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from the blind-is-the-one-who-censors-what-we-see-and-hear dept.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/media/hollywood-china-censors-box-office-intl-hnk/index.html
Hollywood has long bent over backwards to give Chinese censors what they want. Not anymore.
Over the past year, producers behind some of the hottest US blockbusters have kept in scenes that could irk China's censors, apparently less concerned about the potential loss of access to theaters across the country of 1.4 billion people.
As a result, some of the most anticipated movies released in recent months — including "Top Gun: Maverick," "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and "Lightyear" — have not, and may never, hit the world's second largest box office.
All films publicly screened in China need a permit from regulators. Censorship is rife, with authorities increasingly clamping down on what they perceive to be inappropriate, including in some cases the appearance of cleavage, tattoos or people smoking, as well as more obviously politically sensitive elements.
[...] So why would these companies push back, putting tens or hundreds of millions of dollars at risk? For one, industry veterans say that China's movie market isn't what it used to be.
[...] "Pleasing Beijing no longer guarantees big revenues in China," he told CNN Business. "Such risk and effort no longer guarantee results, and I expect this lack of certainty to prolong this era of pushback for quite some time."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @08:21PM
We like our...
> ... cleavage, tattoos or people smoking, as well as more obviously politically sensitive elements.
Maybe this will be enough to get me back to the movies?
(Score: 5, Informative) by EvilSS on Thursday July 14 2022, @08:27PM (43 children)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 14 2022, @08:31PM
Spot on. Google, Microsoft, and others have complied with China's censorship, until they found out how little money they would make in exchange.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @09:01PM
Exactly. We're not suddenly enlightened beings who care about human rights. We're still the same assholes that kept people in slavery for millenia, made kids work in coal mines, drop incendiary devices on cities, etc. Maybe the needle moved is all.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Thursday July 14 2022, @09:27PM (38 children)
Is it though? A lot of recent movies have been pushing political ideologies and thus tanking the box office. My impression is that they are willing to give up money to pursue political goals. I don't think they are dumb enough to not see that Top Gun is blowing away My Reboot #5: Now With More Ethnically And Sexually Diverse Lead Acting People.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @10:59PM
Yes, the investors and venture capitalists who back movies have always been well known for minimizing their returns to make political statements. /s
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Mykl on Thursday July 14 2022, @11:07PM (24 children)
I think Top Gun is a wake up call to Hollywood. People want a movie that has a great story without trying to push unrelated agendas.
A lot of the wokeness in modern movies has been supported by (driven by?) a very vocal minority of people across Twitter etc. Turns out, the ultra-woke will demand certain content be included or excluded in your movies, but they won't actually pay money to go and see it in the end anyway, so from a commercial point of view it's a waste of money to pander to them and piss off the paying movie-going public. Same goes with pandering to Chinese Government sentiment - it's pretty transparent when it comes from Hollywood and costs more domestically than they make in China.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @11:38PM (23 children)
Let's not forget there are entire genres of Christian moves, Hallmark vomitus, etc. that go straight to DVD. Just as long as we're talking about movies with an agenda... or is only a problem when they do it. Dumbass.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mykl on Friday July 15 2022, @02:27AM (15 children)
Note that I said unrelated agendas.
There are fantastic movies out there that address social issues as a core theme of the movie. The 'agenda' is the whole point of the movie. For example, Brokeback Mountain, The Handmaid's Tale, Requiem for a Dream, American History X. There is also a bunch of crap from Hallmark etc too - however those movies are marketed as exactly what they are. There is no hidden or unrelated agenda in them!
More recently, Hollywood has been shoehorning unrelated agendas into their stories, and sometimes have skimped on the storyline in order to do it. At times it is painfully transparent, and the moviegoing public are voting on that experience with their wallets.
I see that you foe'd me for my comment - obviously that's up to you, but I would hate to think that you'd stop listening to someone because of a misunderstanding.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15 2022, @04:21AM (14 children)
Shall we talk about military propaganda in Hollywood movies? Free use of toys in exchange for positive depiction. Or you want to keep dancing around?
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @09:24AM (11 children)
What exactly seems to be the problem? If you go into Top Gun and don't expect military planes trying to look awesome and going boom-boom against whatever enemy du jour we can field, you are probably going to the wrong movie. That's something you might want to expect from a movie about Navy pilots.
Why exactly would I expect a melodrama about transgender issues when I go into a superhero movie?
Do you understand the difference?
(Score: 5, Touché) by helel on Friday July 15 2022, @12:44PM (10 children)
Exactly. Why would you expect a character who dresses in flamboyant costumes and hides their true identity from the world to touch in any way people who, in the real world, are often required to hide their true identity and have fought back by developing a subculture of flamboyance? That would just be silly.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @12:52PM (9 children)
Because it has traditionally never been the topic of a superhero movie that they have to hide their personal preferences but only their identity?
