A cotton field in Hami, Xinjiang, Sept. 20, 2015.
Recently, the Chinese Communist Party “blurred” the logos of Western brands in a television variety show against Western companies that support human rights in Xinjiang, to the surprise of foreign netizens who cried out, “Stupid censorship under a stupid system.” .
Since the Communist Party launched its boycott of Western brands, many Chinese celebrities have publicly cut ties with Western brands, and now the wave has spread to TV shows.
BBC News reported on April 7 that the move has caused some shows to be delayed because post-production editors need to censor everything about the outfits – from T-shirts to shoes – making some shows hilarious.
For example, the mainland variety show “Sisters Who Make Waves,” a show about female entertainers who sing or dance, was overly “blurred” so that the “sisters'” shoes were indistinct. It looks like these “sisters” are not riding the waves, but in the clouds.
The reality show “CHUANG2021” (Creation Camp 2021), produced by Tencent Video, is even more hilarious, as many of the contestants are dressed head to toe in brands from Western companies that support human rights in Xinjiang, causing most of their bodies to be blurred out.
And perhaps the most challenging of all is the reality idol group show Youth with You, which features so many contestants that TV editors are likely to “blur” them out.
On March 25, the show’s production company, Akiyoshi, issued a notice saying that the upcoming show would have to be postponed, but no reason was given. When the show resumed two days later, viewers immediately noticed that the brand logos on more than 50 people’s T-shirts had been “blurred out.
Last December, the BBC published an investigation based on a new study showing that the Communist authorities are forcing thousands of ethnic minorities, including Uighurs, to perform manual labor in Xinjiang’s cotton fields.
The Communist Party’s move sparked laughter and mockery on social media platforms in China and abroad, with many mainlanders “feeling sorry” for the TV station’s post-production staff, with one wangmin user on the microblogging platform saying, “They’re really working hard and can’t sleep these days.” Other netizens created spoof versions.
Western netizen K4r0z4g0rus said, “Stupid censorship under a stupid dictatorship.”
Netizen stewartlopez14 said, “Really innovative, they learned a trick from pornographic films.”
Netizen leondotcom said, “Eventually the Chinese will have to watch fuzzy TV.”
Jamesreynolds said, “Hahahaha, communists are so dumb.”
Vanosnadalclay said, “Man, that’s going to keep them busy if it’s the Winter Olympics.”
The Communist Party has censored hip-hop culture, tattoos and cleavage in TV shows, and in 2015, when the ancient historical drama “Wu Zetian,” starring Fan Bing Bing and others, began airing, the Communist Party censorship body required all actresses to have their breasts mandatorily “sealed.
TVB’s Variety Division production director Yu Wing-shan told the media that more than 200 employees worked overnight and spent nearly 15 million yuan on a stunt to “cover” the actresses’ breasts frame by frame so as not to make viewers feel abrupt. The version in mainland China, however, is that the chest shots were all cut, and was ridiculed by netizens for turning into a “big-headed doll”.
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