Cinema Suicide

I really wish that I had something witty to say about this but this is one those moments in life where I firmly slap the palm of my hand to my forehead and exclaim, “Gan ni niang!”

Here’s the deal. Reuters is reporting that the upcoming ‘08 Olympic games in Beijing is bringing on a new cultural crackdown that blacklists horror movies. Never mind that the Mainland is home to, perhaps, the largest black market of DVDs in the world where you can get just about anything you want from any genre and the authorities are powerless to stop it. I guess it’s the gesture that counts. The Chinese government’s General Administration of Press and Publications has officially declared horror movies contraband. And, of course, they’re just thinking of the children. I’m glad someone is. I only wonder when those children that they’re so worried about have time to watch horror movies when they’re pulling 16 hour shifts slapping coats of lead paint on baby toys headed for America for a couple of yuan a week.

Call me crazy.

I suppose as the communist government’s role in the changing face of China on the world stage becomes a lot more ambiguous, they have to put their foot down somewhere to show the world that they still call the shots. After all, there are going to be a lot of people watching those games set in their own homeland. You don’t want to look soft when the whole world is looking.