The Eyes of Power

Intellectual Vision in Contemporary Chinese Local Film Censorship

Bibliographic Data

ID5698452
AuthorsJiale Ruan (0000-0002-5312-1303, Russian State Agrarian Correspondence University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume43
Issue4
Pages1115-1134
Publication date2023-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistorical Journal Of Film Radio and Television (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0143-9685 • E-ISSN: 1465-3451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01439685.2023.2218184
OpenAlexW4378904441
LanguageEN
Citations received5

As a socialist country with a large population, China has a tight censorship system in various visual fields, including film, television and online communities. To censor films, China’s central and local film authorities have successively established their own censorship systems. This article analyses the contemporary formation of local film censorship committees by combing through the history of film censorship in China. By discussing the relationship between intellectuals and the power behind film censorship, this study seeks to penetrate why and how intellectuals are co-opted by power and define the location of intellectuals in Chinese politics. Authorities reviewing films in a screening room symbolizes their ‘powerful’ gaze in the darkness, this visual mechanism of intellectual complicity with power, which requires Chinese filmmakers to learn how to survive under the combined influence of ‘self-censorship’ and intellectual vision. Furthermore, when exploring film censorship in contemporary China, the political logic of socialist China needs to be touched upon, where film censorship experts are in fact only the eyes of the power, not the power itself. AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank Mr. J from an eastern province and the reviewer of Journal of Art Studies in Taiwan for sharing their experiences of film censorship in mainland China, and Miss T for sharing her experience of working in a film bureau in a western province.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1 Junfeng Feng, ‘A Study on the Management and Control of Film by the KMT Authorities during the Mainland Period’ (PhD diss., Sichuan University, 2006); Chaoguang Wang, The Politics of Film Art: A Study of Film Censorship in the Republic of China (Beijing: Renmin University of China Press, 2013).2 Zhiwei Xiao, ‘Film Censorship and Cultural Reconstruction in the Republic of China: Dialect, Superstition and Pornography’, in Translation, Shanghai Cinema and Urban Culture in the Republic of China, ed. Zhang Yingjin and Su Tao (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2011), 196–213; Qian Gu, The National Government Film Management System 1927–1937 (Beijing: China Radio and Television Press, 2010); Haoyu Gong, ‘Acceptance with Reservations: The Trend of Public Opinion on Film Censorship in China in the 1920s’, Journalism and Communication Studies 7 (2018): 109–25.3 Min Zhou, ‘A Brief Discussion on the Current Situation of China’s Film Censorship System and Its Reform’ (Master’s thesis, China University of Political Science and Law, 2010).4 Xian Zhou, ‘Intellectuals: Extinction or Transformation?’ Yuehaifeng 2 (2000): 7–9.5 Victor A. Ginsberg and David Throsby, eds., Handbook of Art and Cultural Economics, trans. Wang Jiaxin (Dalian: Northeast University of Finance and Economics Press, 2018), 229.6 Shuoguo Zhang, ‘The Game of Power and Market: Film Censorship in Mainland China in the Mid to Late 1980s’, Journalism University 4 (2012): 47–56.7 Ministry of Culture, ‘Report of the Ministry of Culture on Certain Issues Concerning the Improvement of Film Production’, in Chinese Film Research Materials (1949–1979) (Medium Volume), ed. Wu Di (Beijing: Culture and Art Publishing House, 2006), 413–14.8 Xiaohan Tan, ‘A Study on the Criticism of Chinese-language Cinemas by the French Magazine “Film Manual”’, (PhD, Northeast Normal University, 2015).9 Zhaolong Zhang, ed., China Film Yearbook 1996 (Beijing: China Film Yearbook Society, 1997), 43–46.10 Ibid., 132–33.11 Xiao Xie, ‘Film Territorial Censorship Expected to be Introduced, Official Trial Run to Start Next Year,’ Southern Metropolis Daily, 2 September 2003.12 SARFT, ‘Filing System of Movie Scripts and the Management Regulations of Finished Movies’, in China Film Yearbook 2005, ed. Xiaoyi Yu (Beijing: China Film Yearbook Society, 2006), 2–3.13 SARFT, ‘The SARFT on Improving and Perfecting the Filing of Film Scripts and the Censorship of Films’, in China Film Yearbook 2010, ed. Qian Li (Beijing: China Film Yearbook Society, 2010), 17.14 Shandong Business News, ‘Local Censorship of Films to Start from April?’, DaZhong.com, 22 March 2014. http://heze.dzwww.com/sdxw/201403/t20140322_9872230.htm.15 Lei Li and Chao Guo, ‘Film Territorial Censorship by Local Authorities’, Guangming Daily, 25 March 2014.16 Ministry of Culture, ‘Report of the Ministry of Culture’, 413–14.17 Ibid.18 People’s Daily, ‘Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Promotion of the Film Industry’, People’s Daily, 12 April 2017.19 Interview conducted by the author through the mobile communication software WeChat on 22 June 2022.20 Bai Mu, ‘The Rules and Regulations of the Filming Process’, Wenhui News, 26 November 1956.21 See Xiaoyi Yu, ed., China Film Yearbook 2006 (Beijing: China Film Yearbook Society, 2007).22 People’s Daily, ‘Law of the People’s Republic of China’.23 Qijun Li and Ai Zhang, ‘Guangxi Film: Thinking Stereotypes, Artistic Breakthroughs and Future Directions’, Southern Literature 6 (2018): 168–72.24 From my interview with J, an anonymous film censorship expert in one of the eastern provinces of China. Our conversation took