My family recently started watching The Big Bang Theory My wife hasn’t laughed this hard since she was watching reruns of Friends. My family has fun laughing at Sheldon while looking right at me as I have some of the same tendencies.
I stumbled upon an article in The Pudding that is a good insight to the sort of censorship that happens, often in a klutzy heavy handed way.
Just ask somebody that saw Salor Moon in Japan coming to American and hearing it is a children’s show. Censorship happens.
This article is from a person that was watching in China
I quickly became a fan of the sitcom when it was officially introduced in China on a video streaming website in 2011. But when I rewatched the show in 2022 on Youku, a Chinese video streaming website backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba, I couldn’t help but notice weird jumps, pauses, and disconnected canned laughter.
In 2014 streaming platforms in China received a notification from regulators:
imported American and British TV shows must be ‘reviewed and approved by officials before streaming to the public
The article has some neat graphics work in it to show what was cut and what wasn’t. It looks OK on mobile but better on a full screen.
Go read for an idea of what the Chinese government censors internally:
The Big [Censored] Theory
A bit lighter but with magic the gathering, can’t have skeletons in art for some reason in China so there is/was China specific art for anything with a skeleton.
As I recall it, no undead, no ghosts allowed. I’m not sure if it’s a bow to traditional culture or an attempt to erase China’s traditional culture.
Oh yeah — no time travel, either. I have no idea if Doctor Who is allowed into China at all.