I do feel like China's still in the mode of "export only on our terms", but the problem is that no one wants their stuff. Like, China did make a bunch of movies with the intent to export, such as Great Wall and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but because it was made with the intent to export, they seemed to decide that they won't bother to put as much effort in, since it's for a global audience and it was mostly crap.
And then there's the web novel stuff that's just purely grassroots with no government involvement whatsoever. I think it's best for the Chinese government to stay out of this stuff because their plans always backfires.
I think part of the thing with China is that the entertainment sector hasn't even decided on a culture to depict (which gets past the censors). Stuff like Crouching Tiger is more historical drama, but not really anything to do with the modern culture. As to actual modern culture, due to the fast pace of change & progress in China, it's really hard to define that. There's a feeling of generation gap between the people who are in government, the people who are making the shows/movies, the people who have time to watch them, etc.
It's true that the censor stuff is a huge bane to China's own pop culture. However, there is still a difference between export pop culture and domestic pop culture. The domestic stuff still manages to squeeze out the occasional gem (《你好，李焕英》 is an example that comes to mind), but the pop culture exports (such as Great Wall, which casts foreign movie stars in the hopes that somehow this will get westerners interested) tend to be all uniformly shit. And the ridiculously viral movies, such as 《战狼》 or 《流浪地球》 are...honestly not that interesting despite the popularity.
As for modern culture, I agree with what you've already said and would add that the really fast generational turn over is also a contributor. In the U.S., a generation spans 10-15 years. Kids born in the 80s and 90s share a similar set of cultural zeitgeists (9/11, Simpsons, Power Rangers, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, etc.). Whereas in China, it feels like there's a generation gap every 5 years, so even kids born in the same decade have very different childhoods growing up. Maybe as China's economy matures the generation range will grow bigger and pop culture will have a little longer to figure out what it wants to be.
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Date: 2022-10-31 20:46 (UTC)I do feel like China's still in the mode of "export only on our terms", but the problem is that no one wants their stuff. Like, China did make a bunch of movies with the intent to export, such as Great Wall and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but because it was made with the intent to export, they seemed to decide that they won't bother to put as much effort in, since it's for a global audience and it was mostly crap.
And then there's the web novel stuff that's just purely grassroots with no government involvement whatsoever. I think it's best for the Chinese government to stay out of this stuff because their plans always backfires.
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Date: 2022-11-01 15:10 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-01 15:30 (UTC)It's true that the censor stuff is a huge bane to China's own pop culture. However, there is still a difference between export pop culture and domestic pop culture. The domestic stuff still manages to squeeze out the occasional gem (《你好，李焕英》 is an example that comes to mind), but the pop culture exports (such as Great Wall, which casts foreign movie stars in the hopes that somehow this will get westerners interested) tend to be all uniformly shit. And the ridiculously viral movies, such as 《战狼》 or 《流浪地球》 are...honestly not that interesting despite the popularity.
As for modern culture, I agree with what you've already said and would add that the really fast generational turn over is also a contributor. In the U.S., a generation spans 10-15 years. Kids born in the 80s and 90s share a similar set of cultural zeitgeists (9/11, Simpsons, Power Rangers, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, etc.). Whereas in China, it feels like there's a generation gap every 5 years, so even kids born in the same decade have very different childhoods growing up. Maybe as China's economy matures the generation range will grow bigger and pop culture will have a little longer to figure out what it wants to be.