Hollywood is importing Chinese censorship to the United States
by Zachary Faria, Commentary Fellow |
|
August 11, 2020 07:31 AM
Hollywood likes to hold itself out as a progressive pioneer of social justice, but a new report highlights how the desire to get films into the Chinese market leads major film studios to violate their own social justice dogma. In fact, it often leads them to import the values of the Chinese Communist Party — the organization with the highest body count in human history.
The report by PEN America, a nonprofit
organization that promotes free expression in literature, examines a collection
of films that bowed to Chinese censorship in order to get access to the Chinese
movie market. China allows 34 foreign films to be released in
the country each year, and in 2018, quarterly revenue from China surpassed the
United States for the first time. Before the pandemic, it was projected that
revenue from China in 2023 would reach $15.5 billion.
Some Chinese censorship is minor, propaganda that can only
be caught by alert viewers. Paramount cut the Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise’s
jacket for the Top Gun sequel,
while the DreamWorks film Abominable (a
collaboration with China’s Pearl Studio) featured the nine-dash line, a
propaganda map asserting China’s control of the South China Sea.
Hollywood studios will often run afoul of the tenets of
social justice they often push in the U.S. Marvel notably whitewashed a major Tibetan character in Doctor Strange to avoid offending the
Chinese government. Studios ranging from Warner Brothers to Paramount to
Twentieth Century Fox have either removed scenes of same-sex kissing from films
or had them removed by China when the films aired. A complaint from a religious
group in the U.S., on the other hand, would only draw mockery.
The most troubling takeaway from the report is not that
individual scenes are being censored or self-censored but that studios have
decided to base major film decisions on China, sometimes even unprompted.
Marvel infamously brought in Chinese regulators
during the filming of Iron Man 3 to
ensure the movie stayed inbounds and added extra scenes to the Chinese version
of the film showing Chinese doctors saving Iron Man’s life.
The days of Hollywood backing human rights in its work have
disappeared. The 1997 film Seven Years
in Tibet, portraying China’s 1950 invasion of Tibet, led to the
blacklisting of director Jean-Jacques Annaud until his groveling apology 12
years later. Film star Brad Pitt was also penalized for the movie, which likely
helped bar World War Z from a
Chinese release.
Change is not a lost cause. The industry’s biggest stars
have the power to push for it, as when Quentin Tarantino refused to sign off on
a re-cut of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to
appease Chinese censors. But if Hollywood’s other influential voices are
unwilling to even stand up for their own creative freedom, why would they take
a stand on behalf of the human rights of people they will never even meet?
Well, it
looks like the makeover has begun.
Corrupt
Joe Biden, who used his office to enrich himself and his family, to say the
least, is now the foreign policy maven, particularly on China. That's the spin
from the New York Times, which has beclowned itself badly, trying to tell the
audience that something smelly is shinola.
To voters unsettled by President Trump’s
disruptive approach to the world, Mr. Biden is selling not only his policy
prescriptions but also his long track record of befriending, cajoling and
sometimes confronting foreign leaders — what he might call the power of his
informal diplomatic style. “I’ve dealt with every one of the major world
leaders that are out there right now, and they know me. I know them,” he told
supporters in December.
Brett McGurk, a former senior State Department
official for the campaign against the Islamic State, said Mr. Biden had been an
effective diplomat by practicing “strategic empathy.”
And
unlike Trump, Biden was oh so personal, as well as "not an
ideologue."
Mr. Biden made a quick “personal connection” with
the Chinese leader, even if he sometimes confounded his Mandarin interpreter by
quoting hard-to-translate Irish verse, said Daniel Russel, an aide present at
several of the meetings.
“He was remarkably good in getting to a personal
relationship right away and getting Xi to open up,” Mr. Russel said.
Had
enough? The translation, according to Peter Schweizer's Profiles in Corruption
is:
For Vice President Joe Biden, effective diplomacy
was about forming personal relationships with foreign leaders. "It all
gets down to the conduct of foreign policy being personal." The vice
president had a series of important and tense meetings with Chinese officials
on a variety of critical matters in the bilateral relationship. The trip
coincided with an enormous financial deal that Hunter Biden's firm, Rosemont
Seneca, was arranging with the state-owned Bank of China. What Hunter did
during the official visit to Beijing we cannot know for sure. Other than a few
photo ops with his father, he was nowhere to be seen.
...and...
Approximately ten days after the Beijing trip,
Hunter Biden's Rosemont Seneca Partners finalized a deal with the Chinese
government worth a whopping $1 billion. The deal was later expanded to
$1.5 billion. As of this writing, the fund's website says its investments
amount to more than $2 billion.
It's important to note that this deal was with
the Chinese government--not with Chinese company, which means that the
Chinese government and the son of the vice president were now business partners.
Now
he's Mr. Congeniality, the perfect opposite of President Trump who confronts
China rather sternly on issues. To the Times, that's a bad thing. To the
average 'hey fat' out in the American heartland as Biden puts it, Trump's
diplomacy is actually standing up for the interests of Americans.
It's
also a disgusting double standard. Trump is no China hater - he does his best
to cut the best deal possible for main street America by driving a hard bargain
the Chinese know they have no choice but to accept. Any time Trump says
something concilatory to the Chinese, it's denounced as sucking up to
dictators, while any time Joe does it - pocketing the profits, which any
non-ideologue is adept at doing - he's Mr. Personality.
