Are China’s TV dramas obsessed with beauty? An industry regulator thinks so

hang Linghe’s portrayal of a warrior in the costume drama Pursuit of Jade earned him the nickname of the “foundation-wearing general”.

Photo: Handout TV drama regulators in China have taken aim at beauty-obsessed and traffic-driven programming in the industry, with a call for more “quality” storytelling.

The National Radio and Television Administration’s drama department sent out the call on Thursday as it brought major streaming platforms and production companies together for a conference on “healthy aesthetics”. “[Efforts should be made] to avoid the tendency to value physical beauty above everything else and reliance on traffic-driven popularity,” the department said in a briefing posted on social media. “Greater emphasis should be placed on acting skills and the quality of productions,” it said, criticising the “undesirable creative tendencies” of a “one-sided pursuit of ‘appearance-first’ standards”.

Among the attendees at the conference were representatives from streamers iQIYI, Mango TV, Tencent Video and Youku and participants from production companies Daylight Entertainment, Linmon Media and Huace TV.

Those firms are some of the creative forces behind many hits such as the historical political drama Nirvana in Fire, the xianxia fantasy Love Between Fairy and Devil and the 2025 Tang dynasty drama Flourished Peony.

The department did not give any examples of the type of content it was criticising but the official push comes amid a controversy over the popular historical romance Pursuit of Jade.

Released worldwide in March on Tencent Video, iQIYI and Netflix, the show is an adaptation of a web novel set in a fictional ancient period of China, featuring Zhang Linghe playing battle-hardened general Xie Zheng.

In widely circulated battlefield scenes, the general has a noticeably fair, even-toned complexion, minimal signs of sweat, dust or blood, and carefully styled hair – a look many considered at odds with his rugged character and the story’s setting, prompting some, including state media, to dub the character the “foundation-wearing general”.

State media said such depictions departed from a common understanding of history, distorted healthy beauty standards, and risked misleading young people.

In late March, Junzhengping Studio, a social media account run by the Chinese military’s PLA Daily, criticised some war dramas for portraying military figures as “overly softened and deliberately polished”, instead of showing the characters’ traditiona

原文链接: 南华早报