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Chloé Zhao’s historic Oscar win appears largely censored in China

• danso 6y ago
  Key excerpts: > For the first time since 2003, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV did not air the Academy Awards, with outlets receiving instructions to “play down discussions” of Sunday’s ceremony. Some have attributed the boycott to the nomination of the documentary “Do Not Split” by Anders Hammer, which follows the 2019 Hong Kong protests, as well as controversy surrounding Zhao. > In March, as her film won international plaudits, Zhao was hailed by Chinese state media as the “pride of China” and her film was scheduled to be released within the country at the end of April. After Internet users found a 2013 interview with Filmmaker magazine where Zhao described China as a country where there were “lies everywhere,” praise-filled articles were removed. “Nomadland” did not appear in Chinese theaters on April 23 as scheduled. > “Why is Weibo blocking Chloé Zhao? What happened? All related Weibo posts have been censored,” one user wrote on the platform. Others noted that Zhao’s Oscars win did not appear among the most searched topics, a list that is often manipulated by the platform. One blogger wrote in frustration that the only Oscar-related content they could find was that of a singer named Oscar Wang who had been unexpectedly eliminated from a boy band contest run by Tencent.