Growing up in China, I had a blast watching American TV shows. They not
only helped me learn English, but also introduced me to fresh
perspectives and worldviews. The Big Bang Theory was among my
favorites.

I quickly became a fan of the sitcom when it was officially introduced
in China on a video streaming website in 2011. But when I rewatched the
show in 2022 on Youku, a Chinese video streaming website backed by e-
commerce giant Alibaba, I couldn�t help but notice weird jumps, pauses,
and disconnected canned laughter. Here is an example:

What happened to the show?

To understand that, we have to back up a bit. This change can be traced
to a sudden political decision in 2014. According to the state-owned
media outlet Xinhua, streaming platforms received a private
notification from regulators to remind them of one key rule:

�imported American and British TV shows must be �reviewed and approved
by officials before streaming to the public.��

Shortly thereafter, The Big Bang Theory was among a handful of imported
shows pulled from Chinese websites. Audiences were only left with a
black screen and a line: �video has been removed due to policy
reasons.�

When these shows resurfaced, they were full of these weird jumps,
signaling that scenes were removed during censorship because someone
somewhere thought it would be inappropriate or illegal to stream such
content.

So the question has to be asked: what kind of content has been removed,
and why?

stacked bar chart of 100 episodes where no values are depicted yet
SHELDEN: Well today we tried masturbating for money.
SHELDON: Alright, let's see. Bernie Bunny has two daddies now. It's
probably about homosexual rabbits.
LEONARD: How about when you put GPS trackers in your garbage because
you were convinced North Korean spies were stealing your doodles?
Download data

To find out, I compared 100 episodes of the original version of The Big
Bang Theory with the edited Youku version to understand what was cut
out and decipher the logic behind the decision.

77 of the first 100 episodes had at least one edit, amounting to 206
removed scenes.

I categorized these scenes, among which sex, LGBTQ+ (and atypical
heterosexual relationships), as well as disrespect toward China or the
country�s allies are the most common ones. The four other topics
account for a rather small portion but are still worth mentioning:
illegal actions, religion, unhealthy addictions, and miscellaneous.

Most scenes are in the sex category, where characters mentioned sexual
descriptions, body parts, and other relevant languages.

The LGBTQ+ category refers to any conversation that brings up
relationships or physical intimacy that fall outside of a typical
heterosexual coupling.

Cases in the category of disrespect usually involve a joke at the
expense of China or its peers North Korea and Russia.

This added up to over one hour of deleted scenes, or nearly three full
episodes of purely censored content.

All of these categories can find their legal roots in a regulatory
guideline that was enacted by China�s National Radio and Television
Administration, formerly known as the State Administration of Radio,
Film, and Television, in 2006.

TV series or movies should be edited if they have the following
content: (1) distorting Chinese and other countries� culture
and society; (2) defaming Chinese military forces, policemen,
and judiciary; (3) showcasing obscenity content, either visual
or verbal; (4) showcasing �excessive� images of murder,
violence, horror, interrogation, drug-taking, and even
gambling; (5) advertise negative and decadent values or
deliberately exaggerate the negative part of society; (6)
advocate religious extremism; (7) advocate environmental
destruction and animal torture; (8) excessively showcase
alcohol addiction, smoking, or other bad habits; (9)
demonstrate other illegal content.

Sex is the most frequently censored topic in this TV-14 show, meaning
that it is appropriate for audiences aged 14 and older, with 139 scenes
and 43.1 minutes removed. These could be considered �obscenity
content,� which is banned by China�s 2006 guideline.

Since China hasn�t built a video rating system, the removal of such
content is always justified by reasons involving children � children
shall be exposed to �main melody� so that they can grow up in a healthy
way. �Main melody� is an informal name for productions that fit into
patriotic or pro-Communist Party themes.

These next examples represent censored scenes about the LGBTQ+
community and atypical heterosexual relationships. Most instances are
related to homosexuality, even though there are no actual homosexual
couples in these episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

These removals reflect the government�s objective of encouraging
particular identities and behaviors by eliminating mentions of any
others. In this case, LGBTQIA2S+ identities are censored.

The last time a Chinese TV show could explicitly present a homosexual
relationship and publicize it on the internet was in 2016, after the
sensational show, Addicted, made regulators wary. It was pulled even
before it released all episodes. As one industry expert put it,
�studios don�t have much choice but to accept the result of being
delisted.�

Meanwhile, out of increasing concern for its slow population growth,
China has encouraged straight couples to marry and raise two to three
children. That�s a notable shift away from its strict, decades-long
one-child-only policy. The government expects the media to back these
efforts. A National People�s Congress representative even told a
state-owned newspaper that the media should avoid publishing any
articles that would discourage marriage and maternity and instead focus
on what is considered �happy family life.�

The following scenes can be categorized as disrespect. They are the
only removed scenes that make sense to me, because they involve racism
against Chinese people, stereotypes about Chinese society, and possible
defamation of China�s key Communist ally, North Korea.

Some scenes are also related to China, but the logic behind their
removal is harder to understand, as they seem really� harmless.

Meanwhile, some types of scenes that were removed from The Big Bang
Theory were allowed to remain in native productions.

For instance, in season two, episode 15 of The Big Bang Theory, a six-
second kissing scene was cut from the Youku version, while the
streaming platform allowed a 42-second kissing scene in the Chinese
drama Because of Love to air.

