Censorship FTW! China bans Paris Hilton, minor Kardashians et al It might be time to reconsider the evils of China's censorship regime, after the Middle Kingdom slapped a ban on reality TV shows featuring celebrities' children. China's not super-keen on reality shows: this 2015 speech by official Tian Jin urges their producers to make people, not celebrities, the real heroes of such …
porn is illegal in the Middle Kingdom.
One must take the good with the bad i guess.
Censorship is bad, for lots of reasons.
Grown-ups get to do grown up things including choosing to ignore faux-lebirites and watching adults have consensual adult relations with each other.
See how i pushed that smut angle.. :snigger:
"Big brother" in China is a show reserved to those in power...
Yet actually banning those shows is actually a way to protect the oligarchy. Some Chineses could eventually nurture late XVIII century French thoughts looking at how a minority is a able to take control of and then dissipate the country resources...
If it weren't for the (rightly expressed) derision on The Reg, I wouldn't have the slightest clue who most of those twits are... I don't click on "news" links about people who are (evidently) popular (self promoted?). I often see their names, but they only seem to be a part of some strange "fandom" and "popular media" interest, and only serve to distract people from reality. Is there anything worthwhile that they've done? What is the excitement all about? Two months ago, I finally discovered why I kept hearing (reading?) about "Kardashians". I thought it was some reference to an obscure SciFi series. Geez! Who gives a shit? Have any of them made a positive influence on society or humanity?
Never thought I'd agree with an oppressive government's policy... (and, I still don't)
</soapbox>
With you there. For years I wondered why Deep Space Nine characters were so often referenced in some magazines, except the spelling was wrong. Now I know, I prefer the Cardassians. That tailor was admirably sceptical, cynical and sarcastic. Also remarkably honest.. Could alien races have Aspies too ?
A 'The Cardassians' soap would be interesting.
Or how about a period drama production of 'The Never ending Story', the popular Cardassian saga in the repetitive form.
Last I checked out BBC iplayer, I struggled to find anything I wanted to watch, from my perspective, they might as well not have bothered with a flash free iplayer.
Andrew Robinson, the actor who played the Elim Garak, wrote a biography of his character - A Stitch in Time
If this were to happen what would the Daily Fail (and Facebook's "trending") actually "report" on. After all, I cherish all the articles highlighting that some talentless twat who's happened to be on TV at some point was photographed wearing swimwear. On a beach.
Now if the aforementioned twat was photgraphed wearing swimwear while going to the cinema then, yes, this actually has a tiny bit more interest to it (just for the stupidity). On the otherhand, please don't let the Daily Fail and Facebook know this otherwise there would instantly be many of these z-listers wearing swimwear to the cinema just so they can be photographed doing it.
I am reliably informed by the missus, who reads the Daily Fail zzz-elebrity twat bar [she claims, in an ironic way] that the fat-arsed Kardashian thing shot to fame after a video was posted on YouTube, in which she featured, drinking her boyfriend's piss.
So, it's a bit unfair to claim she's not contributed anything to global culture.
Noise reduction algorithm perhaps ? Odd, isn't it, when something like censorship seems to have an upside. Meanwhile I use the off switch on the few occasions anything other than a decent news service is on. Most of the other are from BBC, largely Mosley and Tony Robinson. So much for the creative aspect of the private sector.
Censorship? Perhaps. But bear in mind that a similar ban in the West would likely have meant any number of Kardashians, Hiltons, Osbornes and Cyruses would never have made it to air. ®
They forgot that little twerp Bieber...
yes, yes, closing the gate after the cows have gone. Just have to spot the cows before they try to leave the pen...
Osbornes
That is easy Ozzy and his manager, seen his band live in the 80s.
Cardassians
Antagonists in ST DSN, commonly called Spoon Heads, I think one of Spandau Ballet may have been one, well they did look like Dukat.
AFAIK Hilton is a porn actress, apart from that no idea.
So out of all of these I would recognise the ex Black Sabbath singer and the aliens.
"AFAIK Hilton is a porn actress"
no, not an actress. Actresses (and actors) have speaking parts. Whatever she does with her mouth in those films, she's certainly not speaking.
To be truthful, what she did was so crap it hardly counted as porn. Far better things to be viewed by the thousand on Xhamster.com and elswhere
So the rulers of China ban shows that are all-fluff, for moralistic reasons. A worthy aim, but alas, they are doomed to failure. It's been tried elsewhere. Each time, the slow tide of TV banality has overwhelmed all resistance.
The Chinese TV viewers must be much like TV viewers everywhere; shallow and bored. They will get what they want.
Having had to put up with SWMBO watching Chinese soap operas, I think it is a bit late for the Chinese government to ban "fluff".
Mind you, I also doubt it will be effective; a few years back they banned "Shows featuring Time Travel", yet loads of my nieces teenage friends were into Dr Who when I was out there last.
The "children" they are talking about are the spoilt offspring of party apparachiks that have got rich through corruption, being basically allowed to pocket the profits of state-run industry, or run lucrative business with tacit official blessing. The stories about these have been causing unrest amongst the multitudes of poorly-paid workers accross China.
You never expect to hear yourself saying, "man, I think I'll move to China", then something like this comes along. Sure, you have to cope with oppression, suppression, corruption, and censorship, but at least you know what you're getting going in. And I wouldn't have to continue to smile wanly at our own fiction that is "representative democracy". A nod's as good as a wink to any pigopolist.
I'm with you on this !
I think the possibility of me being garrotted-at-dawn on the flimsiest of pretexts, so that my internal organs can be harvested for the benefit of Party apparatchiks, is - frankly - a small price to pay for a guaranteed Kardashian-free life.
A stopped clock is right twice a day!
I wouldn't want to live in North Korea, even though instead of that awful rock and roll music, young people have inspiring songs to listen to like "Let's Study!" (also translated as "Let's Learn!").
Of course a dictatorship will, among its other goals, want its people to labor constructively, and rest with uplifting pastimes - and so they will clamp down hard on drugs and all forms of dissipation. Latitude for such things is one of the prices we pay for freedom, but it's worth it.
remember......after Mao et al, the Chinese aren't keen on new examples of "The Cult of Personality".
Last thing they want is for their press to start lauding people in competition to the government.....they have a very defined view as to who the current generation of cultural heroes should be
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