The Academy Awards: An Atypical Country That Won’t Even Report Good News

Published in The Sankei News
(Japan) on 30 April 2021
by (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Eric Stimson. Edited by Gillian Palmer.
China is obviously an atypical country. America’s Academy Awards, which are considered the film world’s highest honor, reaffirmed this.

At these awards, “Nomadland,” which poetically depicts the lives of those who live in cars, was crowned with best picture, best director and best actress. The director, Chloe Zhao, is Chinese, and she is the first non-white woman to win the award for best director.

But this triumph was not reported in Zhao’s motherland. It cannot even be searched online. Restrictions on freedom of the press and speech this blatant are unusual.

Zhao, a Beijinger, went to high school in Britain and studied film in college and graduate school in America. In February, Chinese media applauded Zhao when she won America’s Golden Globe Award for best director, but afterward her statement to foreign media in 2013 that China is “a place where there are lies everywhere” was seen as a problem.

Although “Nomadland” had been scheduled for an April 23 release in China, it has not been screened. When you search for its Chinese title online, the message “This cannot be displayed due to related laws, regulations or policies” appears, and posts cannot be viewed.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese newspapers carried pictures of Zhao holding the Oscar with headlines like “First [Time for an] Asian Woman” and “Unprecedented.”

The documentary “Do Not Split,” about the large-scale demonstrations in Hong Kong, was nominated for this year’s Academy Awards, but for the first time in around 50 years, the awards ceremony was not broadcast in Hong Kong.

Inconvenient things are kept from their own people’s eyes. It is the same with foreign news about human rights violations against the Uighurs.

For many years, pictures of Winnie the Pooh and his Chinese name have been the targets of surveillance due to mockery of President Xi Jinping for resembling him.

Yuzuru Hanyu, the Olympic gold medalist figure skater, is famous for liking Pooh, and big stuffed animals are placed at his “kiss and cry.”* They’ve become a must-have for his fans around the world.

The Winter Olympics will begin in Beijing next February. Will the Chinese authorities allow Hanyu and his fans to bring Pooh? This may become the new yardstick by which to measure the degree of freedom in China.

*Translator’s note: This is the area by the skating rink where skaters await their results.


中国はやはり、異形の国である。映画界最高の栄誉とされる米アカデミー賞で、そのことを強く再認識させられた。

 今年の同賞では米国の車上生活者を詩情豊かに描いた「ノマドランド」が作品賞、監督賞、主演女優賞の3冠に輝いた。監督のクロエ・ジャオ氏は中国出身で、白人以外の女性監督の受賞は史上初だ。

 だがこの快挙は、母国で報じられなかった。インターネットなどでも検索不能となっている。ここまで露骨な報道、表現の自由の制限は異様である。

 ジャオ氏は北京市の出身で、英国の高校に留学後、米国の大学、大学院で映画制作を学んだ。今年2月、ジャオ氏が米ゴールデングローブ賞の監督賞を受賞した際には中国メディアも快挙を称賛したが、その後に同氏が2013年、海外メディアの取材に「中国での生活は嘘であふれていた」と発言したことが問題視された。

 4月23日に中国で公開予定だった「ノマドランド」は上映されないままで、ネット上で中国語のタイトル「無依之地」を検索すると「関連法律や法規、政策により表示されない」との文字が出て、投稿は閲覧できない。

 対照的に台湾各紙はジャオ氏がオスカー像を手にする写真を掲げて「アジア女性として初」「前代未聞だ」などとたたえた。

 今年のアカデミー賞には香港の大規模デモを描いたドキュメンタリー映画「ドゥ・ノット・スプリット」も候補作品に選ばれたが、香港では約50年ぶりに同賞の授賞式が放送されなかった。

 不都合なものは、自国民の目に触れさせない。ウイグル人への人権侵害に関する海外での報道なども同様である。

 数年前からは「習近平国家主席に雰囲気が似ている」として揶揄(やゆ)の対象となった「くまのプーさん」も、画像や中国語名の「維尼熊」が監視対象となっている。

 フィギュアスケートの五輪金メダリスト、羽生結弦のプーさん好きは有名で、「キス&クライ」では大きなぬいぐるみを同席させ、世界中の彼のファンの必携アイテムともなっている。

 来年2月には北京で冬季五輪が開催される。中国当局は、羽生やファンに「プーさん」の持ち込みを認めるだろうか。それは中国の自由度を測る、新たな物差しとなるかもしれない。
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