Penny and Leonard are kissing on a couch.
The Big Bang Theory: Season 2 Episode 15
A female character and a male character are kissing under the shower.
Because of Love: Episode 12
Similarly, a naked back in season three, episode 21 was cut while in a
show called Stealth Walker (2021) on Youku, the nude back remained.

Dr. Elizabeth Plimpton is taking off her pajamas.
The Big Bang Theory: Season 3 Episode 21
A woman with a naked back under shower.
Stealth Walker: Episode 1
Such unequal treatment is bizarre. According to the governmental
guidelines, imported productions have only one more forbidden content
category to consider than national ones � the imported productions must
not show anything that would do harm to minors� physical and mental
health. The remaining forbidden content types, including nudity,
violence, and promoting the negative parts of society, are the same for
national and imported productions.

As there are no legal roots, this may come down to self-policing by
Chinese companies, who actually make the cuts and seek official
approval before releasing the show. The self-policing can be rather
relaxed, but that may result in multiple rounds of months-long
scrutiny.

Here is where things get especially interesting � to avoid the rabbit
hole of scrutiny, streaming platforms may go overboard to censor
themselves to make sure a video can pass the national censorship
authority�s review on the very first try. And that often results in
inconsistency, even in a national show itself.

The TV show Marvelous Women streamed a very controversial scene last
year, in which a real cat dropped from a table and landed on the ground
on its back. It was meant to show a cat being poisoned, but after it
was aired, netizens suspected that the crew might have killed an actual
cat, instead of using CGI.

Missy is talking about putting down a dog due to illness.
The Big Bang Theory: Season 1 Episode 15
A cat drops to the ground after being poisoned.
Marvelous Women: Episode 32
The scene was removed after the resulting controversy. Notably, it was
not removed ahead of time through censorship. Meanwhile, a three-second
line was cut out of The Big Bang Theory because the character mentioned
the mercy killing of a dog.

These acts of censorship not only limit the impact of foreign-based
productions, they also help the Chinese government maintain control.
That is why Facebook and Twitter are banned in the country, as well as
Netflix, HBO, and others. The government wants to have final say on the
messages reaching the public.

This approach could severely limit the quality and types of shows that
are produced in China. Infernal Affairs (2002), a classic Hong Kong
crime movie, reshot a different ending for the Chinese mainland and
Malaysia. The new ending was considered a clunker, but perfectly
aligned with China�s �main melody� perspective that justice always
wins. The Departed (2006), an Oscar-winning remake of Infernal Affairs,
is not allowed to air in the Chinese mainland, even though its ending
also highlights justice.

The movie was also remade into a namesake Chinese TV series in 2016,
developed by a Chinese mainland production team. That TV series is only
rated 6.1 out of 10 on China�s IMDb while the 2002 movie version has a
9.3 rating and the American version has a 7.3.

Hong Kong-based journalist and author Nury Vittachi shared a similar
experience in a New York Times opinion piece, describing that a crime
story he co-wrote with a Chinese director had to be rejiggered multiple
times, finally resulting in an �implausible tale� that involves noble
detectives of Chinese origin in order to pass the authorities� review.

�The rules kill creativity,� Vittachi added.

When the Netflix-produced Korean show Squid Game went viral and won
awards worldwide, many Chinese netizens were asking on social media �
when can a Chinese TV show be recognized in that way?

I can�t blame the sites for not importing more big-name TV shows, or
the domestic studios for not producing similar content. For some, even
if the show or concept is popular as hell, it just isn�t worth the
hassle.

Even though China has been trying to boost its cultural soft power for
years, it�s unlikely that the dream of making a worldwide popular show
will come true any time soon. To appeal to a global audience, the
government would first need to be more tolerant of the kind of material
it removes from TV-14 sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory.

Data and Methods: I watched the first 100 episodes of The Big Bang
Theory that stream in the U.S. and on Youku, side by side, and tracked
206 missing scenes from the Youku version. The sample videos
demonstrated above are all picked out from the pool of missing scenes.

The first scene is an original cut from Youku. The censored version of
other scenes are based on timestamping the Youku version and then
programmatically skipping using the original scene.

In order to figure out the reason for the video censorship, I
categorized the missing scenes into seven categories.

(1) Sex: scenes include conversations with sexual descriptions, body
parts, and relevant keywords, such as �coitus� or �have sex.� Scenes
that demonstrate two characters� kissing for several seconds or show
partial nudity will also be included in this category.

(2) LGBTQ+ and atypical heterosexual relationships: scenes in which
characters mention things like the LGBTQ+ community or romantic
encounters with family members or inanimate objects. Scenes
demonstrating kissing or other physical intimacy between two characters
of the same gender are included as well.

(3) Disrespect: scenes include dialogues that could potentially defame
Chinese culture, China�s society, Chinese people, or even Chinese
restaurants in the U.S.

(4) Illegal actions: scenes in which characters mentioned anything that
is illegal in China, including murder, drunk driving, and egg freezing.

(5) Religion: scenes in which characters said anything that could
potentially offend habits or beliefs of a religion.

(6) Unhealthy addictions: scenes in which unhealthy addictions came up
in a conversation, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and gambling.

(7) Miscellaneous: scenes that do not belong to any one of the former
six categories.

To see the clips and such:
https://pudding.cool/2022/08/censorship/

--
Let's go Brandon!