If I watch a Western, I also don't expect a movie about PETA and their struggle for horse rights just because a lot of people ride on them.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by helel on Friday July 15 2022, @01:18PM (8 children)
I get the feeling you're just not very familiar with superheroes. Maybe read up a bit before using them as an example though. Superman in generally considered the original superhero and he's a jewish critique of the ubermensch, or as we would say today, Superman is Woke. Superman fought the Nazis before the US did and when the war was over he turned his ire upon racists at home: the KKK.
Since then superhero comics have frequently featured allegories about racism, homophobia, poverty, disability, and pretty much every other social problem. They may not always handle the issues well but they are fundamentally tied to the "DNA" of superheroes.
The real question is: When you go to a superhero movie why would you expect the politics to be removed?
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @01:36PM (7 children)
I expect a superhero movie to be about superheros doing superhero things. I expect there to be a threat, preferably one where the world is at stake or something at least comparable, with the superhero or superheros struggling against the evil, having the relevant setbacks that raise the stakes and eventually overcome it.
That's the basic, the very basic, superhero formula. It doesn't get any more basic than that.
The key problem in "woke" movies now is that there must be no actual struggle. The hero has to be 100% perfect from the get-go. And that is just effin' boring as all hell. If there is no threat of losing, the victory is hollow.
This is maybe one of the reasons why manga push traditional western comics off the shelves right now. Mangas now make up about 3/4th of the "graphic novel" market in the US. Simply because their heros are actually interesting. They have a development, an arc. Ours apparently are forbidden to have something like that anymore.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by helel on Friday July 15 2022, @02:14PM (6 children)
The basic formula of a superhero is to use our point of view character to represent politics the author considers good and the villains to represent politics they consider bad. Then the two punch each other until good triumphs.
The X-men represent marginalized groups and the sentinels represent conservatives who want to segregate society or even pull a genocide. They punch each other until the conservatives lose.
Superman represents the immigrant and Lex Luthor the conservatives who want to exploit immigrants without giving them any agency in society. They punch each other until the conservatives lose.
Wonder Woman represents the women who want equal political representation and the "Man's World Party" the conservatives that want women to serve as a social underclass. They punch each other until the conservatives lose.
Superheroes as a genre tend to take conflicts that might be internal in other forms of media, such as conflicts about identity, and mediate them with external violence. Superman never struggles with his immigrant origin. He's "100% perfect." Instead he faces off against outside forces that represent any doubts or fears he might have.
If you want superheroes that don't follow this standard formula might I recommend The Boys? None of the characters are without fault and it goes out of it's way to critique "woke politics."
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 2, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 15 2022, @02:31PM (2 children)
Sorry to say this, but your posts in this thread read very much like classical Marxist critiques that want to impose a material dialectical lens on everything. Sometimes it can be an interesting academic exercise, but most of the time it's pure projection.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by helel on Friday July 15 2022, @02:47PM
Generally I prefer this text-only communication. This is one of the few times it would be really helpful to post the first few pages of God Loves, Man Kills and ask where the projection is...
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 15 2022, @06:38PM
To me it reads like the folks who are just now realizing in 2022 what all those Rage Against the Machine lyrics from 1990 were about!
When did they get so woke, lol!
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @02:47PM (2 children)
Given that the audiences apparently don't like the Marvel heros, does that mean that the heros depicted there are not considered "good" by the audience?
Just checkin'...
(Score: 2) by helel on Friday July 15 2022, @03:03PM
I am having trouble understanding your argument. You seem to be saying the Marvel heroes are unpopular but ... just ... What?!?
Like sure, Batman is the clear number one favorite, but after that there's plenty of love for Spiderman in number 2?
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 15 2022, @06:42PM
Box Office Records [boxofficemojo.com]
Oh yeah, they hate that shit so much!
I stopped counting at 10 of the highest grossing movies ever....
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 15 2022, @04:41PM (1 child)
Pretty amusing to use Top Gun of all movies to complain about propaganda! You think the govt is loaning out bajillion dollar jets just for the fun of it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @03:38AM
Well spotted. Welcome to the conversation, friend!
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @09:22AM (6 children)
Nah, it's not a problem at all.
You'll find, though, that a lot of those "Christian" movies don't really make a ton of money. Which is allright, considering that they were also usually either made on a shoestring budget or never meant to actually make money because they actually were produced as an agenda prop rather than a movie that was supposed to appeal to a wide enough audience to actually earn its budget. The motivation behind those movies is vastly different from that of Hollywood.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 15 2022, @02:43PM (5 children)
The low budget movies that push explicitly Christian themes generally don't enjoy mass audiences (Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ is a notable exception). There are more examples, however, of movies succeeding with Christian allegory. Forrest Gump, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Children of Men are a handful off the top of my head.
