Chinese censors have cut the “Friends” season. They removed individual scenes and entire threads

The first episodes were shown on American television 28 years ago, and the production quickly became a global hit. It has been constantly popular since then, and in early 2022 it again found its way to the offer of Chinese streaming platforms. Previously, “Friends” online was broadcast in China from 2012 to 2018, when the series was shown without any cuts or interference from Sohu video and iQiy. However, the license ended in 2018. There are also DVD editions on the market.

Chinese censors took on “Friends”. What bothered them and what did they cut?

Due to the great interest in the anniversary episode “after the years”, which was released at the end of 2021, Chinese streaming platforms decided to re-buy the rights to broadcast the program. And so “Friends” found their way to the resources of such VOD services as Bilibili, Tencent, Youku and Sohu. The first episodes were broadcast on February 11.

Viewers who decided to show, quickly noticed that several scenes were missing. The censors decided to cut out anything that would suggest the homosexuality of Carol, Ross’s ex-wife. As we remember, the couple broke up because Carol realized she was a lesbian and in fact she was in love with her friend Susan, with whom she later raised a child from her relationship with Ross. As “” relates, the censors were to get rid of scenes in which the characters explain the reasons for the breakup of marriage or any declarations related to sexual orientation. In the event that scenes were not cut out, changes were made to the dialogues spoken by LGBT characters.

Censors didn’t like shots where the characters talk about sex or barely allude to things like a strip club or orgasms. For example, in a scene where Joey proposes to go to a “strip joint” (a strip club), his line is translated as “go have fun”, where Ross says that women can have “multiple orgasms” in translation appears the text that women “have endless rumors” – it is puzzling that the original soundtrack has been preserved – reports in turn

Reports of cuts in a series that started almost 30 years ago have become one of the most popular topics on the Chinese social networking site Weibo. On Friday night alone, the hashtag “FriendsCensored” had 54 million views.

The censorship interference is the result of increased efforts by the Chinese government to increasingly control the media and entertainment industry. The first guidelines were announced in an eight-page document back in 2016. As part of the fight against “vulgar, immoral and unhealthy content”, the principles included, among others, a ban on broadcasting threads related to homosexual relationships on television, as well as the elimination of all other topics that “exaggerate the dark sides of society”, including such phenomena as extramarital affairs, casual sex meetings or the love of underage heroes. Under these regulations, two minutes of LGBT scenes were removed from the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody” about Queen in 2019.