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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

> In the United States, it is illegal to portray the assassination of a president

Full stop, no it isn't.

> Handling topics of National Security, such as Pearl Harbor, must be screened and if needed edited by National Security personnel.

Full stop, no it doesn't. Where the heck are you getting such misinformation? It is not just wrong, it is bordering on libel.

> Close partnership and collective ownership of media production facilities has given us movies with fake narratives like the Jessica Lynch story, Zero Dark Thirty, etc.

There is an audience for those films. There is also an audience for films that are anti-patriotic and can be considered downright subversive. The American film industry is huge, Chinese aren't aware of even 5% of its output.

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Surprisingly, in the UK it is illegal to do that to a king/queen.

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a3_3_1-2s8...

From wiki: According to the law in force, it is treason felony to "compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend"

Didn't know that. The USA has no such rule in place and you can in fact find many movies where the president is assinated (fictional and factual).

It is doubly weird for the UK since the monarch is just a figure head. I wonder if the law applies to the prime minsiter (after watching London has Fallen, I guess not).

I think this is just an old law from 1700s. They probably wouldn't have written it this way nowadays.

The American film industry is also a huge propaganda machine which is aimed at consolidating western cultural dominance over the world, expect it's not western culture anymore, it's just the U.S. Entertainment industry. In the movie and cartoon sectors only the Indians, the French and the Japanese can have a tiny slice of the cake, the Chinese have nothing. So it's the only survival path for them as an original form of human experience: block content that's too offensive, buy the producers to influence them, and recreate a local film industry. But the last step takes 50 years, meanwhile they have to keep guard.

China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume. The best Chinese movies last year were mermaid and monster hunt...I saw both (bored on an air china flight), they were both absolutely awful.

There was a time in the late 90s when the golden Beijing Institute of Film class (the first one after the cultural revolution) was producing wonderful art house films that DID get viewership abroad. Sadly, this ended with increasing control of the gov over the film industry, and even the Taiwanese and Honk Kong films that we once enjoyed have disappeared to an industry that is now largely catering to the mainland market.

The future of the chinese film industry is more Warcraft and less "eat, drink man woman" (a Taiwan film) or "farewell my concubine" (I think the latter one was banned in the mainland), there is nothing there for us.

> China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume

This is empirically false: Crouching Tiger, Ip Man 1-3 were all well-received[1] in the US. I could add anything by Jackie Chan (and for a while Jet Li), but not all if them were Chinese productions.

1. The first had some overt propaganda in the form of a sadistic but inept Japanese occupying officer.

Ip man wasn't that well received. Crouching tiger was the late 90s. Jackie Chan went Hollywood after the 90s.

Nonsense. Since around 1970 the American film industry isn't aimed at anything more than making a profit (with an occasional bit of art for art's sake). Any propaganda effect is entirely incidental.

The film industry has been oriented at making a profit since the late 1800s.

I'm not sure about the veracity of these two articles[1][2], but there seem to be a lot of instances where the US government have provided assistance, and indeed applied pressure to Hollywood. I wouldn't call that "entirely incidental".

[1]: http://www.globalresearch.ca/lights-camera-covert-action-the...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/14/thriller-ridley...

There are many US movies that involve military themes that are made with the assistance of the US military. It's not surprising that the US military chooses which films it works with. So, if you want a US aircraft carrier in your film you're going to either use CGI (relatively recently available for most films) or you're going to use a script that doesn't show the US in a bad light.

This isn't overt propaganda in the traditional sense, but the effect is the same.

S. Korea and Japan make some great films that are also globally profitable and influential. Seems like there's something else going on that is stifling China's film industry.

> Full stop, no it isn't.

It was my understanding that 18 U.S. Code § 871 included depictions enticing or encouraging such acts. I will look this up and come back with more information at a later time.

And to be clear here I mean a depiction of an actual US president. Not a fictitious president.

> Full stop, no it doesn't. Where the heck are you getting such misinformation? It is not just wrong, it is bordering on libel.

The mainstream news media is where I am getting this information. I remember it being reported on during the Pearl Harbor film some years ago (Bush Administration). Though I see it all the time: the SONY Leaks disclosed how the State Department and CIA helped to influence "The Interview" so that it would both depict the assassination of their president and to encourage civil unrest.

I take the libel statement seriously. I will pass it by my attorney. Difficult to discuss here, as neither of us are lawyers.

> There is an audience for those films.

Not a point.

Go ahead! I'm in the USA, where libel isn't illegal and is difficult to show even in civil cases (unlike say the UK). But what you just said was horribly unfactual, so there isn't much to worry about (you have to show what you said was actually true in any case). I mean, if you tell your attorney, I'm sure he will have a good laugh at you (after he takes your money of course!).

Obviously you are trolling.

It was my understanding that 18 U.S. Code § 871 included depictions enticing or encouraging such acts.

If that's the case, I suspect that the relevant language here is enticing or encouraging. Depictions of, say, historical events would be different. That said, I am most definitely not a lawyer.

This is my understanding as well. But we're going to need to come back later with some input from case law.

Death of a President was screened in the US. It depicts a fictional assassination of the then-sitting US President. There wasn't even a whiff of illegality around it, even if the big chains refused to screen it, it wasn't for fear of prosecution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_President_%282006...

Wasn't that a British film?

I'm talking about American law where American law applies.

It was released in America, so it doesn't matter. America law applies (and the first amendment, unlike the free speech garauntee in the Chinese constitution, ours actually means something).

From the Wikipedia article:

Newmarket paid one million dollars for the U.S. distribution rights.

The film was screened in the U.S. for 14 days, showing at 143 theatres at its widest release.

Regardless of where it was created, if there were such a prohibition, the film most certainly wouldn't have been shown in the US, nor anyone silly enough to pay for distribution rights. Note there were issues regarding screening, but it was some independent companies—not some government regulation—that made the decision not to screen it. All of this is evident from your parent comment.

Why is it so important for you to press this particular point, even after you've said you would refer to the law later tonight?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13324076

I will look this up and come back with more information at a later time.

If you are no longer willing to discuss this in good faith, please refrain from discussing it at all. I, for one, will not comment on this further.

  It was my understanding that 18
  U.S. Code § 871 included depictions
  enticing or encouraging such acts.

Not according to Brandenburg v. Ohio, which states:

  The constitutional guarantees of free
  speech and free press do not permit a
  State to forbid or proscribe advocacy
  of the use of force or of law
  violation except where such advocacy
  is directed to inciting or producing
  imminent lawless action and is likely
  to incite or produce such action.

The key words there are "incite" and "imminent lawless action". But don't just take my word for it. You can read the decision for yourself here:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/395/444

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