There are other films with different allegory that we could cite, too. I hate communism, socialism, and Marxism but I acknowledge that Battleship Potemkin is a masterpiece. Likewise Nazism is abhorrent, but Triumph of the Will is genius.
The difference is that those citations above are artfully done, but Woke-ism in current film and TV is a screechy, strident lecture delivered by self-righteous freshmen on anti-depressants.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15 2022, @05:15PM
Where do you draw that line between wanting to expand the story to be relatable to different groups of people (expanding your audience base), and just putting out the same stuff targeted at 18-35 year old white males, whose numbers are generally declining?
Generally I think anyone who uses "woke" in an argument needs to first define what that means to them, because most of the time it seems to be used as "making me think of something that I am insecure about." One thing I'll note, though, if you find that "all" of Hollywood contains garbage and "woke" stuff, what that typically means is that you've aged out (physically and/or emotionally) of what is deemed to be the "target audience," whereupon you fall into the niches of the Hallmarks and others of the world. You don't get more amoral than big time Hollywood, especially from the money that backs the movies, so if the most visible parts of Hollywood are no longer speaking to you, that means you are not as culturally relevant as you used to be.
(By the way, I've never really considered Passion of the Christ to have had mass appeal. I believe the box office draw it had was that the people behind the movie very astutely played up the controversy, making sure that every opinionated evangelical had a microphone in front of them to tell you not to see it. I know the young lady I was dating at the time took me to see that movie just to see what all the fuss was about.)
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @06:36PM (2 children)
You will note that the movies you cite as successful are also actually telling a story where you get the Christian allegory as a side dish.
Compare that to bullcrap like "Saving Christmas" where you get the bible thumping drummed right into the forehead and you will immediately understand the difference.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday July 16 2022, @10:22PM (1 child)
That is my point exactly. That is how you successfully include a message in a story.
I don't know that one. If it's a ham-fisted attempt to shove a bible in the audience's face, then that would be the exact same reason the woke TV shows and films have been unwatchable. That is, they are not entertainment but a screed.
Explicitly Christian, biblical shows can work, but it's rare. The only one I can think of off the top of my head were the Veggie Tales cartoons my kids used to watch (they themselves found the series and chose to watch them, btw).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Sunday July 17 2022, @03:11PM
I envy you for not knowing Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas. Some may ask what rock you have been under the past 8 years, but all I can say is that it's a rock worth staying under.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @03:40AM
> screechy, strident lecture delivered by self-righteous freshmen on anti-depressants
Off this man's lawn. Kids these days, bah! BAH!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by r1348 on Friday July 15 2022, @08:46AM (7 children)
How is Top Gun not pushing a political agenda? It's basically a recruiting video.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @09:26AM (2 children)
What matters is viewer expectation.
Yes, but it is pushing the political agenda you would expect from such a movie. If you go into a movie about Navy pilots, named after a Navy pilot training facility, and don't expect to see Navy planes flying about and shooting shit up, preferably in a heroic-looking "USA, USA" chanting way, that was not only advertised as such but is a remake/rehash/reboot/sequel/whatever of a movie that was exactly that and nothing but that, I'd have to ask you what the hell you WERE expecting going into such a movie.
If you go into a superhero movie, you probably don't expect a melodrama about racism, sexism, ageism or transphobia.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 15 2022, @05:27PM (1 child)
Yeah, that's why sci fi movies are always ONLY about space ships!
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @06:30PM
That's why movies are, at least usually, and if they want to be successful, about what the audience expects. If you create a Sci Fi movie and have it play in contemporary San Francisco, you better are Star Trek and have a framing story as an excuse.
(Score: 2) by helel on Friday July 15 2022, @12:47PM (3 children)
Remember, it's only political if you disagree with the politics. Otherwise it's just good old fun.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @01:25PM (2 children)
Yes, Top Gun is a recruitment movie. Hell, the first one increased sign-ups by 500%, I guess it's safe to assume the new one will do something similar.
The thing is, when you go into a movie like Top Gun, what do you expect? Well, it's a movie named after the Navy Pilot school, the trailer shows a lot of planes flying about with pilots giving you a slew of pithy one liners, it's the reboot/sequel of a movie that was pretty much a 2 hour long Navy recruitment video and it was developed with the aid of Lockheed Martin and the Navy.
What exactly can you expect from such a movie? To be an anti-war melodrama about the plights of a Navy-wife who waits for her husband to come home, hopefully, where we get to hear her read her diary for 2 hours?
People expected exactly that when they went into this movie and they got exactly what they wanted. Guess what, the movie was a success.
