The time-traveling community has suffered yet another setback.
Not content to just upset Facebookers by blocking the social networking site, China announced new rules Wednesday that outlaw the use of time travel in television shows and movies.
The reasons behind this odd move include the apparently offensive way time traveling stories “casually make up myths, have monstrous and weird plots, use absurd tactics and even promote feudalism, superstition, fatalism and reincarnation,” a statement released by the Chinese government said.
Of course it pained us all to watch the monstrous plots and promotion of fatalism in the “Austin Powers” movies. And who wouldn’t feel violated by the absurdity of the flux capacitor?
But maybe the Chinese government should consider the importance of some of the values that viewers could find through time travel.
Marty McFly spends much of his time in the past just trying to get his parents to fall in love. Not only does this ensure that Marty will be born, but it also shows the importance of the family bond in society. Though we’d hate to see time travel provide any ideas that contribute to reducing the birth rate.
Then there is “Austin Powers: Goldmember.” It can be argued that it does use absurd tactics (is a submarine modeled after a person ever normal?), but the last installment of the series is full of family values and important lessons.
Spoiler alert: After all the time they spent fighting each other, Austin’s father reveals at the very end that Dr. Evil and Austin Powers are actually brothers. We have overcome all the awful sex jokes, slapstick comedy and awfully coordinated fight scenes just to get to the importance of brotherhood.
But maybe there is something deeper going on here. China, which has often been known for its stratospheric achievements in math and science education, must have finally done the impossible.
The Chinese government must have been working toward time travel all along, and maybe they’ve finally figured it out. If it turns out to be not as awesome or absurd as the movies and TV shows suggest, they might just want to prepare us for the letdown. After all, who wants to hear that the hot-tub time machine just isn’t plausible?
And of course they wouldn’t want anyone going to any extraordinary lengths to change the course of history. While this is all well and good, we need to keep in mind the good lessons that time traveling teaches.
So if the Chinese government does, in fact, have time travel, then they should let people put it to good use so we can make the world a much better place.
In all seriousness, as absurd as these situations may be, censorship based on this is equally absurd and monstrous. And we wish the Chinese government would realize that as well. Sometimes good, moral lessons come in the weirdest packaging. And sometimes it doesn’t matter if the stories have any value to them at all.
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