Dai Lun: Zhao Ting conquered the Oscars, but was "exiled" by China

Not surprisingly, Chinese-American director Zhao Ting won three heavyweight Oscars at the 93rd Oscars for "The Land of Nowhere". The mainstream media in the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, South Korea and other countries immediately published articles to send Zhao Ting Congratulations on the Internet, and praised her for " becoming the creator of Hollywood history " and " rewriting the American film tradition ".

However, on the Chinese Internet, the name "Zhao Ting" is like water vapor, so thin that it is almost invisible. For this year’s Oscars ceremony, no media or video platform in mainland China provided a live broadcast. Many movie accounts on Sina Weibo undertook the live broadcast, but the one with the most posts was Korean actor Yoon Yeo-jung who won Best Supporting Actress—— Fortunately, there were two Asian winners in this year's Oscars, otherwise the Weibo copywriting of these movie accounts would not be able to touch the "glory of yellow skin".

Only one big V "Liu Xiaoqian" clearly posted on Weibo that "Zhao Ting won the best director of #oscar#", most of the other Weibo content was replaced by "zt", and even the search on Weibo could not find ""Nothing "The Land of Yield" won the best picture", and did not even mention the name of the film when congratulating "Sister Cohen" McDormand for winning the third statuette.

On another important social media platform, the WeChat official account, as of 17:00 pm on April 26, there was not a single movie-related official account that had released an Oscar-related push. Get articles from a month ago.

Well-known Chinese film critic "Europa" posted a tweet titled "Nothing to Say" on his WeChat official account, which contained only a few short lines: "Want to talk about this matter, the list of winners. But...you get the point. But—actually, I haven't seen that movie yet. I hope to see her movie in the cinema sometime."

Some Western media have also noticed the "coldness" of the Chinese Internet. The " Chinese official media silence " mentioned in the "Voice of America" article is indeed true. A series of media reports about Zhao Ting's Oscar winning were searched in the browser, but after clicking on it, it all showed "this page does not exist". Only one video from "The Paper" survived, in which Zhao Ting's stepmother Song Dandan (a well-known actor in mainland China) praised Zhao Ting, "You are the legend of our family."

Another netizen said that the hashtag "#赵婷走奥达奥斯汀奖喜剧#" was blocked shortly after it appeared.

Outside the Great Firewall, only the official Twitter account of China's official media "Global Times" published the news that Zhao Ting and "The Land of Nowhere" won the award. Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of Global Times, congratulated Zhao Ting on his personal Twitter, and said, "As a Chinese who was born in Beijing and struggled in the United States, the tense Sino-US relationship may cause her some trouble." And the subsequent sentence "I hope she will become more and more mature in dealing with these troubles" seems to reveal the limit of Hu's scale as an official media person.

However, what the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) said in " Oscar's New Best Director Zhao Ting: From the Once "Pride of China" to Now Deleting Posts on the Internet " is a bit exaggerated. There is no indiscriminate "becoming sensitive words" such as "land" and "Oscar", and there is no direct evidence for "large-scale removal" of online posts.

Of course, it has to be admitted that if you use "Zhao Ting" and "Oscar" as keywords to search on Weibo at the same time, you can get only two content related to the award ceremony. V, the other one should be the official account of the US Consulate General in Hong Kong forwarding the news that Zhao Ting won the award, but the original Weibo shows "has been deleted by the author". The rest of the content are old posts before the Oscars.

Mainland China's low-key handling of this year's Oscars. Some commentators believe that the reasons are complicated. In addition to Zhao Ting's "sensitiveness" with "The Land of Nowhere", it may also be related to the documentary "No Cutting" with the theme of Hong Kong's "anti-amendment law". Nominated for Best Documentary Feature for Do Not Split. This year is also the first time in Hong Kong in 52 years that no TV media will broadcast the Oscars live. Hong Kong media TVB, which usually broadcasts the Oscars in previous years, said that this is "purely commercial considerations."

The reason why Zhao Ting is considered "sensitive" is obviously related to the previous "disgrace to China". Zhao Ting and "The Land of Nowhere" won the Golden Globe Award, which is known as the "Oscar weathervane" in early March this year. While Zhao Ting's name was widely reported in mainland China, she accepted the magazine "Filmmaker" in 2013. During the interview, the words "This goes back to my growing up in China, when there were lies everywhere, and a lot of the information I received were not correct" were also dug up by netizens and labeled as "disgraceful to China".

Duowei News once analyzed in detail the specific context of Zhao Ting's remarks in the article " Public Opinion | From China's Pride to Humiliation to China" who will fall into the next "nowhere": According to the reporter, a Chinese-American female director wants to film a story about the aborigines on the Lakota Pine Ridge reservation in North Dakota, USA. This choice is as curious as her choice of political science in college. .

So there is the narration of Zhao Ting, which translates to the effect:

I chose this subject because I grew up in China as a teenager, where lies were everywhere, and I felt as if I would never be able to get out of it. Much of the information "I" was able to get was incorrect, and it made "I" feel rebellious about my family and my own background. Later, "I" went to England and began to re-learn the history of my own country. Studying political science was a way for "me" to figure out what was real. Arm yourself with information, then challenge it (the information itself).

This statement is a typical description of the mental journey experienced by many Chinese students studying abroad. It is not only political, but also because of the fact that "theory" cannot explain "reality" in China for a long period of time, which has led to a disconnect between the two narratives, which highlights China's weakness in theory and external propaganda in recent decades; but it is more Regarding personal growth, it is a natural tendency for a young person to "doubt everything and reassess everything" as he grows older and more knowledgeable.

The content of the report that followed was to the effect that after four years at university, Zhao Ting found herself "turned off by politics." She found that she loved being in bars "meeting people and learning about their history." She came to believe that film was what united all her interests, so without knowing anyone in the industry, she enrolled in graduate film at NYU Course (Graduate Film Program).

After restoring the specific context provided by the context, it is not difficult to judge whether Zhao Ting's words are "disgraceful to China". It is obvious that Zhao Ting's attacks are concentrated on the level of Chinese society, and have not risen to the level of the nation or the nation. Judging that a person "disgraces China" by picking out a single phrase is a typical way of "labeling" and "sticking" out of context. At the same time, it is easy to turn any criticism of Chinese society into "disgraceful". If things go on like this, public opinion The normal critical space in China will no longer exist.

However, these slightly complicated and cumbersome retrospectives and analyzes did not attract many people's attention, leaving only the unanimous opinion of "Zhao Ting insulting China" in the public opinion field, and "The Land of Nowhere" was taken off the shelves in mainland China, and then to the Oscars. It is difficult to directly see the news of Zhao Ting and "The Land of Nowhere" winning awards on mainland social media, although many Western media have mentioned that "the film itself has nothing to do with Chinese politics."

Such an atmosphere of public opinion will only give some Western media the pretext of "control of speech" and "increasing Chinese nationalism".

Zhao Ting mentioned ancient Chinese poems in her Oscar acceptance speech, and mentioned the "San Zi Jing" that "at the beginning of human beings, nature is good". The last time such elements of Chinese culture appeared at the Oscars ceremony, probably dates back to 8 years ago when Ang Lee won the award.

"No matter how difficult the time is", Zhao Ting still "sticks to everyone who is kind to each other" from the perspective of Chinese culture. And some radical netizens in China use a hat of insulting China to exile "China's pride" and "Chinese glory" to the field of "unspeakable" public opinion.