TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A South Korean cartoon studio has received a set of content guidelines from the Chinese government after it announced a deal with Tencent on Monday (Sept. 27) to distribute its most popular graphic content in China.
The content guidelines, which were sent to a Kakao subsidiary on Thursday (Sept 30.), soon were leaked to South Korean media outlets and have since been ridiculed by Korean and Chinese netizens on social media, according to a HiNet report.
Adultery out of the picture
The guidelines stipulate that extramarital affairs, prostitution, or other morally questionable sexual adventures must not be allowed to appear in the cartoons.
The seventh article of the guidelines reads:
“7. Behaviors that violate family ethics and public order and funeral customs, including but not limited to cheating, prostitution, destroying another’s family, domestic violence, extramarital affairs, insulting, slandering, etc., harming the reputation of others and other legitimate rights and interests.”
Parts of this guideline may be difficult for cartoonists to work around, seeing as adulterous affairs are a common trope within the medium.
Still from ‘The Romantic Clone' a Korean comic about a pair of cheating spouses.
In addition, article six states “driving without a license” should not be depicted.
Some online commentators have humorously interpreted this to mean that if a Chinese version of Batman were to emerge, he should show a driving license to authorities before careening away in his Batmobile to save Gotham City.
Nationalist tendencies
The guidelines also state “controversies about the origin of traditional clothing between China and South Korea,” should be avoided. This is owing to a series of online debates between nationalistic Chinese and Korean netizens in recent years over the origin of hanbok, a traditional dress and a symbol of Korean culture.
Chinese authorities will also ban comics that support democracy or “separatism” in reference to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet. They will censor content viewed as spreading “illegal” religious movements (邪教), which typically refers to outlawed groups like Falun Gong.
In response to the outcry among netizens, Kakao has asked fans not to worry about the quality of the content. The company said it will draft its own internal guidelines for its studio artists, so they do not unwillingly court controversy with Chinese censors, per reports.
