lust-caution.jpgThere have been a couple of things that set off my offense-o-meter recently, and they both revolve around censorship. In a clean-up operation apparently related to the Beijing Summer Olympics, the Chinese government has been cracking down on eroticism in the movies. The latest flap involves Tang Wei, the young star of Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. According to Reuters’ Karen Chu she “has been banned in the Chinese media because of the sexual nature of her performance” in that film. Ms. Chu continues:

An internal memo from China’s State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) was reportedly sent to all television stations and print media in China on Thursday night, stating that a new television commercial starring Tang for skin care brand Pond’s was to cease broadcast immediately. All print ads and feature content using the actress also were to be pulled. The memo gave no reason for the ban.

This follows the news from late last week that SARFT was renewing the bans on “lewd and pornographic content” that shows “promiscuous acts, rape, prostitution, sexual intercourse, sexual perversity, masturbation and male/female sexual organs and other private parts.”

Wow. Sounds like a Pat Robertson hit list to me . . . and this from an avowedly atheistic government . . .

Now, take a look at Movieguide, a popular website that rates movies as to “Christian values,” and attempts to come up with a quantitative measure of such a thing by counting instances of offensive sex and violence and other immoral stuff counterfeiters-die-falscher-poster-1.jpgand coming up with a rating. Here’s an example from one of their reviews, of the historical drama The Counterfeiters:

THE COUNTERFEITERS is an engrossing drama about a little known story in the Holocaust during World War II. The filmmakers deftly handle the moral dilemma faced by these prisoners. The only flaws are some strong foul language, snatches of very strong violence, and the fact that the movie’s positive moral points are made by an atheist Communist instead of a religious Jew. Thus, the movie’s moral worldview is not based on religious, God-centered or biblical notions.

Note that they admit that the film contains”positive moral points,” but that they have a problem with them being made by an “atheist Communist instead of a religious Jew” (presumably, a bad non-Christian rather than a good one). They give it a rating of -2, “Extreme Caution.”

Now, I don’t begrudge them the right to rate films based on any criteria they wish. Nor do I think they ought to be censored or closed down or regulated in any way. But they believe that American filmmakers should be. Here’s a reply from Movieguide editor Tom Snyder to a query from Rich Clark from the blog Christ and Pop Culture:

What would you like to see the film industry look like 20 years from now?
We support a return to the Moral Code of Decency and the vetting of all scripts for movies going to public theater and DVD retail within 20 years, if not in 3-5 years. That would probably include the elimination of all R-rated and NC-17 content as well as most PG-13 content. We also look forward to Christian/biblical hegemony within the industry. If this ministry had much more support, our progress would be that much quicker.

There are a couple of points to consider. First, there is reasonable, non-knee-jerk Christian analysis out there. The popular media likes to paint all Christians as having opinions like Snyder’s — it sells papers and pumps ratings. But notice the generally appalled response in the comments to this post — many of them found this cold-blooded statement as scary as I do.

But I wonder if folks like those at Movieguide ever see the irony in their advocating a kind of censorship very similar to what those godless commies already have. Probably not . . . they probably see irony as some kind of post-modern heresy. I don’t know for sure — I haven’t read this bunch’s justification — but they might point to motives as being the deciding factor. The atheist communists are censoring the nasty bits for some dark communist reason, certainly not because of any faith in God.

But it seems to me that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary (and I’m sorry, I don’t think self-disclosure is evidence), the simplest thing is to assume that if you see the same behavior, it’s in response to similar things. And one thing hegemonic cultures invariably do is control sexuality (note Snyder’s use of the word “hegemony” as if its a good thing). Further, if the cultures are patriarchal, as hegemonic cultures tend to be, it is female sexuality that’s most subject to control. Thus, in China, they ban Tang Wei from the media, but not her co-star, Tony Leung; our double standard in this country is well known.

Finally, censorship is always about control, always about those in power retaining it, or those who want to be in power gaining it. If you let the media have free reign in what they report (see this interesting New York Times piece), if you let the artists have free reign in their art, the results are unpredictable, they’ll put unwanted thoughts in the heads of the faithful, whether they’re faithful to a party line or an evangelical credo. Pretty soon, the inmates will be in control, which means folks like Snyder won’t. Censorship is always about control . . . political or religious, it makes little difference.

Thanks to Nate R. over at Film Experience for the pointer to the Tang Wei story.

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