The heavy hand of China’s SARFT strikes again in what is being called the equivalent of Cleavage-gate in the C-interwebs. It was an entertaining week of media speculation when the currently airing popular star-studded period C-drama The Empress of China (武媚娘傳奇 The Legend of Seductress Wu) abruptly got yanked off the air mid-airing. The weak explanation was that the network had run out of its period drama episode allocation for the year, but the real reason that had everyone buzzing was the copious amounts of non-historically accurate cleavage on display in the drama from the female-heavy cast.
The drama is set in the Tang dynasty chronicling the life of Chinese Empress Wu Ze Tian, but the ladies led by female lead Fan Bing Bing have been sporting one luxuriously embroidered low cut outfit after another, incurring the ire of SARFT censors because apparently busty female cleavage must be stopped. Or something like that. After a week off air, the drama returned to the airwaves on January 1st and everyone went batshit because suddenly all the female leads are shown onscreen only from the neck up. I’m not joking, half body to full body shots have become giant head only shots in supremely awkward ways. I just can’t, why so much hullabaloo for some mammaries SARFT? Check out the drama pics and decide if this is too racy for TV.
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Let's hope the Chinese censors are not against bare male chests as well. Otherwise, a lot of kdrama fans may be in for a world of disappointment in the coming years!
This is totally reminds me with the stupid blurring decision back in Chuno time!!!
i think blurry is better than only shoot their neck, in my country they'll use blurry. esp for hollywood movie which showing many sexy lady
LOL. I don't suppose they can keep the full or half length shots and just blur out the cleavages can they? :-)
Which begs the question about how historically accurate these costumes are. Were the women who wore them centuries ago really that top heavy? If so, to hell with it and show those cleavages, at least they're historically accurate! LOL.
The fashions I would believe are accurate as Tang dynasty gowns from other shows I watched are more low cut and show the decolletage.
But the cleavage....let's just say that this is the first Tang dynasty period show I saw that makes use of the fact that ladies' dressing are more low cut then.
The question is, why the producers did that if they knew the censors will stop/alter the drama? It not necessary to ruin their beautiful work over some cleavages?
the problem isnt with the production team. They already got approval from SARFT to air this drama, which means that SARFT already watched it before the drama got on the air. So the real question is why didnt SARFT have problem with the cleavages when they first watch it, why now?
That's very easy answer: some high ranked party leader, presumably of some age, caught a glimpse of the show. Morality has to win over the depraved western ways....
So women have cleavage. I don't think there's any problem with showing that fact. If they were totally bared, then I'll see the problem but personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with the full shots above. I understand that China is more conservative but unless they put the women in potato sacks, they can't really hide the female curves.
While I don't think there is anything indecent about those costumes per se, if *every single shot* of a woman that isn't a close-up of a face had to be altered due to showing cleavage... that does suggest the production was going overboard with the female objectification. Especially if the costumes are not historically accurate and they changed them to make them more sexy. That being said, forcing them to crop the shots like that is ridiculous and doesn't achieve anything.
I think I agree with you. I have yet to see an American show with women showing their cleavage in a forceful manner (the use of the wonder bra). Anyhow, the show should be of substance (acting/script). Showing cleavage feels like a cheap way of getting the high ratings
As much as those costumes are definitely aiming to titillate this does seem a bit of an overreaction. I also can't believe they didn't modify the outfits, but instead decided on those type of close up shots?
Those costumes are definitely aiming to tits-illate. ;)
The drama isn't live-shoot I believe. So they can't just re-shoot the scenes, since they've already finished all the taping. Best they can do is edit....
Lol I just touched my own breasts and said ow. That's a lot of pushup.
Haha that's a good one. Too much push-ups in this drama. So I supposed no bikinis on TV shows in China?
Also this reminds me of Curse of the Golden Flower. All I remember from that movie was boobs.
Ditto. Gong Li was sporting the same outfits and everything in COTGF.
But the crop screen captures are too funny. Really China? It's not like
we are going to see more cleavage, several episodes have aired already.
Just tell the costume designer to alter the dresses and that solution would have been much better.
Well, it's China....I am surprised they got this far...there will be probably other consequences for the crew involved...as well as for the censors that let it "slip" in the first place....TV ratings and party's rules don't always walk on the same road..