Chinese Censorship of "Ugly Behaviors"

Rebecca Reyes

Shaw, Gareth and Xiaoling Zhang. “Cyberspace and gay rights in a digital China: Queer documentary filmmaking under state censorship.” China Information, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2017, pp. 270-292.

Summary:

In a country where censorship laws are strict, how do documentary filmmakers produce and promote their work when their LGBT themed content is highly disapproved of? In this article, Shaw and Zhang research the ways in which filmmakers have taken advantage of microblogging and social media websites to showcase their work, spread awareness, and validate their community. Although China may not have laws making homosexuality illegal, Chinese officials are often cited as handling the matter with “no approval, no disapproval, no promotion” (273). Any media that portrays homosexuality in a positive light is almost always banned in China. So although it may not be illegal, the LGBT community is definitely not supported. With only one official LGBT, or tongzhi, community website up and running, filmmakers find it very difficult to display their work because, more often than not, if set up on this regulated website, it will eventually be banned and taken down. This is where microblogging and social media comes in. Through these Internet practices, the tongzhi community is able to access and promote works that validate their community. Although much is still censored, by posting their work through these sites, it is much more difficult to censor, easily accessible to Chinese and international audiences, and available to more than just the tongzhi community. Thus, in a country where their offline identities are shunned, the tongzhi community has found a way to ensure that they are not silenced online.

Response:

Although I knew China was strict, I didn’t realize how strict it was with its censorship. Anything depicting prostitution, fornication, rape and other “ugly behaviors.” Within the “ugly behaviors” category falls “abnormal sexual relations or sexual behavior, such as incest, homosexuality, perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, and sexual violence” (273). Now, in a society that classifies homosexuality as abnormal and alongside things such as assault, perversion, and incest and then censoring that, clearly the government is against it. They may not have laws against homosexuality, but they surely aren’t doing anything to validate this community.

In this new age where homosexuality is no longer blindly accepted as a perversion, the tongzhi community is finding avenues to express themselves, their identities, and to support and advocate for equal rights. As of right now, artists of the tongzhi community are not focused on finding fame and money. Rather, they are focused on establishing identity within a country that is trying to drown out their voices. Much of the work, thus, is publicly accessible and copy right issues are not so much a problem. “Allowing such work to be publicly accessible may serve as an indicator that such directors consider their role as tonghzi rights activists to be more important than their role as artists” (283). For these filmmakers, their primary goal and motivation is to increase visibility of tongzhi lives and issues within Chinese society. I find that completely admirable.

Quotations:

“The representation of Chinese tongzhi in film and media within mainland China reflects an ongoing struggle between artistic expression and government censorship” (273).

“In doing so [sharing and distributing queer documentaries], they are not specifically distributing documentaries in a physical sense, but rather are distributing their reputation, thereby affirming their existence and drawing attention to their position in the greater online and offline discourse” (276).

“…making visible the invisible stories” (284).

“The artists who create these films do so not as a revenue-earning vehicle, but rather as contributory pieces to a developing social movement” (284).