The Surveillance State’s seemingly shy cousin is starting to strut more on the dance floor. The siren song of censorship grows louder as governments and multinational corporations rock out to it as a means to fortify their power and wealth, knowing the rest of us will remain silent if we too believe we can accumulate even more green before the music ends and we have to take our seat. Isn’t it time we got our priorities in order?
You’ve seen what is happening, right? Russian forbids profanity in the media. China draws hard lines on what can and will be said. The European Court allows history to be erased from search. And here in the US not only do we continue to train ourselves to police ourselves, armed with the knowledge that Big Brother, I mean the NSA, is always watching, but we limit our own access — as well as our ability to innovate — by continuing to progress to a “he-who-pays-the-most-can-and-will-control-all” state and the consequent end of Net Neutrality.
Fast lanes, slow lanes, media consolidation, listicles and native advertising. How do you find the news amongst the clutter of cat photos? Our corporate prioritization of an onslaught of distraction will surely keep us in our place and in relative peace, right?
Let’s not even get started with the question of gatekeepers or who controls the messaging as gender and racial bias are apparently such “non-issues” that we can eradicate affirmative action, voter protection, and any gains in equal representation that have been made in recent times. When students can expect to shoulder six figure debt in exchange for an education, we can also expect graduating classes to be devoid of artists and other pesky provocateurs ready to question the power of authority. “The aura of democratic legitimacy is fading fast in an era when financial and political capital are increasingly consolidated in a few thousand people” Andrew O’Hair pointed out well in Salon is his overview of the false promises our half-democracy has long fed us.
From where I sit the math seems to add up to an era where we permit significant limits on who gets to say what. We are being muffled and gagged, and this is our fault. We can not distance ourselves by saying it is happening “over there”. It happens all over the world and if freedom of expression is a freedom you want to preserve, we have to protect it everywhere in all it’s forms.
It may have developed sometimes directly and other times more inadvertently, but nonetheless we can not deny that this is all is a form of censorship — of ideas, voices, and opportunity. Just as we hear people today matter-of-factly state that capitalism works best in an authoritarian state (like China), it appears we accepting that capitalism thrives still further when the freedom of information and expression are both limited. I personally would rather swim in glorious oceans of diversity than the cold still waters of materialism.
It does get tricky. Most of us are always in favor of opening up of international markets for artists’ and filmmakers’ work. Nonetheless I can’t help but think back to the NY Times casual dismissal in 2013 of China’s censorship provisions and find it not only truly troubling but a harbinger of all that has now come. To compare GOVERNMENT censorship to either the voluntary MPAA rating system or a studio or financier’s notes, is way off base. A government dictates but even in a capital intensive industry like the film biz, cooperation is still voluntary — not mandated.
At times it seems as if everyone is in league with each other in the chase for the almighty dollar. Once again, human rights, artist rights, and free speech and expression all take a back seat. Once again, you are either on the bus, or part of the problem.
Of course censorship is not a significant problem for studio films or any of the other productions cited in the NY Times article. None of US studio films are attempting to tell a story set in contemporary China about and for Chinese people and the truth about life in China. The reason why no famous or not-yet-famous indie or Hollywood director from any country is doing this (outside of the underground directors in China) is because no one can. IT..IS..NOT..PERMITTED! We get A TOUCH OF SIN from the great Jia Zhangke but in the wrapper that it is not a “political” film — and as far as I understand that film has not been released in China. Same thing with other interesting Chinese films that reach our festivals and we smile knowingly, “Yeah, sure.”
There is no such thing as harmless censorship. As audiences we are deprived of the truth. Films can not be ambassadors unless they can show the lives of others in a truthful manner. As artists we are deprived of subject matter by censorship. As citizens of the world we are not supporting our brothers and sisters whose stories can not get told. It is difficult to dance to both “freedom to” and “freedom from” simultaneously. Equal opportunity does not produce equal representation.
Now that US Studio Films have generated so much profit in China, now that we are making true US/China co-productions like the latest TRANSFORMERS, perhaps we can get our US Studios push for more freedoms of expression for all. Let’s not fall for the foolishness that if we give them coke, pepsi, Hollywood, and rock and roll that soon they will demand to elect the mayor. We currently sell and market passivity. Consumer consumption is the opiate of the masses. We have commodified our dissent in a marketable rebellion that has no teeth.
I want filmmakers and their supporters to make money for the work they create. I want access to the largest market for my work and those of others. I want an open world that places human rights as our first priority and stops shoving it to the back so that we can make a few more dollars. I want diversity, free expression, and truth. I want those that can facilitate change to do so. I want leaders to lead. I want us to get our priorities straight.
BTW, some of the SARAFT rules of censorship are known. They are reported on here. Here are some rules for China’s Television Censorship 2008.
