Chinese fans of US sitcom Friends have expressed dismay on-line after noticing censorship in lately launched episodes of the beloved show, together with of LGBT points.
Several main Chinese streaming websites, together with Tencent, Baidu’s IQiyi Inc, Alibaba’s Youku, and Bilibili, began exhibiting a model of the primary season of the show on Friday (Feb 11), its first re-release in China for a number of years.
But fans quickly observed components of the long-running show had been completely different to what that they had seen earlier than and complained of censorship which included the elimination of lesbian, homosexual, bisexual and trans-related content material, in addition to mistranslations.
In one instance, a dialog the place a fundamental character, Ross, defined his spouse was a lesbian, was deleted.
Another scene the place one other character, Joey, instructed going to a “strip joint” was translated as “exit to play” on the model proven on Tencent Video. Reuters confirmed the Tencent model of the re-released season included these adjustments.
In current years, China has shut tens of hundreds of web sites and social media accounts that contained what it stated was unlawful content material in addition to “vulgar” and pornographic materials.
“I resolutely boycott the castrated model of Friends,” stated one person on China’s Twitter-like Weibo.
“This is a defiling a basic,” stated one other.
A 3rd person stated “if you cannot show the entire model below the present atmoshphere, then do not import it.”
The dialogue was a “scorching search matter” on Weibo on Sunday.
But in an indication the dialogue itself might have caught the eye of censors, searches on Weibo on Sunday for a number of variations on the hashtag or search time period #Friendshasbeencensored produced both zero or restricted current outcomes.
Friends has an enormous fan base in China. Many watched it on pirated DVDs or downloads after the hit 10-season show first aired within the Nineties.
Chinese streaming web site SOHU TV purchased the broadcasting rights to the show however this led to 2018, the corporate stated. – Reuters
