Monday, April 26, 2021
Zhao previously disgraced
China deletes entries about Oscar victory
While the newly crowned Oscar winner Chloé Zhao was celebrated in the state media for her success at the Golden Globes in March, entries about the award-winning director are now disappearing from online networks. State media are also ignoring the historic victory.
China has apparently deleted entries from the online networks about the Beijing-born director and newly crowned Oscar winner Chloé Zhao. All current messages containing Zhao’s name or her award-winning film “Nomadland” disappeared in an unexplained manner from the online service Weibo. There was also no mention of Zhao’s Oscar win in the state media.
Zhao was first celebrated by the Chinese media in March for her success at the Golden Globes. However, when internet users circulated old interviews in which she apparently criticized her country of birth, numerous Chinese cinemas stopped the planned release of their film.
In her Oscar speech, Zhao seemed to allude to these difficulties: “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to proceed when things get difficult,” she said. She also quoted a line from a Chinese poem: “People are basically good at birth.” Numerous users celebrated Zhao on Weibo before their entries disappeared from the online network. Despite the efforts of the alleged censors, the pride of the Chinese director was clearly palpable on the streets of Beijing: “It is very rare for a Chinese to win an Oscar,” said engineer Yan Ying.
“I think that Chinese films are getting better and better and that she is a good role model for Chinese directors,” said 38-year-old paralegal Yuan Min. Zhao was only the second woman and the first non-white director to receive an Oscar for directing. Her road movie “Nomadland” was the big winner at this year’s awards ceremony in Los Angeles: The social drama about work nomads in the USA also won the Oscar for best film. The main actress Frances McDormand was also honored.
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