The cast of The West Wing was first to announce a reunion for fundraising purposes in support of Black Lives Matter, **an admitted Communist organization**, teaming up with Michelle Obama
Hollywood Censorship, Culture & Chinese Appeasement: It All Comes Down to Greed
Townhall.com ^ | August 23, 2020 | Erin Elmore ESQ
Posted on 8/23/2020, 7:30:32 AM by Kaslin
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, were not in Kansas anymore. Were 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 moviemakers 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 Chinas 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 Chinas 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 Chinas 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, its worth noting that he also wouldnt 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, arent 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 dont seem to care what message they are sending to the viewer.
They also dont 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. Thats why Chinas version of Bohemian Rhapsody did not address Freddie Mercurys 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, thats 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 movies 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 its 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: Dont underestimate the other guys greed.