Censorship craziness: Hunger Games OK in China, Fifty Shades banned in Florida

Some libraries in Florida have banned the best selling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey because of its overt sexual content.

What is this world coming to when a movie is OK in China
but a book is banned in Florida?

It’s a good news/bad news week on the censorship front.
On the positive side of the ledger, China has given the
green light to a summer release of The Hunger Games movie.

The decision to allow The Hunger Games to screen caught
many China watchers by surprise, since the film has a very
strong anti-authoritarian and anti-totalitarian streak.
(The movie, of course, is about teenagers forced to fight
for their lives for the amusement of a domineering ruling
class.)

China is not shy about censoring Hollywood movies. The
government pulled Avatar from theatres a couple of years
ago after its storyline was deemed too close to a
sensitive issue of the day – the forced evacuation of
Chinese villagers to make way for commercial development.
The argument that the movie was about BLUE people didn’t
sway Chinese authorities.

Even more curious, just this past January, the Chinese
government got rid of a huge swath of its prime time
entertainment shows for “excessive entertainment and a
trend toward low taste.” And a lot of what was cut were
reality shows – which is what The Hunger Games IS, a
futuristic reality show.

Maybe, just maybe, the Chinese authorities saw The Hunger
Games as a critiques of reality shows (and the Western
Culture that spawned it), which in a lot of ways it is.

Whatever the reason, this is a huge win for Lionsgate, the
studio responsible for Hunger Games. The movie’s already
grossed $620 million worldwide and China offers a
huge new market for the film (and its sequels.)

If China is loosening up its censors just a bit, Florida
is going in the opposite direction. Seventeen libraries
in
Brevard County, Florida are pulling its copies of the
bestselling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey OFF the
shelves. Or they would be if they could get their hands on
them.

The joke is that all 19 copies of the book have already
been checked out and there was a long waiting list. But
the library system says once the books are returned
they’ll be taken out of circulation. No surprise if some
of those copies are s-l-o-w to be returned.