Usually, they only censor the explicit content. But this is the first time that AI tools were used to directly alter the content of the original film.
By the way, the film has been withdrawn from a wide release in China after receiving too many complaints.
Hey, so I was out all yesterday and completely missed this thread and ensuing light struggle session but I'll give some additional context as I know it:
The writer & director had no fucking idea lmao, he was completely blindsided by the changes and only found out when journalists in China (as to who they work for, no idea soz) started asking him questions about editing the cut and sent him basically the same screenshot (i think from a different platform, caption was different but it's the exact same comparison screenshot of the film). He first found out on the 15th. There are some other funny edits, such as additional steam vfx blurring Dave Franco's bare ass in the shower scene and some others he hasn't dropped in the group chat.
Seems like the producers & Neon people were claiming to have had no idea either, as they all apparently went straight to the lawyers after a day or so and were basically asking Michael to make the decision on whether to completely pull from China or not as they had 'clear breaches' of contracts and literal 'admissions' that the film had been altered without consent. At this point he's not making any additional money on where it's being distributed, so allowing him the decision to completely pull it and lose someone millions seems like an admission that someone fucked up/gambled wrong.
Without having read the thread for any investigation on the intricacies of film distribution in China, I can only go off a conversation we had last week when we were halfway to getting decently drunk and watching Salo at a cinema on Wednesday night. It seems like he's been told by various legal people/producers that this happens a bit - The distributors buy it and just make changes without authorisation to seemingly pre-empt the ratings/censor's office and hope that the hollywood crackers either never find out or care. As to whether it is a case of pre-alteration before submission to the gov, changes made by the gov / requested alterations, or even a sneaky recut provided to the chinese distributor without the director's knowledge, I can't say for sure. There seemed to be some suggestions that Michael's legal could demand that some alterations be reversed and have the distributor resubmit the film, which lends a bit of credence to the idea that distributors just fucking do this but go too far, self-censoring beyond necessity before even seeking gov approval or a film rating/classification.
Either way, the whole thing was a bit overshadowed by his second film being greenlit, but he was legitimately pissed at the alterations and now having to make a choice where he could be perceived as throwing LGBTQIA+ people under the bus for money (when he makes no additional money whatsoever from the film being distributed anywhere) or being seen as sinophobic and getting no traction in China ever again if he pulls it or blames anyone in China for the issue.
unrelated, but apparently the film was doing quite well in russia.
I know from previous discussions about this that the LGBTQ media censorship in China is sadly a real thing. Here’s the 2017 guidelines I looked at before: https://web.archive.org/web/20170630135640/http://www.cnsa.cn/2017/06/30/ARTI0Qg4cp7jtd1Z5o0RnfzM170630.shtml
Auto-translated portion in question:
(6) Rendering obscene pornography and vulgar low-level interest:
- Specifically show the plots of prostitution, whoring, prostitution,removed, masturbation, etc.;
- Show and display abnormal sexual relations and sexual behavior, such as incest, homosexuality, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse and sexual violence;
- Show and promote unhealthy views and states of marriage and love, such as extramarital love, one-night stand, sexual freedom, wife swap, etc.;
On this topic it’s often very difficult to determine what’s real and what isn’t, given that you have western media or CIA cutouts distorting the narrative for their own purposes. I try to look into the published regulations directly, but for these 2017 guidelines it doesn’t seem to explicitly discuss gay marriage. Were there new guidelines published, or is this some kind of a new push? Or is this just a company that misinterpreted the guidelines and did the AI stuff out of misinformation or paranoia?
This Zhihu thread has the top comment listing out selected examples of what’s being censored in recent times to get a good idea of what kind of contents are being censored.
Or is this just a company that misinterpreted the guidelines and did the AI stuff out of misinformation or paranoia?
People didn’t even think the film would have a cinema release in China because of what you said, gay couple and body horror content. So when it was approved for a wide release, people were in fact quite surprised.
As I have explained to other users here, there are literally only two companies that deal with imported films in China, and the same two groups of people who have had to deal with the censorship bureau over the years for hundreds of foreign films. The idea that these companies don’t know exactly what has to be removed in order to pass the censorship just doesn’t pass the smell test.
The ridiculous part is that they thought it would be a good idea to use AI tool to alter the original content on screen to get around this issue and then show it on cinema. Read the Zhihu thread, usually it’s just cutting a few scenes here and there. This is something new, and ridiculous lol.
