"Star Trek." "The X-Files." "Back to the Future." What do all of these films have in common?
They soon may be forbidden in China.
China has placed a ban on television shows and movies that include time-travel storylines. According to CNN, on March 31 new guidelines in China discouraged plots that contain "fantasy, time-travel, random compilations of mythical stories, bizarre plots, absurd techniques, even propagating feudal superstitions, fatalism and reincarnation, ambiguous moral lessons, and a lack of positive thinking."But the ban is more a regulation, or a discouragement from such plots listed above, according to The New York Times.
The new guidelines were put in place because some claim the shows focus on China's past, on happier times for its citizens, according to Fox News.
And others say that some people fear the movies show disrespect for China's history.
Richard Brody, a blogger for the New Yorker said, "Time travel serves here as a dream of freedom from present-day strictures—or simply as a cry for freedom, from precisely this kind of idiotic and despotic regulation."
One popular show in China, "Palace," involves a woman traveling back in time to the Qing Dynasty and falling in love with several princes. Such shows are deemed by the Chinese media administration as insulting.
It seems that China sees time travel and other similar plot types as insulting and a threat, and some people agree with this ban.
Cheboygan News' columnist Kent Bush agrees with the ban and said, "I am in favor of a similar ban in the United States. … It is time for us to move forward without goofy plot twists and alternate realities."
i say WHAT?! NO! Science fiction (like star trek and back to the future) are what inspires the kids of today to be the scientists of tomorrow! Banning is just shooting ourselves in the foot. and with some of the latest technology being in China, who's going to use it in the future? those of us who were inspired.
