这篇文章介绍了中国青年的保护审查制度
1. Introduction
1.1 The Existing Issue in Chinese Cultural Field
Since the 1980s, Chinese film censorship has embarked on standardized way. In 1988, Film Review Regulations (Revised) has been enacted which is viewed as the starting point of the movie review mechanism from the legislative level in China. Experiencing two revisions, the present working version is Screenplay Record of Replace Films Provisions. Although it is the updated version, it is being heavily criticized by the public. The aspects of vague film reviewing process, complicated reviewing procedure, as well as the reviewing criteria are not open and very subjective, which is also of a low operability. Due to the flaws in the regulations, it gains the focus from film academia. For the censorship itself, a vague censorship makes censors do not have a criteria to measure. Film producers are forced to cast underground which directly leads to many uncensored films in the market. It is a unique landscape of Chinese film industry. Among these uncensored films, some are sensitive in perspective of violence, superstition et al. Owing to the widespread internet access, teenagers or even younger children might have access to these inappropriate movies. Based on a survey conducted among 4,845 teenagers in nine cities and autonomous regions by Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, it states that 40% of the subjects do not have extracurricular readings, 36% have 50 books to read in their spare time. Therefore, watching TV becomes their major entertainment. From this survey, it is clear that China is in an urgent need to develop a proper censorship for the healthy growth of the young generation .
Owing the nature of the film, since the first day, it meets the tight control from the governments and authorities which is believed to have influence on human mind. Therefore, any negative films have to be banned. In China, it is the same case. Chinese governments and Chinese parents put their emphasis on the contents of the circulated films in case of inappropriate films.
Inappropriate films can lead to an unstable social order, which is a significant issue for Chinese government now. China has a large migrant labor force. Every year, they move from place to place to seek a better living for the family. Meanwhile, thanks to the strict household system, children are often left in the hometown where is much less-developed or even poor. Parents can not keep company of their children. Lacking of education and proper guidance, young children start to learn the world through watching movies. At this time, if children watch violence movies, they will think if they meet any inconveniences or troubles in the real life, violence is the only method to sort the problems out. The consequences might occur when they meet any obstacles.
At this pivotal time of value-establishing, if negative films are spread among the young, harmful influence on human and society will follow. It leads to a high juvenile crime rate which hinders the development of the whole society.
1.2 The Reason of the Negative Films Spreading
To be honest, even after joining WTO Chinese film market industry is still not fully open market yet.
Chinese government runs a strict censorship over the script and the contents, which causes much pain to the film producers. As a country which is established and developed on the unified ideology, it emphasizes on the topic and spirits advocating in the movie. On the basis of Film Regulation (2017), any films against the Constitution, the law and the nations are not allowed to produce. In the Film Script and Film Regulation (2017), it states that any scripts or footages concerning negative aspects of the society should be deleted. In these two regulations, it is clear that they do not explicitly give the criteria to examine the movies. It is impossible for film examiners to judge which film is good for young people.
1.3 The Suggestion to Chinese Film Authority
To respond to this issue, a specific and concise guideline should be provided to regulate the development of Chinese film industry. The definitions corresponding to each Regulation item should be made for future reference.
Take action movies as an example. There is a vague borderline between action movies and violence movies. Instead of deleting the violence footages, the examiners could grade the film on the basis of the age. This censorship is applied in the cinema only. When come to distributing the movie, all violence footages must be cut for the sake of the young generation.
Adopting a more detail censorship criteria and running two censorships in film broadcasting and distributing, a healthy film industry could be formed gradually.
2. Criteria
2.1 The Influence of Age-based Censorships
Running two film censorships in the society could bring benefits overall.
From the perspective of economy. In China, due to serious piracy, people watch pirated films through internet rather than in the cinema. Using this method, audience who like the movie have to go to the cinema to watch the original edition. More profits could be generated from it. To some extent, the piracy could be alleviated alongside.
From the perspective of society. Young children do not have access to the harmful movie, even they watch them online. The deleted movies in the market could guarantee the appropriate content of the film.
However, if adopting the censorship based on the movie features, but playing and circulating the same version, this issue still can not be solved.
2.2 Criteria Measuring
In the aged-based censorship, one certain age could be set to separate the audience group. Eighteen is a widely accepted age in the world to identify the adulthood.
In this type of censorship, if more than one age limit is set, it is unavoidable that younger children might access what they are not supposed to watch. Another chaos might occur.
3. Policy Alternatives
3.1 Policies Options
In China, basically there are two official regulations concerning film censorship. One is Film Regulation (2017), another is Film Script and Film Regulation (2017).
Film Regulation defines which type of movies are banned from Chinese market, meanwhile Film Script and Film Regulation states which type of depiction must be abandoned in the movies.
3.2 Future Improvement of the Regulations
Although they are government-issued regulations, they fail to provide detailed information on what should be banned or abandoned. Take the violence movies as an instance. What kind of movie is violence movie, and if it is a slight one, what kind of footages should be cut. These issues are not solved by the regulations.
To meet this demand, the government should publish a more specific and detailed criteria on each and every item for future reference. If new issues come up, government can make provisional items to regulate the behaviors of the film market.
4. Application of Criteria and Alternatives
4.1 Supporting Evidence on the Proposed Censorship
Recently, a heated discussed TV Series Empress Wu puts Chinese relevant authorities under great pressure. In this series, the actresses wear exposing costumes which is deemed highly inappropriate to the children. The authorities halted the broadcasting and edit all the left footages. In the re-broadcasting, all sensitive footages are also cut, which makes the whole series quite strange.
From this case, it is concluded that the censorship is quite vague. In the rounds of censorships before broadcast, authorities take no measure to deal with this issue. After broadcast, they suddenly interrupt it and re-edit all the footages which shows the inadequacy of a standardized criteria.
4.2 The Proposed Evaluation Method
To avoid such kind of scandal, Chinese authority could establish a new mechanism which takes age into consideration. By merging age-based censorship, a healthy film industry could be generated to benefit the children, the parents and the society at large.
However, in implementing this mechanism, piracy issue should be carefully dealt with. If there is no proper and strict copyright protection, negative films still can circulate in the market, children still can touch on them. Thereby, all the efforts made are in vain immediately.
5. Conclusion
An updating, specific and detailed censorship combing the age-based grading system can facilitate the development of Chinese film industry. This approach could keep young children away from inappropriate films and also also protect the copyright.
However, in this approach, the heavy burden and workload imposed on the authorities and censors are not taken into consideration. The focus on quality will lead to a low efficiency. A slow censorship process could cause a huge economic loss to the investors and an enjoyment loss among the public.
The new form of censorship could organically integrating existing Regulations and aged-founded grading mechanism. It could be upgraded along with the development of the film industry. This approach can be widely applied in China to protect the mental development of the younger generation.
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