China’s Attempt to Steer Covid Narrative in TV Drama Backfires

(Bloomberg) -- Backlash against a new Chinese television drama about its fight against Covid-19 underscores the challenges facing Beijing as it attempts to steer the narrative about its handling of the pandemic.

Eight episodes of the propaganda series “Heroes in Harm’s Way” have aired since Thursday on state broadcaster China Central Television, and were criticized on Chinese social media. That included calls for the 14-episode series to be pulled from the air, with people saying it minimized women’s contributions to containing the virus and failed to reflect the hardship endured by medical workers.

The show is part of a push by Beijing to tout its success in containing the virus to a domestic audience, with cases dwindling and President Xi Jinping increasingly turning his attention to China’s battered economy. But the immediate criticism shows the fine line China walks as it works to reshape the opinion of a skeptical public.

Viewers have complained on Chinese social media platform Weibo in recent days, pointing out that a mainstream drama produced by state television must have received close scrutiny from by censors. Shen Haixiong -- a deputy minister of the Communist Party’s propaganda department -- is the show’s chief producer.

“This must be the correct collective memory they want to leave,” one Weibo user said. “Please stop revising history and stop broadcasting the series,” wrote another.

The broadcaster has pushed back against the criticism, claiming on its official Weibo account the drama has won “widespread good reviews” from audiences and internet users -- while censoring all criticisms in the comment section, a practice typical of Chinese social media. Douban, a user-review platform, had to disable the rating function over the weekend after users gave “Heroes” 2.4 out of 10 points.

Any Women?

“Heroes” was intended to be a mosaic of touching stories about how Chinese people -- including medics, volunteers, government officials and ordinary citizens -- fought through the outbreak in Wuhan to “demonstrate Chinese people’s courageous heroism to fight and win,” according to a report in the state-run China News Service.

One scene that has outraged critics on Weibo for its lack of gender distribution featured the head of a Wuhan bus company saying: “All volunteers are men, are there any women who want to join?” as he tries to form an emergency service team during the city’s lockdown.

In another scene, a male doctor told a female colleague: “You’re a woman, you can just stay aside to assist.”

The depictions contrasted official statistics from the National Health Commission that almost 70% of the some 42,000 medical staff sent to Wuhan to help the city’s overwhelmed hospitals were women. They also revived bitter memories of the bodies of female doctors and nurses being used as propaganda tools in the earlier days of the pandemic, as men shaved off their long hair in a stage-managed attempt to prevent infection.

Weibo users who said they were doctors also weighed in, writing that they felt insulted by the show’s portrait of their daily work. They cited mistakes in the depiction of moves, including giving injections and making chest compressions.

“I hope this drama, if it is going to be aired overseas, could re-shoot these parts,” a Wuhan-based doctor in a post that received more than 100,000 likes. “The hardship the medical staff has endured should not be humiliated by such unprofessional practices.”

Another Weibo user said the show appeared determined to promote a sanitized history free from controversies over cover-ups, medical-supply shortages and the chaos of early lockdowns.

“All these don’t exist, because they’re not correct,” the user wrote. “The only correct collective memory is victory, until similar event happens all over again.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Bloomberg