Oscar 2021: Why China “silenced” the success of Beijing director Solo Zhao

Zhao won the Best Director and Best Picture award for his story about people living and traveling in motor homes in the United States.

His story, starring Frances McDormand, who won the statue for Best Leading Actress, led him to become First Asian girl and second girl Won the Oscar for Best Director.

His film has already won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, which he later celebrated “China’s Pride” One of the most talked about topics by major media and social networks in his home country.

But as Zhao’s work began to gain popularity, “nationalists in China began to monitor past interviews and disseminate statements he made 8 years ago, saying it was growing in Beijing.”Like being where lies were everywhereCelia Hutton, BBC Asia Pacific editor, explained.

“Communist officials seem to have noticed this: the posts celebrating Zhao’s victory are being removed from social media, and the state – controlled media is not mentioning the awards.”

To local newspapers “He has been told to underestimate the Oscars 2021Rebecca Davis, director of the special magazine, explained on Twitter this Sunday Variety In China.

For the first time in 50 years, no Chinese media outlet from Hong Kong even aired the event, and until this Monday the official Xinhua agency or People’s Daily, two major state media outlets, had not echoed Zhao’s victory on their web pages. The Chinese.

However, in English, the nationalist newspaper Global Times broke that silence on Twitter with several articles on its website.

The newspaper announced the award, citing his talent, and distanced himself from the film’s interest in Chinese audiences, citing the “political correctness” of the Oscars and urging the use of Zhao. His role as a mediator Amid current tensions between the US and China.

“We hope he has matured more and more,” said an editorial in the English-only newspaper.

Echoed the censorship of various foreign media outlets with journalists in China or the Hong Kong-based SCMP on the country’s main social networks.

Some blogging posts on Weibo and Wechat, the two most used sites on the Chinese mainland, were blocked. Search terms like “Chloé Zhao won the Oscar for Best Director” did not show a result at first.

Some led to ingenuity in violating those limits.

Kuda Baihua, Ann Influence With 13 million followers on Weibo, he released a video of Zhao’s acceptance speech entitled “A Speech is an Academy Awards”, but the SCMP said it was removed two hours later.

“After that, the video showed a screen shot with a Weibo message that it ‘did not meet the site’s requirements,” the newspaper added.

At WeChat, an application similar to Western WhatsApp, but with many more services, searches for the filmmaker showed Very limited results On this Monday and other social networks.

Most of the deleted user comments Frustration For attacks on Zhao, report The New York Times.

“At one point we had to celebrate Chloe Zhao who spoke On the influence of Chinese culture In her life, there are still those who want to distance themselves from her and her Chinese identity, “one user wrote, according to an American newspaper retrieval before deleting it.

The filmmaker mentioned classical Chinese poetry while collecting his Oscar for Best Director.

At the Hollywood meeting, Zhao recalled a game he played with his father in China: memorizing poems and reading them together.

“There is a poem I especially remember ‘Three Character Classic. The first sentence reads, “People are naturally good at birth.”

Those words had a huge impact on her when she was a child, she said, and they still guide her to this day.

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