Opinion – Igor Patrick: Adaptation of ‘The Three Body Problem’ mirrors woes of artists in China

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Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Chinese science fiction phenomenon “The Three-Body Problem” begins in 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution.

At Tsinghua University, Ye Zhetai is subjected to violent sessions of public humiliation, and red guards demand his confession for having included the theory of relativity in the academic curriculum, extolling “a reactionary authority, which would serve any master who waved a wad of money”. . When he refuses, the teacher is beaten and killed in front of his daughter, who later becomes one of the villains of the story.

In 2006, when Cixin Liu’s book became a critical and commercial success, this brief scene became a problem for studios interested in adapting the work. The death of Mao Tse-tung in 1976 opened a great debate in the Communist Party, which later recognized the excesses of the period and granted amnesty to those accused of “counterrevolution”. But there is a gulf between the China of that year and the era of Xi Jinping, in which censorship seems more determined to stop anything that dares to revisit the communist past.

Thus, a nearly finished film adaptation was shelved and an animation had to make significant changes from the source material in order to be released. That left one series, produced by the Tencent Video streaming service, stuck in limbo for months until it got the green light from the regime.

Displayed two weeks ago, the product attracted fans worldwide. The solution to circumvent the imbroglio with censorship, however, illustrates well the difficulties of Chinese creators to maintain creative freedom.

What was a vivid depiction of violence during one of the bloodiest periods in contemporary Chinese history has become an opportunity to criticize the West. Ye, the academic convinced of the importance of the scientific method, tells his daughter in one scene that she “was slow to realize the greed of Western science.” As of this writing (there are still chapters of the series to be shown), he is not killed by Red Guards – he ends up rehabilitating his communist values ​​on his deathbed.

The nationalist tone finds echoes in the way China wants to promote its cultural productions. The series received effusive praise from the state media, and the Global Times tabloid congratulated the plot, “an example of Chinese collective heroism, to the detriment of the individualism observed in Western societies”.

The production also faithfully adheres to the guidelines issued in 2020 by the National Film Administration, according to which the number 1 priority of Chinese science fiction must be “to thoroughly implement ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, highlight Chinese values, uplift the spirits of scientists and cultivate contemporary Chinese innovation while inheriting national culture and aesthetics”.

Beijing wants to use its science fiction to help promote the image of a technological China. An increasingly rigid cultural production, however, discourages national creators. Well-known filmmaker Zhang Yimou has said that most directors in the country work on historical dramas because he knows that scripts about contemporary China would be censored.

Thus, what could be a genuine export product can be perceived as a piece of propaganda by an increasingly suspicious international audience.

The path for Chinese artists then becomes one of acquiescing to state censorship, facing the almost insurmountable difficulties of creative independence, such as funding and distribution, or trying their luck in the West, where they also have to submit to creative interference, in addition to misrepresentation. concepts dear to Chinese society and unanimous criticism from both sides. There are tougher jobs, but being an artist in China certainly shouldn’t be on the 2023 best jobs list.

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