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I don't really agree with this, but consider this argument : Is it really a bad thing if different countries have different understanding of what's allowed/not allowed? If the whole world had the same system of governance, that could be dangerous too.
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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.
The argument would be that you can find critical views of the military - just not in a blockbuster movie. The question is why the people making the content in the US and China don't want to certain content. Is it because they're worried it won't be popular or because they're worried that it will be popular. I can't prove anything (how would you?) but I tend to think in the U.S. it's the former and in the China the la…
This is not outright government censorship - you can still make a picture that says “the US military sucks” - but it certainly has an effect on big-budget films that want every dollar they can get.
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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.
It most certainly "could" be made as there is nothing preventing a studio from doing so if they wanted to. It may not be commercially viable and thus it would not get green-lit by a studio but that's a world away from the government explicitly forbidding it.
I wonder if there are any seasonal discontinuities? Those could indicate anything from a cultural shift in the censors to actual individual censors retiring and getting replaced, since so much of censorship is very subjective.
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It's a deeper level of censorship. Not only will you refrain from thinking about these things in a tolerant light, you will refrain from thinking about these things at all. It chops pieces off reality when you do that. Censorship is amazing. So popular (downvotes anyone?), so casually employed, yet so incredibly destructive.
This idea can be easily reversed: It's a deeper level of indoctrination. When these things are covertly inserted in an innocuous sounding show, not only will you start thinking about them, you will subconsiously think of them in a tolerant light. China has its own culture and mores, why should it allow that kind of soft projection of Western power.
But when the indoctrination collides with reality in a harmful way, it's a different matter. Objectively, it is true that gay people exists and that there is no good reason to restrict their rights.
Kinda weird that author categorized the incest joke "Howard: I lost my virginity to my cousin Jeanie" under LGBTQ censorship. When she mentioned the justification: "China has encouraged straight couples to marry and raise two to three children." it makes some sense, but incestuous relationships are not considered by themselves "LGBTQIA2S+"
The author was raised in another culture and I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here. There are plenty of cultures (even in the US!) that would lump together queerness and incest and forms of sexual transgression. The fact that the author included the parenthetical means that they are aware of the distinction. But the perspective of the Chinese censors is probably to consider non-normative sex as a single category.
Perhaps the author intended to highlight the negative effects of censorship by emphasizing the largest and most significant effect of that censorship?
Aside from the fascinating topic, the data visualization and legwork gathering the data for this article is outstanding!
I think this might just be a high-quality site, but I can't help but wonder if this prevents youtube or some other service from taking things down via supurious DMCA requests.
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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.
It's really interesting that such a bland, un-subversive show whose only mentions of sensitive topics are in bad throwaway jokes is so heavily censored. I guess a more interesting show would just not get aired at all.
It's a deeper level of censorship. Not only will you refrain from thinking about these things in a tolerant light, you will refrain from thinking about these things at all. It chops pieces off reality when you do that. Censorship is amazing. So popular (downvotes anyone?), so casually employed, yet so incredibly destructive.
If you've ever watched the banal things that people go through to get something past daytime censors, or, get a PG rating for films etc. it's similar.
This is not 'Xi's authoritarian' system so much as 'different cultural standards of the moment'.
Respect that in some parts of the world they don't talk or joke about STD's in that context.
I wouldn't want to be subject to it, but this is not the kind of censorship that's a problem.
Note that in the West, we 'self censor' tons of jokes or things that might be a bit off.
Finally - I'm 100% certain there are examples of this kind of censorship which are problematic, for example, the mention of 'Taiwan' etc..