Apologies, because I can’t translate the page right now, but does that thread have any links to actual sources? As in, I’m curious to see the actual regulations that apply to this film. No offense, but it’s a little difficult to tell what’s real and what’s rumor from forum posts alone.
I used machine translation for you. Haven’t watched all of the shows mentioned, but a cursory glance seems accurate.
spoiler
The good news is that not a single terrifying scene from “Together” was cut, but AI face swapping is a uniquely Chinese horror that Western audiences can't fully grasp.
Let's examine other examples. During its mainland China release, Bohemian Rhapsody had all scenes hinting at Queen frontman Freddie Mercury's homosexuality edited out or muted.
In Game of Thrones Season 5, a scene depicting a male prostitute being stabbed to death for homosexuality was removed. Season 8 saw Yara's one-second kiss with Daenerys in Dorne deleted.
In The Two Cities 2, all lesbian subplots involving the female lead (a policewoman) were removed.
After the comic adaptation of Little Green and Little Blue became an animated series, all same-sex content was removed. (Thanks to @Wu Ming for the comment supplement)
In Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, all emotional lines between Dumbledore and Grindelwald—such as “I fell in love with you”—were deleted, retaining only vague expressions like “We are brothers.”
After Friends launched on streaming platforms in 2022, all dialogue implying Carol's lesbianism was edited out.
In The Shape of Water, content depicting Giles facing workplace discrimination due to his sexuality was cut.
In Four-Wheel Brothers, Hijikata Rei—a boy who paints his nails and wears lipstick—was altered to a girl in mainland China.
In Alien: Covenant, a kiss between two male androids was cut.
In Soul, the romantic tension between the boss and scientist was altered to “brotherly love” (thanks to @博哥逍遥游 for the comment).
Call Me by Your Name was scheduled for the 2018 Beijing Film Festival but was pulled due to “technical reasons.”
Cloud Atlas was cut by 37 minutes, including same-sex kissing scenes.
Carol (limited release) had all same-sex intimate scenes removed.
In Love, Simon (Shanghai Film Festival screening), the protagonist's coming-out conversation with his mother and the bar scene were both cut.
TV series like “Queer as Folk,” independently uploaded by netizens to platforms like Bilibili and Youku, were entirely removed despite never being officially released in mainland China.
After “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won an Oscar, all mainland plot summaries replaced references to the protagonist's gay daughter with “daughter with Westernized lifestyle.”
During the 2019 Oscars rebroadcast, Chinese platforms replaced the subtitle “a gay man” in Malek's acceptance speech with “special group.”
The Eurovision Song Contest had its broadcast rights revoked by the EBU from Mango TV (2018) for censoring “rainbow flags/same-sex content.”
Previously, it was just censorship and muting. Now, AI face swapping has emerged—it must be said, technology has advanced.
The post right above the one replied to has a link to the minutes of a meeting on the regulations.
I am way too inebriated for this struggle session so I’m just going to leave at at this:
I’m going to keep financially investing in China and laughing my way to the bank as the West collapses over the next 50 years
ridiculous chinese censorship
*looks inside*
*Private company (the producers of the movie in fact) makes decision to do extremely stupid and unnecessary thing for Chinese localisation*
*Media blames Chinese Government for thing the Chinese Government didn't ask for*
EDIT: Is this even real? I am suspicious - https://hexbear.net/comment/6521304
EDIT2: Yeah it's real but the blame still isn't China itself.
I'm starting to get a little suspicious of Xiaohongshu at this point, they seem to be so determined to prove that China isn't some utopia that they even go all in on western style anti-China propaganda efforts. If their goal is to get people to actually understand China properly, they're doing a terrible job with posts titled like this.
How is this anti-China propaganda? This is openly discussed on Chinese social media. The only reason I post is because Hexbear has a large queer community who care about this stuff.
Looks like even OP is doing this
This isn't the first time. There's been a long running myth in the videogame industry that you're not allowed to have skeletons in videogames in China. This isn't true of course, but it hasn't stopped western companies changing their games for the Chinese region by removing the skeletons and replacing them with something else.
This is caused by some dumbass liberal media producers in australia believing the propaganda that China is anti-lgbt and disallows this and making this adjustment based on that belief. It's caused by western ignorance and "better be safe than sorry" rather than anything the government actually wants.
Looks like this site was funded in the past by the NED before DOGE got em. Hate to cite Wikipedia but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Digital_Times#Staff_and_operations
They made it a trans love story
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.