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1444 points feross | 1 comments | | HN request time: 1.068s | source
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Animats ◴[] No.32644673[source]
What's more striking is what comes out of China's domestic entertainment industry. There are far too many historical costume dramas. Those aren't as heavily censored as modern ones. More modern content looks like it was censored in accordance with the US Television Code of the 1950s. ("The code prohibited the use of profanity, the negative portrayal of family life, irreverence for God and religion, illicit sex, drunkenness and biochemical addiction, presentation of cruelty, detailed techniques of crime, the use of horror for its own sake, and the negative portrayal of law enforcement officials, among others.")[1] That's close to China's list. China also censors political subjects, to the point that nobody dares get near them in film or TV.

The quality is improving, though. A decade ago, there was "Sky Fighters", which is China's version of "Top Gun". That was produced by a film unit of the People's Liberation Army, and it's as heavy-handed as you might expect.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Practices_for_Televisi...

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1. int_19h ◴[] No.32655674[source]
Historical costume dramas are also censored pretty heavily, sometimes in weird ways. For example, you cannot have zombies, because reanimating dead corpses is disrespectful.

There are also cases where a show gets "canceled" because of something the actor said or did - and unlike the West, when this happens, the removal is sudden and total:

https://dramapanda.com/2021/08/word-of-honor-back-online-aft...