place on 10 May 2021, in Nanjing.25 See Jiangxi Provincial Local History Compilation Committee, ‘Film Censorship Room Put into Use’, Jiangxi Yearbook 2015 (Beijing: China Times Economic Publishing House, 2016), 348. The film censorship room in Jiangxi province was prepared for construction in 2014. Its renovation and the procurement of film viewing equipment took a year to complete. The progress of this project was written into the provincial government yearbook, which highlights the fact that the project is deemed an important cultural project for the local community.26 See Guangxi Radio and Television Bureau, ‘Guangxi Film Review Room Equipment Procurement Tender Notice [Project No. GXZC2014-G1-1237-JGJD]’, 25 August 2014. http://gbdsj.gxzf.gov.cn/zwgk/fdzdgknr/zbcg/t2938745.shtml.27 Fei Wang, ‘Why is the High Moral Character of Artists Written into the Law?’, Beijing Entertainment Information Daily, 21 April 2017.28 Shiqiu Lan, ‘Film Review Time Reduced to About a Week’, Chongqing Daily, 28 May 2014.29 SARFT, ‘The State Forms a New Film Censorship Committee’, in China Film Yearbook, ed., Yu Xiaoyi (Beijing: China Film Yearbook Society, 2002), 100.30 This list can be found in ‘Adjustments to the Film Censorship Board and the Film Final Review Board’, China Film Yearbook 2006, Xiaoyi Yu, ed. (Beijing: China Film Yearbook Society, 2007), 80.31 Unity Media Center of Sunan Yugu Autonomous County, Gansu Province, ‘Film Anjiang Deer Censorship Meeting Held, Soon to Be Screened on CCTV Film Channel’, Pengpai News, 15 July 2020. https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_8304019d.32 Ruiting Hu, ed., Zhejiang Radio, Film and Television Yearbook 2014 (Beijing: China Radio, Film and Television Press, 2015), 168.33 Ruiting Hu, ed., Zhejiang Radio, Film and Television Yearbook 2015 (Beijing: China Radio, Film and Television Press, 2017), 165.34 People’s Daily, ‘Law of the People’s Republic of China’.35 This was a kind reminder from the reviewers, and I am very grateful to them for making me aware of it.36 Mu Su, ‘Chinese Film Censorship Opinions Refer to “Devils on the Doorstep”: The Film’s Basic Intention Is Seriously Off’, Film World 10 (2012): 28–29.37 Hongfeng Tang, ‘The Art System and Its Critique’, Journal of Aesthetic Education 6 (2014): 10–17.38 Zhaokai Qin, ‘Money, Institutions, Contemporary Art—From the Story of a Shark’, Art Watch 4 (2019): 84–88.39 See SARFT, ‘Appointment Ceremony for Members of Shanghai Film Censorship Expert Committee Held’, State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, 14 July 2010. http://www.nrta.gov.cn/art/2010/7/14/art_112_13193.html.40 Qiang Tong, ‘The Main Features of Ancient Chinese Art Institutions’, Nanjing Social Sciences 12 (2019): 129–36.41 Craig Clunas, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 50–55.42 Jürgen Habermas, The Essence of Habermas, trans. and ed. Cao Weidong (Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2004), 38.43 Jeffrey Edward Green, The Eyes of the People: Democracy in an Age of Spectatorship (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).44 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Liu Beicheng and Yang Yuanying (Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore Press, 1999).45 Fei Xie and Bin Zhou, ‘Interview with Director Xie Fei: Film Censorship Needs Institutional Innovation’, National Human History 2 (2013): 25–27.46 Phoenix, ‘China’s Film Censorship System’, Phoenix Entertainment Channel, 2010. https://ent.ifeng.com/movie/special/66thcannes/shencha/#002.47 QQ, ‘The Elusive Mainland Film Censorship standards’, QQ.com, 2012. https://ent.qq.com/zt2012/views/28.htm.48 See The Eight Hundred Productions, ‘Cancellation of Scheduled July 5 Public Screening’, Weibo.com, 2019. https://weibo.com/u/606941683112.49 Wenxiong Zhang, ‘After a Year, What Exactly Has Been Changed in The Eight Hundred?’, Wexin.com, 14 August 2020. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/s7rQmBar7UTKLhIOo5A5yA.50 Central Documentary Research Office of CPC, Excerpts from the Writings of Chairman Mao (Beijing: Central Documents Press, 2003): 727–31.51 Eliot Weininger, ‘Bourdieu’s Fundamentals of Class Analysis’, in Methods of Class Analysis, trans. Ma Lei, Wu Fei, Wang Fuqin, and Zhao Yong, ed. Eric Olin Wright (Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2011), 122.52 From my interview with J, an anonymous film censorship expert in one of the eastern provinces of China. Our conversation took place on 10 May 2021, in Nanjing.53 Beijing Youth Daily, ‘Zhang Hongsen, Director of Film Bureau. “Guest’ Narrator”, Demystifies Film Censorship,” Beijing Youth Daily, 14 March 2017.54 This was the personal experience of an anonymous Chinese film censorship expert who shared his film censorship experience with me via an email, received on 12 May 2021.55 Sohu, ‘The Lake Changjin Has Been Reported, Parents Say the Film isBloody and Violent’, Sohu.com, 8 October 2021: https://www.sohu.com/a/493973639_121124337.56 Zhifeng Yao, ‘China’s Film Classification System in the Making’, China News Daily, J20 June 2007.57 Bokai Zhang, ‘After the Introduction of the Film Classification System’, Film Reviews 11 (1989): 11.58 Yan Sun, ‘Ideology and the Demise or Maintenance of Soviet-type Regimes Perspectives on the Chinese Case’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 28 (1995): 319–38.59 Xinjing News, ‘Guangxi Quanzhou People’s Procuratorate Ordered to Rectify Improper Performance of Special Review of Primary School Textbooks’, Sina, 5 June 2022. https://k.sina.com.cn/article_1644114654_61ff32de02001irao.html

Censorship · China · Media studies · Physics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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