Chinese Government Bans Television Time Travel

When it comes to time travel, the only obstacle greater than harnessing 1.21 gigawatts could be getting past the Chinese government.

China's State Administration for Radio, Film & Television has issued new protocol that essentially puts the brakes on all fictional time travel in the media.

According to The New York Times, a statement from the Chinese government (linked to here in Chinese) explains that characters traveling back in time "lack positive thoughts and meaning" and that a program's portrayal of time travel can "casually make up myths, have monstrous and weird plots, use absurd tactics, and even promote feudalism, superstition, fatalism and reincarnation."

Several media outlets suggest that the concept of time travel has become increasingly popular with Chinese audiences, with characters often being transported back to ancient history.

Some bloggers, however, claim that the new guidelines have been lost in translation. According to one Gamma Squad writer, "The true purpose of the ruling seems to be to discourage the misrepresentation of historical figures in films and TV shows, including in time travel movies."

Comments

[fionalive]

09:23 PM on 06/06/2011

After reading the Chinese version, I strongly felt this article is written in Fox New style - twisted fact and misleading. There isn't any ban nor time travel mentioned in the Chinese site. Only criticized on some extreme poor quality American tv programs trying to get into Chinese market.

Use your overly dramatic title to get readers attention. You got it, but it hurts your reputation too.

[La Luna]

02:41 AM on 04/16/2011

As a Chinese I'd like to say that most of those series deserve to be banned, they are nothing but trash.

[Hokeysmokes]

05:26 AM on 04/15/2011

Been there. Done that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFgMGvFhGQY

With theme music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmTbnU_aLDU

[jarods]

05:13 AM on 04/15/2011

Geez people. This is so lost in translation you guys have no clues at all.

1) The "time travel drama" the Chinese government refers to are just some really poorly made historical soap dramas that is really crap. It's ridiculous to even compare those bad tv with r. Who or HG Wells. It has nothing to do with science or science fiction.

2) In fact, they didn't say a banning of anything, they simply criticized a couple of shows for being such low quality crap and advised investors to stop producing such crap. I think the government has no business advising tv producers of anything, but this might not a bad idea at all.

3) Nobody watches those crap anyway. Young people have access to good shows like you do. We watch Fringe and Doctor Who, too. Thanks to the internet.

4) Isn't it tiring that there are so many mistranslated and over-sensational stuff about China? And Americans believe all this stuff you read in your media? Can't the writers be a little more objective and perhaps, do a little research? Oh I forgot this kind of stuff sells. It's truly sad with all the information available to you, Americans still have no clue of what the Chinese are thinking.

[Blodo]

09:24 AM on 04/15/2011

Well, we now know what you are thinking. So there. :-)

[Ken Trayling]

02:28 AM on 04/15/2011

They're just tired of all the Doctor Hu jokes.

[Mike Ingenito]

02:25 AM on 04/15/2011

I had a wonderful time visiting china,Now if I can only find my Flux Capacitor

[DAE]

10:08 PM on 04/14/2011

Since corporations control our (U.S.) government and the same corporations control our media, doesn't that mean that the government controls our media?

[SonOfUgh]

01:35 AM on 04/15/2011

No. I control my car. I control my home computer. My car does not control my home computer.

[saint bernard mom]

08:47 PM on 04/14/2011

Does this mean all our old "Back to the Future" tapes will sell for a fortune on Ebay?

[SonOfUgh]

01:36 AM on 04/15/2011

If you could go back in time and set up eBay before the movie came out and then sell the movie on eBay, then yes, the whole thing would be worth a fortune to you.

[Chris Morrison]

06:30 PM on 04/14/2011

They probably don't want anyone potentially leaking Chinese technological trade secrets.

You KNOW they're close to perfecting it.

[Gel Gastrique]

06:49 PM on 04/14/2011

Perfecting what? Stealing the technology of other nations?

[Chris Morrison]

08:02 PM on 04/14/2011

Can't steal what's freely given. Maybe if we actually built stuff here in the US, there'd be less chance of them co-opting our tech.

[Charles Liu]

06:08 PM on 04/14/2011

The facts simply aren't there to support this accusation.

The phrase "神怪剧和穿越剧" litterally translates to "spirit-monster theme and transcendental theme", refering to *crossing-over* (not time travel) ghost stories that are too scary for TV or respective time slot. This is the same issue TV censor boards in US would consider.

Mentioning demon and time travel together makes no sense, Barboza should've fact checked better.

Barboza also makes an imaginary connection with the TV show "Palace" and its time travel theme, but he does not inform his readers the TV show is on the approved list.

[CoyoteMan]

05:09 PM on 04/14/2011

How do you say Flux Capacitor in Chinese ? :P

[Anthony Nogales]

06:46 PM on 04/14/2011

$79.99?

[Rickyrab]

05:25 PM on 04/26/2011

通量电容器

Tōng liàng diànróngqì

[Amber Berglund]

04:17 PM on 04/14/2011

I'm wondering why communism doesn't allow for freespeech and freedom of thought?
I'm also wondering why...If China considers itself communist, why doesn't it provide for the elderly with social security? Or is that Japan?

This is pretty terrible...to censor fiction.

[Henry Harris]

03:29 PM on 04/14/2011

This makes perfect sense. Obviously someone in the far future has engineered a time-travel machine based on a story that will be written in China in the near future.By prohibiting the story from being published now, the machine will never be invented, thereby preserving the timeline.

Of course if the Huffington Post publishes this post, it may change the future again in unpredictable ways. I think my head hurts. I'm going to lie down now.

[Ammon Crossette]

03:21 PM on 04/14/2011

And this is the country that so many people aspire to be like. . . It's scary to think of what China may do when it stops infringing on the Chinese people and turns it's attention to the rest of the world. Anyone who thinks China isn't dangerous, may want to reconsider. God bless the U.S.A.!!!!!

[theveggiedude]

03:57 PM on 04/14/2011

God bless the USA? I think not!

At first I thought this was the goofiest thing ever. But a day later, I now see things in a different light. It is one thing to ban science fiction, it another to ban science fact. Eight years of G.W. Bush had us banning all kinds of science, it was so bad a book was even written about it. We rejected global warming. We rejected evolution. We rejected stem cell research. Which is worse? And who got the last laugh on us? The chinese.

[Gel Gastrique]

04:20 PM on 04/14/2011

So you thought it was "the goofiest thing ever" for a government to ban freedom of expression, and now you think it's just no big deal? Ask any dissident who grew up under the censorship of Communist regimes. They don't use words like "goofy" to describe their experiences. Try going to China and protesting their non-existent environmental policies.

You somehow manage to conflate China's banning of Science Fiction with George W Bush's policies. No one "banned science fact" in America. There are some vocal lobby groups who aggressively promote an agenda, but they are not banning anything. And China is the world's worst carbon polluter according to this BBC article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7347638.stm

[Natems86]

03:15 PM on 04/14/2011

So ... is this like if our government banned time travel movies b/c someone saw "Inglorious Basterds" and thought Hitler really died that way?

Sheesh Chinese Gov, give your peeps a little more credit. They aren't as stupid as you are just because your cabinet sat through Twelve Monkeys and then all went hiding underground...