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Chinese state media accuse Netflix series 3 Body Problem of pushing ‘American cultural hegemony’
- Official military site publishes blistering critique of sci-fi drama based on Hugo Award-winning novel by Chinese author Liu Cixin
- Although the series features diverse cast, its villains have ‘yellow faces’, the article says, echoing complaints by viewers in China
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China’s state media published a blistering critique of the Netflix series 3 Body Problem on Saturday, saying the adaptation of an award-winning Chinese sci-fi trilogy promotes “American cultural hegemony” under the guise of diversity.
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The commentary by China Military Online, owned by the People’s Liberation Army, is the one of the first from state-affiliated media after more than a week of polarised discussion on Chinese social media about the series from showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the writing and producing duo behind HBO’s Game of Thrones.
The commentary targeted the American version’s radical departure from the novels, which feature mostly Chinese characters and a plot that plays out over hundreds of years, while the first season of the Netflix series features characters of various nationalities all set in the same time period.
“The United States is using ‘political correctness’ to combat and dissolve other countries’ cultural influence. It uses ‘pluralism’ to practise its cultural hegemony,” according to the commentary.
It added that the production team “deliberately does away with the modern image of China depicted in the novel” while preserving the “yellow faces” of its villains.
“The so-called pluralism and inclusiveness cannot hide their deep-rooted discrimination and hostility towards other civilisations,” the article said.
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The Hugo Award-winning sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem is the first book in a trilogy by Chinese author Liu Cixin. The trilogy, which also includes the novels The Dark Forest and Death’s End, is about humans combating alien civilisations across centuries, starting from China’s Cultural Revolution.
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