ABSTRACT
Official media and private blogs, as well as a small number of scholars, have taken a close look at movies that have become widely known as egao, a newly coined term that could be translated as “wicked fun” (the two characters e 恶 and gao 搞, respectively, mean “evil” and “poke fun”). While both terms “evil” and “fun” suggest corrosive satire, one should not infer that egao movies are a means through which resistance to the main ideology emerges despite the control of the cyberpolice. Rather, in egao movies, nonsensical often outweigh satirical moments and thus these movies appear quite apolitical and harmless in the eyes of the censors. Nevertheless, in this chapter I hope to prove that they are not just idle and unengaged entertainment.
