Study on Cultural Discount of Documentary Between China and Western Countries - Taking “The Forbidden City” and “Inside the Forbidden City” as examples

Abstract

When we talk about documentaries, the first thought is perhaps Grierson’s definition - “creative treatment of actuality” (Chapan, 2009, p. 9). However, in China, as a unique type of movie, documentary not only shows its artistic charm in “creative treatment of actuality”, but also takes the responsibility of culture export and communication. Meanwhile, the process of the intercultural communication of documentary is always under the constraint that audiences from import markets feel it is difficult to understand or identify with the exotic culture in the documentary, including style, values, beliefs, history, mythology, social system, environment and pattern of behavior, and the resultant loss of cultural value of the documentary is known as “cultural discount”. Compared with Chinese documentary, western documentary usually ranks on top of the international documentary market. Documentaries made by BBC, Discovery or National Geographic rarely have cultural discount in overseas markets, but China’s high-quality local documentaries often meet with the predicament that they have to be shortened or re-edited before broadcasted. Cultural discount is one of the most important factors which causes the imbalance in the international documentary market.