The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 1927. INFLUENCE OF THE FILM IN CHINA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19785, 8 March 1927, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 1927. INFLUENCE OF THE FILM IN CHINA

It has been generally considered that the strong anti-foreign feeling now existent in China is due to native resentment over the forced opening of trade to foreigners, to extra-territorial concessions, to encroachment upon Chinese sovereignty, and to such-like matters. These have been put forward and argued upon, pro and con, by people taking opposing viewpoints, some seeing nothing but what is iniquitous in the foreign Powers’ presence, other# urging that, whatever view may be taken of such matters, there is no justification for the Chinese attempting to retake by force what they have conceded by treaty and that, whatever may be said on one side, there is an equal amount that can justly be said on the other.

Recent travellers in China shed some further light on the question and assert that the anti-foreign feeling is not wholly due to the causes mentioned above and that, in addition to being based upon hatred, mostly artfully fomented by agitators, it also has a foundation in contempt. The reason for this contempt is not, however, to be found in organised agitation; it is one for which the white race itself is responsible. It lies in the motion picture film, or, more correctly, in the class of film which has been permitted to be shown to native audiences all over China during the past few years. Everybody knows that many of the American films shown, for instance, in New Zealand give an altogether false idea of values as regards human life and conduct, even if they do manage to pass the requirements of the censorship. When it is realised that something likg 99 per cent, of the films shown to Chinese audiences are of American origin and that the censorship thereon amounts to nothing at all, it is not difficult to perceive the effect likely to be produced upon the native mind. A recent English visitor to China, Mr B. Ifor Evans, had a good deal to say upon this matter and his views have just received endorsement from Mr J. P. Rodwell, an English missionary home on furlough after eighteen years in China. The unfortunate selection of films shown throughout China, Mr Rodwell stated to a London interviewer, had led to a violent sense of disillusion in the minds of the people, who felt now that they had been deceived in their estimate of Western character. There was a time, he continued, when the Chinese conceived of Eurocivilisation as a thing of quietude and self-control, but they now believed it to be a hectic series of hold-ups and shooting affrays. Under such circumstances it is little wonder that the Chin-

ese people have lost much of the respect they once felt for the white. The cinema has become almost as much a part of Chinese life as it has with us; it is found all over the land, far in the interior as well as on the coast. Here in New Zealand there must be many who have been wrongly educated by the average American film and who believe that the carrying of a pistol and the frequent shooting of it, the killing of an opponent in an argument, marital incontinence, divorce, whisky drinking and poker playing, not to mention many other objectionable things frequently depicted, are typical of American life. But all Americans are not like that.

There is this difference, however, between the New Zealand and the Chinese spectator of such pictures. The New Zealander who is misled by these films goes no further than to consider them as applying to America only. The Chinese makes no such distinction. To him all whites, if not one are so nearly one as not to matter. Consequently, he considers these films as truly descriptive of the life of the white all over the world. Remembering all that he was once told of the high standard observed by the white, he feels that the latter is a hyproerite. And when hatred fanned by agitation is allied to contempt born within his own mind, the view that the whites are pests and exploiters who would be better driven out of his country than allowed to remain in it becomes understandable, even if mistaken.

White people in the East have for some time been urging the necessity for a strict censorship on imported films with a view of cutting out these undesirable failures. But it has been next to impossible to set one up in China itself, and opinion now is that it should be established at the other end and that only those films should be allowed to be exported from America which do not parade the vices of a certain class of white. Probably the latter will be found as difficult a proposition as the former, for to some people dollars are dollars. At the same time, some of the leading lights in the American film industry are said to have viewed the proposal sympathetically and, if the idea take root, maybe in due time the film-exporting interests will take a step that will be just as much for the benefit of America as for the rest of the world. Perhaps it may even lead to a re-casting of ideas as to what is fit and proper to be exported to other countries than China, a consummation which certainly is most devoutly to be wished.