Deutsche Welle (English edition)
Is Hong Kong's Oscars blackout a sign of Beijing's crackdown on Hollywood?
The ban on the Academy Awards broadcast in Hong Kong this year could mean tightening censorship from mainland China, says DW's film expert Scott Roxborough.
News that this year's Academy Awards won't be broadcast in Hong Kong—the first time the ceremony hasn't been shown on local TV there in 50 years —is raising censorship concerns.
Critics fear the move, announced this week, could be part of a broader crackdown on real or perceived critics of the Chinese government. English-language Hong Kong newspaper The Standard suggested that the Oscars ban was also in response to Chinese filmmaker Chloe Zhao's critical comments about China and her multiple nominations for the awards this year. Zhao's US drama "Nomadland" is the frontrunner to win the top prize for Best Picture at the Academy Award ceremony next month.
Media regulators in Beijing, according to Bloomberg News, have ordered state-controlled media on the Chinese mainland
to not carry the Oscars live and to "play down" any reporting on the awards.
TVB, Hong Kong's top free-toair broadcaster, which is partlyowned by mainland business interests and is seen as very proBeijing, this week said it was dropping its planned coverage of the Oscars, an event it has carried live on its English-language channel every year since 1969.
Beijing: Wary of critics
TVB said the move was made for "purely commercial" reasons, suggesting no one in Hong Kong would be interested in watching. This seems odd, particularly this year, when two Hong Kong films are Oscar contenders.
"Better Days," an anti-bullying drama from director Derek Tsang, is up for best international film (the first Hong Kong movie nominated to that category since "Farewell My Concubine" won the Oscar in 1994) alongside short documentary nominee "Do Not Split" a look at Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests — and the brutal police crackdown of same— on the island in 2019.
While the documentary may have offended some in the Hong Kong government, the real source of the Hong Kong Oscar blackout is more likely the Internet sleuths on the mainland who, after Chloe Zhao on February 28 became the first Asian woman to win best director and best film at the Golden Globes, dug through her old interviews. In a couple, Zhao appears to be critical of China, though that is a matter of interpretation.
No 'Nomadland' in China? The most "offensive" quote stems from an interview Zhao gave to New York's Filmmaker Magazine nearly a decade ago. Describing what drew her to the story of her first feature, "Songs My Brother Taught Me," about a struggling Native American living on a reservation in North Dakota, Zhao said the story took her back "to when I was a teenager in China, being in a place where there are lies everywhere."
Whether the director meant to critique an authoritarian government, or just express the universal nature of teenage angst, is open to interpretation.
But it was enough to trigger an anti-Zhao backlash. Mainland media, which had initially held up Zhao as a national hero, changed tack. Beijing's internet censors swiftly descended, blocking most references to Zhao and "Nomadland" online. Now there are con
cerns the film, which had passed the Chinese censor board and was scheduled for release in China April 23, could be retroactively banned.
In a widely-shared Weibo post from earlier this year, Hu Xijin, the editor of the influential statebacked tabloid Global Times, noted that "The ongoing backlash against Zhao is the price she has to pay for what she said," but argued that "Nomadland" shouldn't be pulled from cinemas and that China "should to be able to accommodate some conflicts and inconsistencies."
Critics beware
"Nomadland" isn't alone. Many see the response against Zhao and the Oscars as part of a broader trend within the mainland government to pressure Hollywood into telling more