CROUCHING CENSORS, HIDDEN SCENES: What kinds of foreign films are allowed into China and why?

Abstract

What kinds of foreign films does China allow, and why? What can this tell us about censorship writ large? For decades, Hollywood has attempted to navigate the web of ambiguous regulations issued and hinted at by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), the Chinese government agency that grants entry to 34 foreign films for theatrical release each year. So, too, does the increased visibility of Asian American actors, directors, and film depictions in the US highlight the difficulties these creatives face when attempting to screen their films in China. Existing academic theories of speech censorship in China focus on the government’s suppression of explicitly political speech, but few place film in this discourse. In this thesis, I integrate political, cultural, and commercial theories of film censorship and regulation in China. Using information from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, the China Office of Cultural Ministry’s yearly Film Directory, and more, I create a novel dataset of 1064 films from the years 2002-2012 inclusive and code each for production characteristics as well as presence of sensitive cultural and political content. I then present a series of data visualizations and seven multiple logistic regression models. I find and argue that film censorship in China is primarily concerned with ideological control and filtering of taboo sexual content, but in a manner that both responds to perceived audience demand and is constrained by trade and political leverage that external actors such as Hollywood exert so that they might access the Chinese market. My findings have implications for further research on how censorship operates in art and fields of creative speech, as well as how censorship is constrained when forced into a space of negotiation.