Hollywood Censorship, Culture & Chinese Appeasement: It All Comes Down to Greed

COVID restrictions are slowly beginning to lift, so AMC movie theatres just announced that it will be reopening with 15 cent movies. Great price, however, when it comes to Hollywood blockbusters, we’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re in Beijing. Not in some transformative ethereal cinematic way, but in the way that Communist China plays a significant role in what Americans see on the screen. From product placement to content censorship, stateside cinephiles can say “Hasta la vista” to movies without a motive.

The moviemaker’s motive is clearly one of financial gain. But for COVID, China would have surpassed North America as the biggest movie consumers worldwide. Couple that massive revenue source with the fact that China’s Communist regime severely restricts the number of foreign movies shown into China, approximately 34 films a year, and you have a studio who knows the audience and is eager to please.

This audience is technically the Chinese consumer, but China’s pockets are so deep and reach so broad that Hollywood makes the movies that everyone sees worldwide to please the Chinese government. The result: propaganda as product placement and content that is aligned with China’s viewpoints, which are frequently pro-China, bigoted, and authoritarian in nature.

The product placements may go totally unnoticed or seem innocuous, but the plot thickens. Take for example tech wiz Tony Stark of “Avengers End Game” fame. In the movie, he uses a cheap Chinese Vivo flip phone, which is not available in the United States. A geek such as Stark would never use such a low-quality phone; although, it’s worth noting that he also wouldn’t have much of a choice given that the U.S. government would never let Ironman use a device with such poor security features, especially when serious technology spying allegations have been credibly made against other Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE. Hollywood often requires us to suspend reality, but here they are promoting an alternate reality that could result in our military secrets being exposed or our private data targeted. This subliminal Chinese promotion, and others like it, aren’t done as an act of altruism. They are done as an act of massive financial gain for the movie studio. As long as it lines their pockets, they don’t seem to care what message they are sending to the viewer.

They also don’t care about censorship. Communist China not only guarantees that the population doesn't see what they deem as unfavorable ideals, but it also works to make sure that China is only shown favorably.

The Communist Chinese Party does not support gay rights or allow gay marriage. In fact, according to “Newsweek”, China is the worst place in the world to be gay. That’s why China’s version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” did not address Freddie Mercury’s sexuality. They deleted scenes where he dressed as a woman and his proclamation that he had AIDS was muted and not subtitled. Twentieth Century Fox, who made the film, had no comment.

A film will also receive no comment from China if it features Pandas… well sort of. Winnie the Pooh seems harmless enough but Pooh memes have been used to criticize Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. So, “Christopher Robin” got banned in China and those cuddly bears are seen as a symbol of anti-government Chinese activism. Wait, what about “Kung Fu Panda”? Well, that’s obviously different: the film was made as a collaboration with a Chinese media company, China Film Group. Government sensors literally dropped in to monitor the movie’s production… no activism from that animated panda was guaranteed.

Perhaps the most relevant censorship example of all comes from the book “World War Z”, where an earth-shattering plague originates in China. American filmmakers purposefully changed this portion of the plotline and moved the plague to Korea.

Whether it’s an actual plague from China or a movie plague, the point is clear, the dangling carrot in Hollywood is money and they will conceal the truth, suspend reality or shift the plot all for financial gain. As Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia) said in “Scarface”, “Lesson number one: Don’t underestimate the other guy’s greed.”

NOTE Former US Senator Chris Dodd is Biden's best friend.......and is especially well-connected. After The Senate Swamp, in 2011 Dodd then went to Hollywood to become the Motion Picture Association of America chairman— Hollywood's top lobbyist — representing the six major studios.

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How Joe Biden won friends in Hollywood by helping studios get their movies into China
By EVAN HALPER, LA TIMES STAFF WRITER , JULY 18, 2019

Xi Jinping, then the vice president of China, speaks with then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa while Jerry Brown, then governor of California, watches a game between the Lakers and the Suns at Staples Center in 2012. At top right is Jeffrey Katzenberg, then-CEO of DreamWorks Animation, who used his ties to California politicians — and to then-Vice President Joe Biden — to lobby Xi for access to the Chinese market. Xi Jinping, then the vice president of China, speaks with then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa while Jerry Brown, then governor of California, watches a game between the Lakers and the Suns at Staples Center in 2012. At top right is Jeffrey Katzenberg, then-CEO of DreamWorks Animation, who used his ties to California politicians — and to then-Vice President Joe Biden — to lobby Xi for access to the Chinese market.(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times) Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options

WASHINGTON — When then-Vice President Joe Biden hosted Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a five-day diplomatic blitz in 2012, a Hollywood Democratic mega-donor kept popping up with them. There was Jeffrey Katzenberg, then the head of DreamWorks Animation, dining alongside Xi, the then-vice president of China, at a State Department welcome lunch in Washington. And there he was again, standing just behind Xi, then-Gov.

Jerry Brown and then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at a Lakers game in Los Angeles. And there was Katzenberg hanging out in a nearby hallway with Disney CEO Robert Iger to provide last-minute counsel as Biden closed a deal in which China committed to considerably expand its market for American films.

