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For the raunchy '21 & Over,' a very different message in China
Los Angeles Times ^ | February 14, 2013 | Amy Kaufman and Steven Zeitchik

Posted on 03/07/2013 7:39:15 PM PST by JerseyanExile

When audiences turn out for “21 & Over” in theaters beginning March 1, they’ll see a celebration of a prominent aspect of the American college experience -- the one involving beer pong, pep rallies and sexually liberated sorority girls.

The film’s Chinese audiences, however, will be exposed to a different message: the perils of a hedonistic West and the importance of embracing one’s roots.

That’s because two different versions of the R-rated Hollywood comedy have been cut. There’s the version that most of the world will see that that takes place entirely in the U.S. and expounds on the joys of campus distraction--and an edition for Chinese moviegoers that contains a more, er, wholesome message.

It’s the result of an initiative by the Ryan Kavanaugh-led Relativity Media. Shortly before shooting began at the University of Washington last year, Relativity executives told filmmakers and cast to plan on a trip to the city of Linyi in Shandong province once they wrapped here. Kavanaugh had brokered a larger deal with a consortium of Chinese companies, including the government-owned Huaxia Film Distribution Co.

...Where the American edition ultimately celebrates youthful independence in the face of familial expectation and generally glorifies Greek life, the Chinese version communicates a very different lesson.

"'21 & Over,' in China, is sort of a story about a boy who leaves China, gets corrupted by our wayward, Western partying ways and goes back to China a better person,” Lucas said. The directors include new scenes at the start and end to make that point; in the Chinese version, Changstarts off at a Chinese college campus and returns there at the end of the film after what turns out to be an ill-conceived stint as a transfer student in the U.S.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; communistpropaganda; film; hollywood; hollywoodreds

1 posted on 03/07/2013 7:39:19 PM PST by JerseyanExile
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To: JerseyanExile

Think about the image of the US that is portrayed in the dreck that Hollywood puts out. Don’t think our enemies aren’t salivating over how decadent we have become.

Kim Jong-Eun probably thinks most Americans are as stupid as Dennis Rodman.


2 posted on 03/07/2013 7:41:32 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: JerseyanExile

Our society, unfortunately, looks at guys who continue to be kids into their 30’s as cult heroes. Getting loaded and laid when you’re 21 is the start of the debauchery.

Gone, for the most part, are young men getting and staying married to their wives. I think a large part of this is because of the role Hollywood and our culture which projects marriage as a bad thing.

I heard a pastor on CD about a year ago talk about the Jewish tradition of the Bar Mitzvah and how at the age of 13, this boy should start thinking of himself as a man. Preparing himself to be a man, and contemplating what lies ahead of him.

Now, we see 16 year-old birthday parties that cost more than some Major League Baseball players make in a season, where spoiled brats are treated like they’ve accomplished something. We’ve got 25 year-old “men” living at home with part-time jobs, partying until 2:00 AM, sleeping with any floozy that will have them and not having a care in the world.

I am truly wondering if the United States is the new Babylon. Actually, I don’t wonder about it much...I just wonder when the end will start.


3 posted on 03/07/2013 8:01:19 PM PST by woweeitsme
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To: JerseyanExile

Call it “The Americans Must Be Crazy.”


4 posted on 03/07/2013 8:07:12 PM PST by JoeDetweiler
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To: woweeitsme

Indeed. I can’t blame the Chinese there.

It’s not just men. Everyone has been .conditioned into being perpetual children, and I mean that in the worst way, not the best. Childish, not child-like.

I don’t know how many times I’ve discussed this issue both with my parents or my husband about how we tire of people our age who seem to think the ultimate is getting drunk at a “party”. As they get older they usually have to settle for just getting drunk. Their big topic is alcohol, and it’s as if they were doing something so exotic and daring. I seriously call most of these people alcoholics. Or, in good old usage, drunkards.

Nevermind you can see how childish we are in dress and grooming. Absolutely dreadful. To think you could see such mature-looking YOUNG actors in movies of old, because they dressed well and were clean cut instead of disheveled in grooming and clothing. Pathetic.


5 posted on 03/07/2013 8:21:33 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Technological progress cannot be legislated.)
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To: woweeitsme
Getting loaded and laid when you’re 21 is the start of the debauchery.

As much or more than academics, that's what college teaches-- vice. The bad habits developed in college may take years to undo, if ever. It's one of the reasons why communists are so intent on a universal "college experience."

It's also why college students are put in dormitories. Look up Bauhaus architecture, and Walter Gropius. The modern apartment building was designed to facillitate impersonal sex.

Living Machines: Bauhaus Architecture as Sexual Ideology.

6 posted on 03/07/2013 8:22:59 PM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
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To: JerseyanExile

Much like the way global trade interests sponsor one version of news for us and a different version for China.


7 posted on 03/07/2013 8:34:58 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of rotten politics smelled around the planet.)
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To: JerseyanExile

This film maker is the equivalent of a heroin dealer and methadone counselor....


8 posted on 03/07/2013 8:39:09 PM PST by Amberdawn
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To: dfwgator

TV and Hollywood and now schools are leading the cultural decline of the US, the whole world applauds that.


9 posted on 03/07/2013 8:46:24 PM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: dfwgator
Don’t think our enemies aren’t salivating over how decadent we have become.

It was a Communist goal. Payback is the Gaystapo are now demanding that (former and present) Communist nations celebrate homosexuality.

10 posted on 03/07/2013 8:48:09 PM PST by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas

Thank you for posting the name of the book, Bauhaus Architecture as Sexual Ideology, as I am very interested in reading it. I have always thought that there was a distinct corollation between the kind of deconstructionist and deliberately impersonal architecture and the collapse of our culture . One of the things that struck a friend of mine after she married a Russian fellow and went to the outskirts of Moscow to meet his family was the horrific and sterile architecture that abounds. Bauhaus is more like block house with all the severed dignity that concrete and steel can offer. Fascinating topic to think about.


11 posted on 03/08/2013 5:11:34 AM PST by sueuprising (The best of it is, God is with us-John Wesley)
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To: sueuprising

yikes, I meant to write correlation, not corollation LOL


12 posted on 03/08/2013 5:43:35 AM PST by sueuprising (The best of it is, God is with us-John Wesley)
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To: JerseyanExile

All the young Chinese will watch it and say “I want to go to America”.


13 posted on 03/08/2013 5:46:25 AM PST by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: sueuprising
I had the same feeling as you about these cold, impersonal buildings, but I couldn't articulate the reason for my feelings.

This book filled in the gaps. The truth is stunning.

I visited family in Warsaw just after the Wall came down. It's impossible to imagine the bleakness of a landscape of multi-story concrete boxes. It's profoundly dispiriting.

What was also impressive was the lack of color everywhere. No posters, ads, signs... nothing. Just gray, gray, gray.

The absolute nadir of modern architecture was the "Brutalist School," which flourished in the '60s and '70s. The absolute worst of the worst.

14 posted on 03/08/2013 7:28:30 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
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To: JerseyanExile

I’m waiting for the Long Duck Dong “Sixteen Candles” re-edit.


15 posted on 03/08/2013 8:07:24 AM PST by SoothingDave
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