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The Big [Censored] Theory

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Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#101

Post by buscoquadnary »

jrm4 wrote: post #11
cdot2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything you can think of you will be able to find that content. We simply don't have the kind of censorship that China has. Comparing the two is ridiculous.

Your second sentence is absolutely correct, the others are not. Easy example: compare the Marvel "Civil War" comics to the movies. The former was critical of the military in a way that could not happen in any big blockbuster movie.

What? Plenty of movies are super critical of the military and the 3 letter agencies in tons of ways, heck there is a whole genre out there about Government military agent realizes he's doing bad things and goes rogue to correct those misdeeds.

Then you've got things like Full Metal Jacket, which I don't think is getting anyone to sign up for the forces.

Like Top Gun did well recently, but is one of the only movies I can think of in the past couple of years that actually portrayed the US military in a mostly positive light rather than the usual gamut which runs from ineffective bumbling ossfied and useless to straight up evil.

I'm just saying you can make whatever you want in the US and portray pretty much any idea or theme, that doesn't mean people will like it, but you can make it. In China there is no similar comparison they'll take your studio at best or imprison you at worst.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#102

Post by throwaway5752 »

jedberg wrote: post #86
sltkr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm mostly offended how stale and unoriginal a lot of these jokes are, but I can definitely see why the censors took offense at some of them. For example, the joke about the Chinese restaurant ("I'd be more concerned about what they're passing off as chicken") plays off of the stereotype that Chinese people eat dogs and cats, and the “passing off” remark implies that the Chinese restaurant owners are decep…

> I dare you to show that scene at a liberal college and notice how few laughs you get. Did you see the recent video where the white guy dressed up in a poncho, big hat, and fake mustache and carried around maracas? He asked a bunch of white kids on a college campus if they thought his outfit was offensive to Mexicans, and they all said yes. Then he went to the Mexican part of town and asked actual Mexicans, and they…

Who posted that video, and was it unedited? If we're going on a single piece of anecdata, I think it's fair to question if the creator had any biases or was trustworthy.

And not all racism / bias is equal. Maybe you are right that Chinese and Chinese-American people would not be offended by this, but it seems completely reasonable that they would be, and the onus on you would be to get data that they wouldn't. It really doesn't matter what liberal college students think at all, unless they happen to also be of Chinese or of Chinese descent (or they are southeast Asian, and tired of lazy racism that doesn't bother to distinguish such things).

edit: it was in fact PragerU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragerU) which is intended for entertainment. It should not be considered reliable or unedited.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#103

Post by vorpalhex »

jedberg wrote: post #86
sltkr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm mostly offended how stale and unoriginal a lot of these jokes are, but I can definitely see why the censors took offense at some of them. For example, the joke about the Chinese restaurant ("I'd be more concerned about what they're passing off as chicken") plays off of the stereotype that Chinese people eat dogs and cats, and the “passing off” remark implies that the Chinese restaurant owners are decep…

> I dare you to show that scene at a liberal college and notice how few laughs you get. Did you see the recent video where the white guy dressed up in a poncho, big hat, and fake mustache and carried around maracas? He asked a bunch of white kids on a college campus if they thought his outfit was offensive to Mexicans, and they all said yes. Then he went to the Mexican part of town and asked actual Mexicans, and they…

The important part of virtual signaling is that it has nothing to do with it's stated aims. Virtue signaling such as calling out the college cafeteria for serving sushi as "cultural appropriation"[0] is not because the people doing the signaling care about the art of sushi or the Japanese culture - it's narcissistic posturing by the person doing the signaling. Another term for this is "white savior complex".

In many ways the virtue signaling is doing the thing they are accusing others of - using a culture (that isn't theirs) as a weapon for social status.

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-36804155

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#104

Post by commandlinefan »

ALittleLight wrote: post #10

I can see how this might backfire. You notice a censored jump and start to feel the itch of curiosity as to what it concealed. I had to watch several of the censored scenes whereas I would have never just randomly watched clips of the show. Also, love the presentation on this page.

aka "The Streisand Effect".

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#105

Post by politician »

cutemonster wrote: post #83
darawk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is right. If people vote for censorship in a democracy, that's a perfectly fine form of governmental heterogeneity. What's happening in China is not that.

I find it slightly amazing how often commenters here (hello aero-glide2) fail to see that the people in a country are not the same as the dictators controlling the country. When such misunderstandings are common here at HN, where people are a bit brighter that elsewhere (or so I think) -- then, such misunderstandings must be dangerously common outside HN. I wonder what consequences follow from that

Given the scale of the demographic collapse in China -- the over-reporting of girls by 100M, the situation where 20M men have no chance of the possibility of having a stable heterosexual relationship due to the lack of women, the rapidly aging population (highest in the world) that is post child bearing age -- doesn't it begin to seem reasonable the steps that the government is taking to curtail and shape public opinion?

China has no replacement generation, and they are facing internal turmoil within the next decade on a scale that has no historical precedent.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#107

Post by jedberg »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #102
jedberg wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dare you to show that scene at a liberal college and notice how few laughs you get. Did you see the recent video where the white guy dressed up in a poncho, big hat, and fake mustache and carried around maracas? He asked a bunch of white kids on a college campus if they thought his outfit was offensive to Mexicans, and they all said yes. Then he went to the Mexican part of town and asked actual Mexicans, and they…

Who posted that video, and was it unedited? If we're going on a single piece of anecdata, I think it's fair to question if the creator had any biases or was trustworthy. And not all racism / bias is equal. Maybe you are right that Chinese and Chinese-American people would not be offended by this, but it seems completely reasonable that they would be, and the onus on you would be to get data that they wouldn't. It rea…

> and the onus on you would be to get data that they wouldn't.

FWIW I have a few data points -- this is something my Chinese wife has literally said inside a Chinese restaurant, and some of her other family members have said similar things about not trusting that the food being served is what they said it was.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#108

Post by paxys »

jrm4 wrote: post #3

I find that it's always interesting to THEN consider, okay -- while there's no centralized board or anything -- what does e.g. American censorship go after?

People forget that before cable TV government-mandated censorship was commonplace in the USA for all kinds of media. And after that we just shifted the burden on to ratings agencies.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#109

Post by c0unt »

gavinray wrote: post #34

Is the author around? The visualization below "So the question has to be asked: what kind of content has been removed, and why? " Is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Could you share how this was made?

the website (pudding.cool) has tons of other articles showing off the visualization and its great

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#110

Post by ascar »

Side note: the article mentions canned laughter in TBBT rather early. TBBT actually doesn't use canned laughter but uses laughter from the live audience for its laugh track.

I pity that I didn't have the chance to visit the studios and be part of that laugh track :(

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