As
Mickey Kaus well observed:
When Trump does it it's coddling dictators, with Biden it's Strategic
Empathy! @michaelcrowley is at least a bit skeptical. https://t.co/Pnc9SqxAk4
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) July
6, 2020
Here's
the problem with this kind of 'personal' diplomacy. It is very personal indeed
to Joe, given the wealth it has brought is family members. It's also very
dangerous, given that every string and hook China's oligarchs can get into him
makes him an even bigger sock puppet than he already was. Combine with the
world's dodgiest players considering Biden a non-entity (Osama bin Laden
considered Biden a fool) and the picture is a very ugly one for America's
interests.
Here's
the second problem: This apparent media makeover for Joe, painting him as the
great personal-touch diplomat who can get along with everyone is clearly the
new party line being promoted in the press, and we can expect to see lockstep
echoing of this embarassing face-lift. The JournoList talking points have gone
out and now the shots are fired. As those shots went out, attempting to boost
Joe while taking down Trump, the Chicoms themselves have been very active, too.
Just days ago, according to a report in the Daily Caller, the Chinese
investment firm that made Hunter a very rich man has quietly removed Hunter's
name as a board member. That's to help Joe win his presidential bid for sure,
which ought to make voters very wary given whose interests are being boosted.
Worse still, the Caller reports, they allowed him to keep his sizable stake in
the company - worth milions at least. No wonder he's comfortably ensconced in
the Hollywood Hills these days, bored and playing 'artist,' dodging release of
his financial statements to an Arkansas judge over a babydaddy case with a
stripper looking for child support. No wonder he apparently settled with the
woman and swept the whole thing off the front pages.
Now
the makeover is on, with the media ignoring the pocket-lining entirely -- the
New York Times makes simply no mention of it -- and the cash spigots still
going.
The
whole thing -- pocket-lining and media coverup is a disgusting double-load
of corruption that anyone with a brain can see right through. The GOP must keep
the heat onto this issue because it's being distorted beyond recognition.
Photo illustration by Monica
Showalter with use of images
by Gage
Skidmore, via Flickr // CC
BY-SA 2.0, Acaben,
via Wikimedia Commons // CC
BY-SA 2.0, PxFuel public domain,
and SKopp
via Wikimedia Commons // public domain
We're not buying Joe Biden's 'tough on China' Act
Joe
Biden is running away from his record as the "pro-China" candidate so
quickly that his defenders in the liberal press can't make heads or tails of it. Ordinary
Americans are equally confused.
Biden
spent over three decades opening American markets to Chinese goods, ignoring
China's abhorrent human rights record, and dismissing the challenge posed by
our greatest rival for global leadership. The "made in
China" era coincided with the closure of tens of thousands of American
factories, stagnant working-class wages, and the loss of America's ability to
produce essential goods domestically — a vulnerability that took on incredible
significance when we learned that we were dependent upon China to produce the
medical equipment needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
This
disaster was facilitated by politicians of both parties, and no one was
more gung ho than Joe
Biden, poster child for the globalism that reigned supreme until the
2016 presidential election, which Donald J. Trump won by campaigning on a
platform diametrically opposed to the "open markets and open borders"
philosophy of the D.C. establishment. In the White House, President
Trump became the first American leader in decades to take a firm stand against
China's malfeasance and demand a genuinely fair and reciprocal trade deal for
American workers.
While
Joe Biden was the vice president of the United States, conversely, he was downplaying the consequences of
China's rise — even as his own family tried to get rich through
deals with Chinese state-owned companies.
How
is it possible, then, that Biden has suddenly tried to recast himself as the
"tough-on-China" candidate in the 2020 race?
Biden's
campaign even ran an ad claiming the
president had "rolled over for the Chinese" in response to the
coronavirus that Beijing unleashed on the world. It's one of the
most poorly executed flip-flops in American electoral history, coming just
months after Biden called President
Trump's life-saving ban on most travel
from China "hysterical xenophobia."
No
one is buying it. Everyone knows about President Trump's record of
success in bringing China to the negotiating table through strategic
counter-tariffs. The "Phase One" trade deal that was inked
earlier this year represents the first major trade concessions from China in a
generation. Even the fanatical free-traders who actually liked Biden's
globalism see right through his new façade. The libertarians at the
Cato Institute, for instance, published an article
acknowledging that Biden's reversal is "futile" and "inherently
lacks credibility."
Even
the intellectual left is aghast at Biden's fake toughness on
China. The Atlantic called it "utterly
futile" and "pointless — even dangerous." The New
York Times published an op-ed all but begging Biden to drop the
act.
If
even his own supporters are rolling their eyes at Biden play-acting as a China
skeptic, why are he and his team even bothering to attempt the deception?
The
answer is simple. Americans have finally woken up to the economic
and national security threat posed by China. The coronavirus pandemic made that
threat impossible to ignore. No one wants to go into this November
as the "pro-Beijing" candidate.
Unfortunately
for Joe Biden, he's been the "pro-Beijing" candidate throughout his
political career, and there's a decades-long record to prove it.
Ken Blackwell served as mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio treasurer, and a
U.S. ambassador to the U.N. He currently serves on the board of
directors for Club For Growth.
Image: Marc Nozell via Flickr.
No comments:
Post a Comment