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Comment by bsder | Hacker News Reader

> Otherwise I think there's a lot of confusion in the article between the conflation of the private market changing products to be popular in China, which is fine and simply reflects their status as a consumer

I, personally, have a problem with this.

It's part of the reason why Hollywood movies have devolved into such pablum--you can't risk pissing of China now that 1/2 of your income is due to the Chinese release.

I no longer consider doing business with China to be "neutral". China doesn't regard it this way either--China is more than happy to throw it's weight around against American businesses--see Blizzard.

So we should treat them reciprocally. It's time to disconnect from China.

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There's a monopoly angle here too [1].

I remember doing a face-palm when I watched "Gravity." The whole conflict centers around a cascade of space-junk caused by Russia shooting it's own spy satellite. In the movie, the Chinese space station saves the day. In reality, China actually shot down it's own satellite, rendering it's orbit and adjacent orbits unusable for the foreseeable future. [3]

I'm all for international cooperation, but we have to engage with reality.

[1] https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/its-time-to-break-up-disn...

[2] https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/how-bill-clinton-and-amer...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...

Lol. American movies also tend to romanticize the wars they wage.

Moxie gave a nice talk about American action movies [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOMiAeRwpPA

Whataboutism, and false equivalence between movie makers distorting their own country's history (of which PRC is even more guilty than the US), and movie makers giving in to a foreign country's threats and whitewashing that country's crimes.

Consider it as a compliment that China thinks your propaganda is too potent for the Chinese population to handle.

>It's part of the reason why Hollywood movies have devolved into such pablum--you can't risk pissing of China now that 1/2 of your income is due to the Chinese release.

You also could never afford to piss America off, which is why every other protagonist in hollywood movies is some Tom Cruise lookalike who combats people who speak English in a broken Russian accent.

Just seems normal to me, the only difference is that the other 95% of the world population now have enough cash to vote with their wallets and American companies learn what it's like to operate in a world where different cultures have different values.

Sure you can disconnect from everyone, but that doesn't sound wise long term, in particular not for Hollywood.

What if the "value" is bullying/stealing? I think the comment suggests "learn to live with it".

> You also could never afford to piss America off, which is why every other protagonist in hollywood movies is some Tom Cruise lookalike who combats people who speak English in a broken Russian accent.

This is different tho. You can produce a movie that pisses off people, and still have it play in theatres.

If you make a movie that pisses of the Chinese government, not necessarily the people, then that movie won't even be shown in China.

China pissed off the US so much they blacklisted Huawei, and threatens anyone working with it.

Hollywood used to have is own moral code and that is not all that different: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=933011...

Who's disconnecting everyone? Have we observed Brazil doing this sort of thing at the same level as China? Australia? Nigeria? Canada? Anyone else other than China?

How about the USA's most valuable ally, Saudi Arabia?

Anyway, I think many countries would want to do the same as China but they just don't have the leverage to do so.

> Anyway, I think many countries would want to do the same as China but they just don't have the leverage to do so.

But that's the point. It's the reason Saudi Arabia doesn't count. It only matters if they're doing it and are a large enough market to affect the international market. Nobody's changing their movies to capture the 0.4% of the world population that lives in Saudi Arabia.

> Just seems normal to me, the only difference is that the other 95% of the world population now have enough cash to vote with their wallets and American companies learn what it's like to operate in a world where different cultures have different values.

This is not Chinese citizens "voting with their wallets", it's the Chinese dictatorship dictating what is allowed to be shown in the country. One unilateral vote.

The equivalent is the US government outright censoring and banning movies. It's hard to even imagine how such a thing would play out because it is so far fetched, yet we (well, at least you) accept it from China. Why?

>, yet we (well, at least you) accept it from China. Why?

because it's not my job to tell China how to run their country. This is mostly a distinction without a difference anyway because the Chinese would obviously not enjoy watching a lot of movies in which they're the bad guy and Captain America saves the day.

It's like if you make a movie that insults the Prophet Muhammad a lot of Muslims won't like it, and neither will a bunch of autocratic governments, but it doesn't really make much difference in practice. If one of said countries was on their way to become the world's largest economy that'd probably be reflected in film production over time.

The real issue here is that global consumption now more closely reflects the actual demographics of the globalised economy, which means if producers want to serve all those markets they'll have to be more sensitive to different audiences or regulations.

It's like French radio stations demanding that a quarter of all lyrics be in French. If that was a 20 trillion dollar economy you bet a lot of musicians would make more French songs

>because it's not my job to tell China how to run their country. This is mostly a distinction without a difference anyway because the Chinese would obviously not enjoy watching a lot of movies in which they're the bad guy and Captain America saves the day.

Are you sure they wouldn't enjoy it? You think people like living under oppressive regimes?

And speaking of not telling people how to run their countries; morality is relative? Imprisoning political enemies and subjugation of their families is ok?

Michael Moore's documentaries get shown in theatres as do others.

Such movies about Chinese bad actors wouldn't get even a single showing in China. And would probably get the director placed in jail.

You can slag on America for lots of things. This isn't one of them.

And, by the way, one of James Bond's enemies was effectively Rupert Murdoch (Tomorrow Never Dies). So, even English enemies appear in Hollywood films.

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