Friends: The Reunion censored in China

BEIJING: A laudatory article by China’s official Xinhua news agency on Friends: The Reunion has talked about the sitcom’s “unique appeal” and “massive influence” but glossed over how censors here clipped several minutes before screening the special show in China.

The article quoted Chinese citizens heaping praise on the American sitcom - which has a huge following in urban China and how it influenced their lives from helping them to learn English and giving them a peek into American culture.

But, the Xinhua article left out how Chinese streaming sites had carefully censored the appearances of Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, the South Korean boy band, BTS and LGBTQ references from the version aired.

It is still unclear whether Chinese government ordered the cuts or whether the streaming platforms, iQiyi, Youku and Tencent

Video, themselves decided against airing what they knew would be sensitive to the government.

The musicians and the censored band have fallen foul of Beijing over the years.

Not that the cuts went unnoticed in China.

“Are we reverting to the isolationist Qing dynasty, closed off to the rest of the world?” a commenter on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform was quoted as saying by Variety.

Many supported the censorship as well.

The Xinhua article went on to report how the reunion special made it to among the top 10 trending topics on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo on Thursday night, with netizens saying the reunion has allowed them to “relive their youth”. “This whole show brings up so many memories - I’ve watched all ten seasons more than a dozen times. I don’t have many friends, but they are really like friends of mine,” a Weibo user wrote.