enhanced to HD level
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
It wasn't 'banned' as the AC hysterically claimed, it was rejected. Follow the link a sentence or two further, it was picked up by ITV, as stated.
Banning means stopping it being broadcast. They couldn't and didn't do this. The next sentence in your link explains why they didn't pay money to the US for a children's programme, as they were quite happily making British pre-school television, without the letter Zee.
Well, we've got a truckload of butthurt nerds here apparently, who can't just relax and enjoy a funny show and laugh a little at themselves, or at least, their stereotypes, and recognize them for just that. /inhaler are bit over the top and cliched, granted, but it's just a show. I don't go to comic book stores or buy Batman or Star Wars figurines, and never did, but I know some geeky types who do that.
Why so serious? I've seen these arguments here before. Leonard's asthma
Another demographic joins the "I'm offended" crowd. *sigh*
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I live in Brazil. Brazil is a democracy, since we can vote, and we can criticize anybody without fear of being arrested or singled out by the govt.
Perhaps you should understand the basic pillars of a true democracy:
1 - Freedom of the press
2 - Freedom of peaceful assembly
3 - Freedom of expression
4 - Right to private property
5 - Right to a fair trial
Many countries are controlled by a fairly small political elite, but are subject to the 5 above rules, even though the political elite doesn't quite do what the people want. It's still a democracy. Questionably even Brazil, USA, and some european countries are in that category.
But in the countries I singled out, all of those liberties are only real as long as you don't offend the political powers. Criticize the Chinese or Russian govt to hashly and you will be arrested, subject to a rigged trial and thrown in filthy prisons to rot away.
It's very useful to study the thinkings and sayings of the French and American revolutions. If you haven't studied both you can't call yourself a properly educated man. My Brazil teaches the French revolution but ignores the wealth of knowledge from the American one. Too capitalist for the taste of the ones in control of our education system.
I dunno why China would want to censor NCIS. It depicts an armed federal agency violating the law and the Constitution with astonishing regularity and effectively with impunity (the Season 10 cliffhanger ending notwithstanding). From illegal wiretaps to illegal tracking to outright extrajudicial killings, it makes a mockery of law and order in the US. The Chinese government should be delighted.