3 ms·

China gives 'Fight Club' new ending where authorities win

9 points by codezero 5y ago

imbnwa 5y ago
Changing the ending is the least interesting thing about this IMO. More interesting is to observe the simultaneity of the CCP allowing Fight Club to be released at all in China (it was not previously available with the original ending, as the article notes it would've had to be pirated to have been seen at all), alongside their recently initiated cultural campaign against decadent male lifestyles (controlling video game usage, etc) and "sissy boy culture" (the purge of celebrity worship, K-Pop and K-Pop adjacent cultural trends and celebrities in the pursuit of guaranteeing a certain cultural 'masculinity'; also, 'sissy boy culture' is their words, not mine[0]). China seems to not only desire 'Capitalism without the decadent parts' at the level of policy but also at the level of culture, and something in Fight Club appears valuable to that end, only like their market economy there is an end as to how far the cultivation of their desired cultural masculinity can go. But we should also ask why an authoritarian government finds the re-assertion of masculinity (against its ostensibly decadent form) so enticing and what this may imply about the nature of Project Mayhem itself. [0]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/05/super-rich-sissy-boys-celebs-all-targets-in-xis-bid-to-end-cultural-difference https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/05/super-...
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  > More interesting is to observe the simultaneity of the CCP allowing Fight Club to be released at all in China The answer is that private companies in China operate autonomously of the censors, but have to get things past them in the end. So in this case, some company (Tencent Video) found value in releasing Fight Club on its platform, and made the cuts necessary to do that. The CCP would have never chosen Fight Club specifically for release, and if the censors/CCP were aware of the actual ending before they reviewed it, they might not have allowed it to be released at all. But in this case, they were surely unaware, and merely saw a film with a harmonious ending. Coincidentally, I always hear the "where is my mind" song in my head when in Beijing during Chinese New Years (when...lots of fire crackers make it sound like all the buildings around are being exploded).
  - imbnwa 5y ago
    >But in this case, they were surely unaware, and merely saw a film with a harmonious ending. I guess my questioning revolves around how exactly they interpreted the rest of the film, which doesn't let up on the anti-capitalist, anti-state sentiments. Perhaps the censors are only human and operating a bare minimum of ideological policing but I find it hard to square that laxness with the intensity of their current cultural campaign.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      They probably didn't? Tencent probably got the rights to the film in a licensing library for cheap, practiced some self censorship, and somebody went through the film at 2X and said "chabuduo". The party mostly relies on self censorship with punishment if they are found to not do it correctly, so its not like there is a lot of close checking. Just this controversy about the ending in the western media is probably enough for the party to go and tell Tencent they did this wrong, maybe this or next week, if they even notice. People think China is way more controlling than it actually is. Yes, the party aspires to absolute authoritarian control, but the reality on the ground is much messier.

9 points by codezero 5y ago

Changing the ending is the least interesting thing about this IMO. More interesting is to observe the simultaneity of the CCP allowing Fight Club to be released at all in China (it was not previously available with the original ending, as the article notes it would've had to be pirated to have been seen at all), alongside their recently initiated cultural campaign against decadent male lifestyles (controlling video game usage, etc) and "sissy boy culture" (the purge of celebrity worship, K-Pop and K-Pop adjacent cultural trends and celebrities in the pursuit of guaranteeing a certain cultural 'masculinity'; also, 'sissy boy culture' is their words, not mine[0]). China seems to not only desire 'Capitalism without the decadent parts' at the level of policy but also at the level of culture, and something in Fight Club appears valuable to that end, only like their market economy there is an end as to how far the cultivation of their desired cultural masculinity can go. But we should also ask why an authoritarian government finds the re-assertion of masculinity (against its ostensibly decadent form) so enticing and what this may imply about the nature of Project Mayhem itself. [0]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/05/super-rich-sissy-boys-celebs-all-targets-in-xis-bid-to-end-cultural-difference https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/05/super-...

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
> More interesting is to observe the simultaneity of the CCP allowing Fight Club to be released at all in China The answer is that private companies in China operate autonomously of the censors, but have to get things past them in the end. So in this case, some company (Tencent Video) found value in releasing Fight Club on its platform, and made the cuts necessary to do that. The CCP would have never chosen Fight Club specifically for release, and if the censors/CCP were aware of the actual ending before they reviewed it, they might not have allowed it to be released at all. But in this case, they were surely unaware, and merely saw a film with a harmonious ending. Coincidentally, I always hear the "where is my mind" song in my head when in Beijing during Chinese New Years (when...lots of fire crackers make it sound like all the buildings around are being exploded).
- imbnwa 5y ago
  >But in this case, they were surely unaware, and merely saw a film with a harmonious ending. I guess my questioning revolves around how exactly they interpreted the rest of the film, which doesn't let up on the anti-capitalist, anti-state sentiments. Perhaps the censors are only human and operating a bare minimum of ideological policing but I find it hard to square that laxness with the intensity of their current cultural campaign.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    They probably didn't? Tencent probably got the rights to the film in a licensing library for cheap, practiced some self censorship, and somebody went through the film at 2X and said "chabuduo". The party mostly relies on self censorship with punishment if they are found to not do it correctly, so its not like there is a lot of close checking. Just this controversy about the ending in the western media is probably enough for the party to go and tell Tencent they did this wrong, maybe this or next week, if they even notice. People think China is way more controlling than it actually is. Yes, the party aspires to absolute authoritarian control, but the reality on the ground is much messier.