Chinese Media Ask, 'Why No Oscars Love?'
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(Image source: Life of Pi / Flickr)
BY ZACH TOOMBS
China in 2013: a nation of 1.2 billion people — and zero Oscar nominations.
Which seems odd, considering the country is set to overtake the U.S. as the largest movie market in the world by 2020. And filmmaking is an increasingly popular industry for Chinese entrepreneurs. [Video: Bloomberg]
Meanwhile,China’s much smaller neighboring Taiwan will be represented at the Academy Awards Sunday by Ang Lee. [Video: ABC News]
The filmmaker is nominated for Best Director for “Life of Pi,” which is also up for a Best Picture award.
So, why no Oscar love for China? Explanations for the nation’s absence from the Academy Awards vary.
The Communist Party paper The People’s Daily cites an unfair playing field, writing:
“...the Oscars have never been a communal forum, the films taken seriously have only the responsibility to portray the North American world view and the lives they’re willing to see.”
But an article on China’s Tencent entertainment news site says the issue is more straightforward. There are just: “Too few good films. That’s the real reason in recent years Chinese films have moved further and further away from the Oscars dream.”
Those translations come via The New York Times. Harsh government censorship in all types of media, including film, could be one factor holding China’s movie industry back.
The New Yorker notes: “Chinese investors put more than ten million dollars into ‘Cloud Atlas’—the largest Chinese investment yet in a foreign film—but then censors required the removal of no less than thirty-eight minutes of the movie, mostly love scenes.”
And while the Oscars might not have flung their doors open to Chinese films this year, China didn’t exactly welcome the Academy’s best films either. So far, state censors have only let “Life of Pi” through to Chinese theaters. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Les Miserables” opens there next week.
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