The New York Times reported yesterday that the Chinese government has unexpectedly decided to pull James Cameron’s new blockbuster “Avatar” from theaters, an unusual move considering the tremendous excitement (and revenue) the film has generated among Chinese audiences. While the Times quotes experts who say this was “a purely commercial” move undertaken to make room for homegrown films, I think they shied away from a much more interesting read on the situation. China’s rulers were almost certainly caught off guard by how many moviegoers interpreted the film as a parable for injustices in Chinese society; combine this with the film’s the runaway popularity in China and, in my opinion, you have a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that the movie was yanked for political motivations.
As many China observers have pointed out, Avatar’s depiction of one alien tribe’s righteous struggle to resist eviction from their home resonated with a large number of Chinese, who drew a parallel to the too common real life plight of average Chinese forcibly evicted from their home to make room for new real estate developments. While the idle thoughts of even a great number of Chinese do not pose any danger to the country’s authoritarian ruling party, recent reports underscore how in capturing the imagination of the Chinese public, “Avatar” might be harmful to social stability, at least as the term is conceived by the Party. Exhibit A is the headline ran by Southern Metropolis Daily on January 13: “In a Real Life Version of ‘Avatar,’ 500 Homeowners Successfully Resist Demolition” (in Chinese). While apparently the homeowners’ initiative actually began several months before the film’s release, according to the article a few organizers celebrated the news of the successful scrapping of demolitions plans by taking to the street and “dramatically claiming they had staged their own real-life version of ‘Avatar.'” When Chinese people invoke popular foreign films as they organize themselves in large numbers in opposition to the Party-state, you can bet it catches the attention of China’s huge and highly-attuned censorship apparatus.
If political considerations played a major or even partial role in the decision to order the canceling of the film, I think it becomes a pretty startling indication of the depth of the Chinese Communist Party’s determination to control the flow of information and ideas into China, as well as their vigilance in monitoring how foreign ideas play out within their own society. Taken together with the recent Google flap, the canceling of “Avatar”suggests Party leaders will not blink if they feel it is necessary to gradually insulate and isolate Chinese society from the rest of the world.
UPDATE 1/21:
The WSJ’s China Journal blog has a bit of evidence corroborating this theory:
Major publications and news portals in China were said to have received orders from government authorities to downplay discussion about nail houses related to the movie. [“Nail houses” is Chinese internet slang for homeowners who go to great lengths to resist demolition of their homes – more explanation here]
This at least confirms that China’s censors were aware of the phenomenon and alarmed at the prospect that this interpretation of Avatar could be popularized.