(Score: 4, Touché) by r1348 on Friday July 15 2022, @04:08PM (1 child)
I didn't expect anything else from Top Gun. I was just surprised to see it mentioned in opposition to movies with a political agenda.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @06:33PM
I think the argument was that movies tank because they push agendas that are not within the expectation framework of the audience.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @01:50PM
It takes a while to learn. Don't forget that, especially with series and sequels, the sales numbers of a movie are often based on the expectation of the audience based on the last one rather than on how good the movie actually is. If there have been good movies in a franchise before, even the worst kind of boring drivel that doesn't even come close to meeting expectations will open well and maybe even do well because of the expectations the audience had for it.
The Marvel universe, the Star Trek and Star Wars movies, they had a pretty dedicated followership, and even movies that were considered "bad" in these franchises did solidly on the box office ... at least the first few of them. Because of expectations. And that may well have been useful to pull some wool over the eyes of investors who thought that this may actually be a working strategy, that they already "have" the old fan base and can now attract new customers by catering to an agenda.
I think it's a learning process that the agenda pushers don't really put their money where their mouth is, while the fan base can dry up quickly if you don't cater to them. It just might be that they finally catch on.
(Score: 2) by hopdevil on Friday July 15 2022, @04:56PM (1 child)
But Top Gun IS a reboot, pushing more ethnically and sexually diverse lead acting people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2022, @03:47AM
Exactly - it's a woke JOKE. The political aspect totally ruined the dropping bombs on small brown people. And don't talk to me about gays in the military [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Friday July 15 2022, @05:51PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by legont on Thursday July 14 2022, @11:15PM
I think the reason is different. China will not tolerate rainbow agenda while Hollywood can't really censor it.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15 2022, @05:11PM
Yes, but one of the issues with trying to make money in that market is that there's no guarantee that even if you make a film that's acceptable to the censors that it's going to receive permission. They only allow a small number of foreign films to be screened every year in order to protect the local culture. But, the result is that if other films receive permission, then it doesn't much matter how acceptable the film is to the censors, it's not going to be screened. On top of that, there's issues with the materials becoming less interesting to the other markets.
Really, the correct answer was always to tell the censors to go F themselves. Sure, there's a large population, but going to the movies over there isn't much less expensive than it is in the US, even though the wages are significantly less.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Thursday July 14 2022, @08:52PM (2 children)
Yea, because is what everyone wants to see, idiots covered in permanent ugly markings. So this means we are going to see more tattoos? Yea, head to toe tattoos jumping up in your face and dancing around.... aw shit they already had that movie and it was a fucking DISNEY movie! Vomit, vomit, vomit, vomit, barf, vomit. What the fuck is WRONG with people?!
China also sensors religious stuff... dare I ask if that means we are going to see more religious shit in movies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @09:03PM
You know you can shut your eyes, right? Nobody's forcing you to have
an abortiona tattoo.(Score: 3, Touché) by TrentDavey on Thursday July 14 2022, @09:16PM
Jimmy Buffett: Permanent Reminder of a Temporary Feeling
https://genius.com/Jimmy-buffett-permanent-reminder-of-a-temporary-feeling-lyrics [genius.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @09:07PM (1 child)
America first, baby!
Hollywood's gone totally MAGA!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @11:45PM
We all know he love his porn stars! And the pornstars love Donald [viraluck.com].
* Jenna Jameson [has a] long history of conservative politics.
* Amy Lindsay, who starred in films such as Confessions of a Lap Dancer, had this to say about Trump: “I like what he stands for".
* Dick Chibbles [is not only] a Trump supporter, but he actually also played Trump in the porn parody Donald Tramp—The XXX Parody.
* Jesse Jackman is a popular gay porn star, and also an avid Trump supporter.
* Kenna James voted for Trump: "I’ve seen where the politicians have gotten us and it’s not a good place."
* Dava Foxx, star of My Mother is My Lover endorse[s] Trump.
* Anna Bell Peaks, star of the hit I Banged My Tattooed Step-Sister in the Ass, is a major Trump endorser.
* Eva Lovia is a staunch Trump supporter: "it's Trump because I like my money. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I want to keep it! Flat tax rate? Sold!"
* 24-year-old porn star Jay Taylor [wants] “to be as rich as Donald, and can’t get that by voting for Bernie.”
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday July 15 2022, @06:12AM
Hollywood, it ain't the lack of smokers or tattooed people that makes us ignore your movies.
It's that you have untalented hacks and committees write stories nobody wants to hear.
(Score: 1) by jahaven on Friday July 15 2022, @09:54PM
Now John Cena can finally say that Taiwan is a country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z88zeQ25pjQ [youtube.com]