In China… well, in China, many weird things happen. The Chinese government, in another strange episode, has decided to ban time travel. Well, at least when it comes to television shows and movies.

With the way things are run, the state controls and monitors everything shown on your television or your computer. So yeah, China can randomly go back in time and say Marty McFly never existed. Scary, huh? Fortunately, that’s not what they’re saying.

Somehow, though, the government has taken a sudden disliking to the idea of distorting certain historical events, things and people. (Cough.)

The idea of time-travel has soared in popularity recently, and it seems like the authorities have just gotten sick of it. Common themes revolve around protagonists going back to ancient times, with script writers often taking liberties with plots and events. Even worse than just being an annoyance, some people fear a real disrespect for China’s history.

The decision was made earlier this month, with the country’s State Administration for Radio, Film & Television stating that “The producers and writers are treating the serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore.”

What’s wrong with these shows? They “casually make up myths, have monstrous and weird plots, use absurd tactics, and even promote feudalism, superstition, fatalism and reincarnation.”

http://techland.time.com/2011/04/13/china-decides-to-ban-time-travel/

Seems fair enough, don’t want to have people going around promoting feudalism and reincarnation

The chinese government has declared that a new time travel zone has been declared on chinese national networks

the americans in the latest tit for tat diplomacy were seen loading copies of “back to the future” onto the back of transport aircraft destined for the chinese mainland, chinese authorities have said that they will resist all unauthorised incursions into the past – vigorously

Damn … no DW

I’m surprised North Korea hasn’t already banned it. You know, in case something happened to Dear Leader on his most fortuitous day of conception.

In fact it’s not terribly weird (that it should come up, so explicitly), as the power relations between the administrative state apparatus and the media apparatus (which I’ll include film and TV industry in the latter here – as part of the ideological apparatus) involve using each other for power sharing, but there is some territory of conflict.

Both apparatus, to the extent they may be seen as distinct (which is a conceptual quagmire itself) resemble in a way a Tardis (it’s not a police telephone box and travels time, and larger on the inside than the outside, and sometimes overrides the Doctor’s destinations for no reason).

Point being perceptions and conceptions of time are managed by the apparatus, and the media are an important instrument for overdetermining social reality over physical realities, the work of individuals at discerning between the two, subjugated to the force of the larger social reality, making the larger social reality a more powerful physical reality, or more perceived or conceived so, importantly. The state apparatus (both ideological and administrative/political too) are in the business of what of large group social realities converge (loosely) to become the (mostly dominant) physical reality, or physical social reality, or social-physical reality. Keeping in mind that most behaviour controls are informal, and indirect, often something less than explicit regards how they work.

In the case of more liberal societies all the above more are socially and politically evolved, meaning in a sense more organic, but no less requiring bullshit to make it all work.

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

― George Orwell, 1984

wookiemeister said:

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

― George Orwell, 1984

He who bears one green ball in each hand has control of The Incredible Hulk!

> What’s wrong with these shows?

The TARDIS crew lands in the Himalayas of Cathay in 1289, their ship badly damaged, and are picked up by Marco Polo’s caravan on its way along the fabled Silk Road to see the Emperor Kublai Khan. The story concerns the Doctor and his companions’ attempts to thwart the machinations of Tegana, who attempts to sabotage the caravan along its travels through the Pamir Plateau and across the treacherous Gobi Desert, and ultimately to assassinate Kublai Khan in Peking, at the height of his imperial power. The Doctor and his companions also attempt to regain the TARDIS, which Marco Polo has taken to give to Kublai Khan in effort to regain the Emperor’s good graces. Susan gets the key from Ping-Cho but is captured by Tegana before they can depart. They are finally able to thwart Tegana …