China is trying to clean up its act in anticipation of the upcoming Beijing Olympics in August, and spooks, spirits, and other haunts have suddenly found themselves unwelcome in the country. Horror movies have recently been added to the list of cultural cleansing currently occurring in the country.
The directions being given are flavored to make it sound like this whole search for horror movies is being done to “save the children” with specific instructions being given to "control and cleanse the negative effect these items have on society, and to prevent horror, violent, cruel publications from entering the market through official channels and to protect adolescents' psychological health," according to Reuters. Call it what you will, it sounds like censorship to me.
Producers have been given three weeks to report instances of “horror” on their tapes and films to authorities, with directions to look for ”wronged spirits and violent ghosts, monsters, demons, and other inhuman portrayals, strange and supernatural storytelling for the sole purpose of seeking terror and horror.” Isn’t there an irony here that so much of America’s recent horror trends have come from the Asian markets, but now China wants to remove that from their own screens?
Of course, the effort to remove this content, along with the “vulgar” content restrictions announced last week, aren’t just about what’s on the screen. They also apply to street corner pirate vendors, movies in production, and a wide variety of other forms. Basically the countries officials want to remove horror and vulgarity from all of their cultural channels, so when the Olympics arrive the rest of the world doesn’t have to think China is involved in such things. Word is they’ll only be airing episodes of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Desi had separate beds too.
Personally, I take more offense at the notion of cleaning up the entire culture of things like horror stories than I would at seeing a stray shot of a horror movie marquis during the upcoming Olympics. Still, China has rarely gone the easy way when it comes to information or cultural control, so why should we be surprised by these new developments?
