Hollywood Now Needs Censorship Consultants In China

By on January 15, 2013 in News 4

Two of the booming occupations of the future: government mole who weeds out and reports dangerous movies and cultural works, and consultant who helps creators navigate censorship standards. The Atlantic Wire writes:

China’s censorship has become a huge headache for Hollywood lately, as movie studios struggle to break in to the world’s second largest film market. Every single film bound for Chinese theaters has to make it past China’s all-powerful State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) whose guidelines for what is and isn’t acceptable is more or less subjective and entirely unpredictable. All the studios can do is hire consultants who are familiar with the ins and outs of censorship in China and hope for the best.

Bringing in consultants does help movie studios frame projects in a censor-friendly manner, but after filming begins the filmmakers have to be very careful not to deviate from the plan. SARFT sends spies to the set to make sure everything is going as planned. “There were points where we were shooting with a crew of 500 people,” said director Rob Cohen. “I’m not sure who was who or what, but knowing the way the system works, it’s completely clear that had we deviated from the script, it would not have gone unnoticed.”

Any little detail can be cause for blocking a movie. In The Karate Kid, SARFT didn’t like the fact that the villain was Chinese so the filmmakers had to change the story to make it acceptable. They took issue with Kung Fu Panda simply because the main character was a nationally treasured animal. Censors ordered nearly 15 minutes of footage to be cut from Men in Black 3 because the movie referred to Chinese censorship.

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  • BuzzCoastin

    every US TV network has a censorship department
    every US movie is screened by “morality” censors in order to rate it
    try and find subjects like 9/11, the CIA drug operation, Bankster crimes
    in the mainstream media with anti-mainstream views

    is China’s government censorship radically different from Uncle Homeland’s?
    just in terms of what’s censored & how
    otherwise, the approach of the totalitarian commies is the same as
    The Land of the Free’s

  • Chaos_Dynamics

    May 2012 – China’s Dalian Wanda Group took over AMC Entertainment in a $2.6 billion deal forming the world’s largest cinema chain,

    Dalian has 86 theaters in China. (730 screens)

    AMC has 346 in US. (5,000 screens)

  • http://www.zoboprepublic.wordpress.com/ zobop republic

    I can’t believe American business is will to submit to Communist censoship just so they can make money.
    I thought we, USA, was suppose to be against Communist influence. And to think the US spent all that money on South American/Latin American “Death Squads” in what the US government thinks is it’s “back yard”.
    What a waste of money and human lives. How hypocritical!
    I’m talking to you;Conservatives, Neo-cons, Republicans, et al. *anybody else?*

    • https://sites.google.com/site/themattprather Matt Prather

      One step, which occurred long ago, which must be reversed if we are ever to improve our society and our world — is the acceptance of the economic concept that “it’s good to do business with China” or that we have to be competitive with them in any way, including in competition for their markets’ revenues.

      It’s profitable to the ownership class and the mid-level corporate executive class — they don’t live the same lives as the common people — and they sure did a good job of selling the Ponzi scheme to us involved in changing wholesole to a FIRE-economy and “intellectual property” economy and whatever other service industries boomed during the Ponzi expansion of all this out-sourcing and deficit spending — but come on, let’s reverse our heads right now before things get any worse.

      Key-word: heads.