CCTV commentators covering the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics fell silent during a skit hinting at a ménage à trois, a scene inspired by the great French writer Victor Hugo’s line, “The freedom to love is no less sacred than the freedom to think.” The state broadcaster’s conspicuous silence as the LGBTQ+ scene unfolded struck many on Weibo as anachronistic, evidence of the Chinese state’s intolerance for queer sexual expression:
一夜之秋-葵：This sort of live broadcast is unsuitable for CCTV, because they can’t control every detail.
囧迪啃西瓜：The CCTV commentary is unworthy of such an open and diverse opening ceremony.
哈博小镜：In the future it’ll be on tape delay, with propaganda filler waiting on stand-by.
雨籁44：Even though I’m not personally a fan of these “artistic” scenes, it’s fucking idiotic that those commentators at CCTV just fell silent. That type of thing is for the people to debate amongst ourselves. For a mainstream outlet to be rendered speechless by the presence of a minority group is a glaringly obvious sign of their disapproval.
钰珏_佛狱恶女：Ha, I feel like the commentators and director of the CCTV-5 broadcast were scared silent on that one.
一方城堡_喀纳斯：Broadcasting is tough. Last Olympics, they were silent because they couldn’t understand what was going on. This time they understood, but were too afraid to speak.
它了了：This is what comes of an unrehearsed broadcast. CCTV didn’t know which parts to cut out.
一根芦苇的意志：LGBT, feminism, anti-discrimination … that’s a vastly different culture from ours, and the Chinese internet doesn’t know what to make of it.
消失的脑细胞阿巴巴：That scene should’ve been cut—it’s illegal in China.
首都一橘：If it weren’t part of the Paris Olympics, this never would have been shown on [Chinese] TV. [Chinese]
A hashtag pointing out CCTV’s silence was censored by Weibo. Some Chinese nationalists attempted to defend the silence by claiming that other nations’ broadcasts also fell silent. These claims were rebutted by netizens in Japan, Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom—as revealed by Weibo’s IP-location reveal feature—who reported that broadcasts in their countries had not fallen silent. Other aspects of the ceremony were also considered “sensitive” in China. The pre-recorded performance by Lady Gaga, who has 24 tattoos, could be said to be doubly sensitive: the singer has been banned in China since meeting the Dalai Lama in 2021, and Chinese television stations are forbidden from featuring “actors with tattoos.”
Foreign media depicting LGBTQ+ themes is often censored in China. The 2022 release of the American sitcom “Friends” on Chinese streaming platforms was marred by widespread online complaints that scenes featuring LGBTQ+ content had been cut. Some content related to heterosexual sex was also altered or edited out: for example, a reference to “multiple orgasms” was changed to a quip about women “having endless gossip.” In 2019, Chinese censors likewise removed all references to Queen frontman Freddy Mercury’s sexual orientation and AIDS-related death from the biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.” (Earlier this year, Weibo censors did tolerate quiet but spirited celebrations of Taiwanese drag queen Nymphia Wind’s victory in the American reality television show “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”)
The removal of foreign media mirrors a domestic crackdown on queerness, which has sometimes been euphemized as a “westernized lifestyle.” In 2023, the landmark Beijing LGBT Center closed its doors with little explanation beyond “force majeure.” It was but one of many LGBT centers to close over the past few years. State pressure on LGBT institutions may not comport with Chinese public opinion, which is notoriously difficult (but not impossible) to measure. A recent survey by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that 53% of Chinese respondents said that they support the acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, with 98% agreeing or somewhat agreeing that LGBTQ students should be protected from bullying.
Despite state-imposed discrimination, some LGBTQ+ couples are proudly raising children in China, according to reporting from Sue-lin Wong and Jason Lee for Reuters:
People are mostly curious about their unconventional family, said [An Hui, who shares triplets conceived through a human egg donor and a surrogate mother with his partner,] adding that it was not always the case in China where gay couples have long battled conservative Confucian values.
“I’m lucky because I was born in China during a period of rapid change. Today’s society is far more tolerant,” the investment manager told Reuters at his office in Shenzhen’s financial district.
[…] “The best word to describe the attitude of the Chinese government is ‘ignore’,” said Peng.
“It’s hard to gauge their exact attitude. They don’t outright object to the LGBT community because that would really go against international attitudes on this issue,” Peng added. [Source]
