Akiko Kashiwagi

Hollywood has a big market in China, so much so thatHollywood has been treading carefully and ensuring that Chinese sentiments arenot hurt. Hollywood’s sensitive attitude towards China came about in 2008 withthe remake “Red Dawn”.

Red Dawn is a 1984 American movie which depicts US beinginvaded by Soviet Union and its Nicaraguan and Cuban allies with American highschool students resisting with guerrilla warfare. In 2007, the housing marketin US crashed causing the great recession of 2008. American economy was at aall-time low, hitting every business in every sector. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. wasgoing bankrupt and needed something to stay afloat. The MGM Studios decided toremake “Red Dawn”. But Russia could no longer be cast as the villain. It wasdecided that the new villain would be China.

Asbad as the American economy was in 2008, the Chinese economy was just gettingbetter and better. China had hosted the Summer Olympics for which the famous‘Bird’s Nest’ Beijing National Stadium was constructed. Chinese manufacturershad started building factories in America, which was unthinkable. In such anenvironment, casting China as a villain in an American movie was politicalsuicide. However, neither the executives of MGM nor the team working on theremake ever questioned the casting of China as a villain.

Whenpictures from the movie set started circulating on social media, Chinesestate-run newspapers started trashing it. But the full repercussions of castingChina as a villain was realized after “Avatar” grossed over $300 million in2009 in China. Hollywood woke up to the huge potential of China’s box office.MGM had taken loans and in order to raise money, it was selling off its newproductions, including the remake of ‘Red Dawn’. But no Hollywood executivewanted to touch a movie which had cast its newest market as a villain.Ultimately, MGM was forced to edit the entire movie with North Korea as thevillain. The editing job was a nightmare as the reason for North Korea’s invasionof America had to be established, all Chinese images and symbols had to bechanged and Chinese references and dialogues had to be changed to Korean. Theremake of” Red Dawn” was finally released in 2012 but it didn’t do too well.

Subsequently,Hollywood has been doing its best to please the Chinese market. Hollywood isself-censoring by avoiding themes which portray China in a bad light. TimDoescher, from The Heritage Foundation stated that: “Hollywood is relying moreand more on the Chinese markets to make profit on movies. That means our filmsare being written with China in mind.”[1]

Therelationship of Hollywood with China has been riddled with controversy. Disneydecided to remake its animated movie “Mulan” into a live-action movie. Protestscalling for the movie’s boycott started when Liu Yifei, who was cast as the voice of the titularcharacter ‘Mulan’, voiced her support for the Hong Kong Police during thepro-democracy protests. The Hong Kong Police was accused of using excessiveforce against the protesters. The boycott was called by the ‘Milk Tea Alliance’– Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand. Agnes Chow was dubbed as the real ‘Mulan’after she was arrested for her activism and participation in the pro-democracyprotests in August, 2019. She was released in June, 2021 after serving 6 monthsout of her 10 months sentence.

Thecontroversy didn’t end there. The movie thanks a few political entities in itscredits, including the Turpan Public Security Bureau in Xinjiang. The USgovernment had flagged this entity for being involved in the human rightsabuses of Uyghur Muslims. China has been accused of unleashing a ‘genocide’against the Uyghur Muslims, which are an ethnic community from Turkey and inminority in China. China has been accused of placing Uyghurs undersurveillance, sending them to detention camps, forcing sterilization andabortion and suppressing religious practices by banning men from keeping longbeards and fasting during Ramadan, among others

US-Chinarelations are further tensed because of the trade war and tug-of-war overTaiwan. China has been banning Hollywood movies from its market. The Covid-19pandemic has further deepened the rift between US and China. But despite thepandemic, China emerged as the world’s biggest box office in 2021. China’slocal film industry has boomed decreasing the market’s reliance on Hollywood.

 

[1] How China IsTaking Control of Hollywood, The Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/asia/heritage-explains/how-china-taking-control-hollywood#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20are%20financing%20some,way%20into%20major%20American%20blockbusters.