Thursday, December 20, 2012

Does the broadcasting of a movie mean less censorship?

Eyebrows raised as CCTV shows famously anti-government, and possibly banned, film V for Vendetta

"Oh God, CCTV unexpectedly put out V for Vendetta. I had always believed that film was banned in China!" media commentator Shen Chen wrote on the popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo service, where he has more than 350,000 followers.

The Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia wrote on Twitter, which is not accessible to most Chinese because of government internet controls: "This great film couldn't be any more appropriate for our current situation. Dictators, prisons, secret police, media control, riots, getting rid of 'heretics' ... fear, evasion, challenging lies, overcoming fear, resistance, overthrowing tyranny ... China's dictators and its citizens also have this relationship."


The 2005 movie, based on a comic book, is set in an imagined future Britain with a fascist government. The protagonist wears a mask of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century English rebel who tried to blow up parliament. The mask has become a revolutionary symbol for young protesters in mostly western countries, where it has become associated with the hacker movement Anonymous, and it also has a cult-like status in China as pirated DVDs are widely available. Some people have used the image of the mask as their profile pictures on Chinese social media sites.

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