By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, Feb. 18: The globally renowned series ‘Friends’ was hugely popular in China when it was originally broadcasted in 1994. On Friday, streaming platforms including Tencent Video made headlines when the broadcast stripped the show of its lesbian content from scenes where the character Ross explains that his ex-wife Carol is gay. Similar backlash was noted last month as Tencent showed an altered ending for the movie Fight Club where the police authorities win in the end.
The film fans in China mocked both the alterations, as Friends’ enthusiasts took to Weibo where censorship became the trending topic. One user wrote, “In today’s China, under a similar environment, not only is there no TV drama with high popularity and high reputation, which can insert gay characters into the play in a similar way, but even introduced foreign TV shows don’t dare to completely show gay content.” However, the backlash was censored soon after, which was quickly replaced by the “Why is Friends so popular” hashtag.
Last month, David Fincher’s 1999 classic ‘Fight Club’ starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton’s original closing scene shows the narrator killing off his imaginary alter ego Tyler Durden in the end followed by multiple demolitions of buildings which symbolize modern civilization. But the Chinese media’s take replaced the explosion scene with a black screen that read, “The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding”. Tencent eventually restored the original ending to the film on its video streaming amid international backlash.
However, restoration of Friends’ scenes seems unlikely, given the guidelines issued by the government in 2012 that banned any depiction of gay people on TV, as well as any presentation of extramarital affairs or one night stands. In 2021, the TV broadcasters were told to avoid any representation of what it called “abnormal aesthetics” and “sissy men”. In the 2019 film Bohemian Rhapsody, scenes were also cut on the film about Freddie Mercury’s life before its release in Chinese cinemas.
During the popular Friends’ reunion show last year in May, many Chinese fans said that the reunion was missing the performance of Lady Gaga with Lisa Kudrow who played Phoebe Buffay in the 10-season series, as the international pop star was banned from touring in China since 2016 after meeting with the Dalai Lama. There has been a visible rise in censorship of entertainment in recent years under the political environment enforced by Xi Jinping that targets values deemed ‘transgressive’ in traditional Chinese culture.