On the final day of Xi’s visit, Dreamworks announced Xi had signed off on the company’s own deal — the launching of Oriental DreamWorks, a $330-million joint venture with Chinese companies to develop and distribute animated films in China.

Several of the candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination have significant support in Hollywood — Katzenberg, for example, has kicked in $2,800 each to 14 of them already — but none has as long a history of delivering for the industry as Biden. His deep ties to studio executives and decades-long advocacy for their agenda has helped cement Biden’s support even as it may also open him to criticism for too cozy a relationship with big donors.

Biden is returning to Hollywood this week for another round of fundraisers, including the second Biden event co-hosted by Katzenberg and leaders of several major studios. Biden’s first Southern California fundraiser, which Katzenberg co-hosted in May, netted more than $700,000 in one night. “Joe was our champion inside the White House,” said former Sen. Christopher Dodd, who led the Motion Picture Assn. of America for much of the Obama era.

“There is no question about it. Even before Joe Biden decided to run, I would get calls and have conversation with the major studio figures, with them saying, ‘You tell Vice President Biden 100% we want him to run.’ This wasn’t waiting around to see who would do well in polls.” /////cont......CCTV falls under the supervision of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television which is in turn subordinate to the State Council of the People’s Republic Of China,” the FARA registration noted, placing Daly on the payroll of the Chinese Communist Party. Daly served as Communications Director to Pelosi for nearly a decade, from 2002 to 2011. He bills himself as “instrumental in orchestrating Pelosi’s rise from House Minority Whip to House Minority Leader,” noting he “worked closely with external coalitions on communications activities and events to advance Democratic agenda” and “earned the trust and respect of the Speaker and entire House leadership.” He even donated $1,000 to the Pelosi campaign in 2001, as one of his FARA forms reveals. Now, Daly appears to be exploiting these Pelosi-procured connections to bolster the reach and quality of Chinese communist media operations. Daly also served in the Bill Clinton White House as Assistant to the U.S. Trade Office Representative for Public Affairs, where he “led communications efforts with government relations team and external organizations to generate positive press in targeted Congressional districts so Congress would pass Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China.” And after his Ogilvy tenure, Daly went back to the federal government as a political appointee of former President Barack Obama to serve as Director of Public Affairs for the Department of Energy and Spokesperson for Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. He is now the Chief Communications Officer for the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents many top record labels such as Warner Music Group, which Tencent, a Chinese Communist Party linked tech company whose platform WeChat is set to be banned by the Trump administration, recently acquired a $200 million stake in. This unearthed connection follows Pelosi’s insistence that she is the “most unliked American in China” – a far cry from reality in light of the revolving door between her staffers and the Chinese Communist Party. Michael Hacker, a former senior adviser to Pelosi, has also joined TikTok’s lobbying crusade to fight against President Trump’s decision to ban the app for being a Chinese government proxy.

PELOSI AIDE A REGISTERED FOREIGN AGENT; “STRATEGIC COUNSEL” TO CCP CENTRAL TV NETWORK thenationalpulse.com ^ | AUGUST 13, 2020 | natalie winters FR Posted on 8/14/2020, 9:55:33 AM by Liz

PELOSI ACCOMPANIED BY DALY, PICTURED ON HER RIGHT

BRENDAN DALY, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR NANCY PELOSI ......AND A POLITICAL APPOINTEE OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION....... IS A REGISTERED FOREIGN AGENT WHO PROVIDED THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY’S PREMIER STATE-RUN MEDIA OUTLET CHINA CENTRAL TELEVISION NETWORK WITH “STRATEGIC COUNSEL” AS IT EXPANDED INTO THE UNITED STATES, THE NATIONAL PULSE CAN REVEAL.

During his tenure as Executive Vice President at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Daly secured a contract between the lobbying behemoth and China Central Television Network (CCTV). Specifically, the firm helped the state-run propaganda outfit CCTV expand into American homes by “providing strategic counsel, identify relevant parties to communications activities, and media relations to support the launch of CCTV America.”

“Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide will work with CCTV America to communicate to the American public that CCTV America will provide compelling, comprehensive, and balanced news programming from an Asian perspective that is relevant to a global audience,” the 2012 filing in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) noted. Per CCTV’s FARA registration, however, the outlet is “supervised, owned, directed, controlled, financed, and subsidized” entirely by the Chinese Communist Party.

Email correspondence from Daly identifies him as taking the lead on the account, as he spoke with CCTV’s American representative on the phone. He also provided the outlet with a memo detailing Ogilvy’s strategy on the count, detailing how to best bridge the gap between American homes and Chinese Communist Party propaganda:

The memo, sent from Daly, outlines how Ogilvy would provide CCTV with comprehensive support, including “influencer” and “media relations support,” to achieve the “overall message that CCTV Americas is the source for business news in and with China, with credentialed, experienced and trusted journalists doing in-depth stories and reporting.” “We are excited about the prospect of working with you to help establish CCTV Americas as the program to watch to succeed in an interconnected global economy,” the email concludes.

CCTV has been identified by Freedom House think tank as a “long-standing weapon in Beijing’s arsenal of repression” whose mission “is to attack designated enemies of the Communist Party,” chiefly the U.S.--snip--

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