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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

If I were to spend $100M on producing HBO's Chernobyl, except focused on Tiananmen (assume top talent, compelling story, and good marketing), what sort of blowback could I expect?

Would my life be in danger? Would other businesses cut me off?

Will this become increasingly difficult to pull off in the US/West?

We know Disney and other entertainment companies don't want to touch it. Will that attitude stay the same now that China is beginning to cut off Western movie stars, movies, market access, etc.?

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No one would see it. No platform/distributor would touch it, similar to what happened with Bryan Fogel's work the Dissident [1], about the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.

Also 1989 is certainly a horror story reminiscent of Chernobyl, but it's a lot more complex than the cartoonish evil treatment it receives in the west.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dissident

"In its first weekend of home release, the film was the third-most rented title at the iTunes Store and eighth on Apple TV."

Are you sure that nobody else is publishing it and if that's the case it's not some kind of usual all American copyright exclusivity deal not political suppression?

The home Rental market is significantly smaller than home streaming. Icarus has over 700 Million Views [1] where as this one was the third most rented title for a week on Itunes, so yes relatively speaking no one is watching it.

The platforms did not want his content, even though he is an academy award winning documentary director. You can read his interview with Variety below.

1. https://variety.com/2021/film/news/the-dissident-saudi-arabi...

From the gp-linked wikipedia article:

"The film struggled to find a distributor for eight months and was not able to run on a large streaming platform like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. It is widely believed this was due to those platforms' fear of offending the Saudi Arabian government and possibly losing subscribers.

Fogel showed disappointment at The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to acquire UAE e-commerce site Souq.com shortly after he refused to release The Dissident on Amazon Prime Video."

He tried to get it published by other means, but money.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/business/media/dissident-...

> Also 1989 is certainly a horror story reminiscent of Chernobyl, but it's a lot more complex than the cartoonish evil treatment it receives in the west.

The complexity is what would make such a film compelling. What are the subtleties glossed over in the typical account of the terrible event?

In a completely different context, I recently watched and listened to accounts of 9/11 from a wide variety of perspectives. What made them captivating were aspects of what happened that I wasn’t aware of before.

If you could bankroll it yourself, nothing would stop you --you might have some problem getting big names to sign up. I don't think the CCP would be so petty to come after you abroad for something like this. Big entertainment would not touch it, if they have business in China. So you might be able to get indie houses to play it along with independent domestic distributors. And, oh, don't travel to China after that.

> I don't think the CCP would be so petty to come after you abroad for something like this.

Maybe you don't know about LIHKG posters being attacked in the UK [1]. The CCP has teams of operatives working overseas specifically for this purpose [2]. If they will physically attack you for writing a few posts on a forum, you should certainly expect to be murdered by "car accident" while raising funds for a $100 million film.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn_Lau

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt

I wonder if YouTube would let it be or pull it with some twisted excuse? That's a lot of audience.

I think they'd allow it.

You can watch Death by China on YouTube, the film production of the book by Peter Navarro, which was narrated by Martin Sheen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMlmjXtnIXI

Does youtube even care? Aren't there a lot of anti-china documentaries/videos on youtube? Or do you think that those flew under the radar because they're not popular enough?

Most of the Youtubers who document what goes on in China are regularly demonetized. The CCP knows how to use Youtube's rules against creators.

Not completely equal but youtube did block "Innocence of Muslims" in multiple countries.

They only blocked it after Obama and Hillary (falsely) blamed the video for the 2012 Benghazi attack.

You're getting downvoted on a SV forum for simply pondering such things, if that tells you anything. No doubt very little of Corporate America would back you, it's quite a shame. The CCP is the greatest evil hellbent on doing the most harm in the name of greed and pure expansionistic dominance on the earth since the Nazi's or Stalin, and we're enabling them.

The comment is not getting downvoted. The anti-China derangement on this "SV forum" is truly stunning.

The average HNer knows as much about China as they learned in their US Government-sanctioned high school history class (they couldn't point to Beijing on a map), yet comment as if they are experts. Remarkable.

Being against the CCP isn't being against China, to the contrary. And what more expertise other than "they murder dissenters" do you need?

Hannah Arendt mentioned this: that people who can't be mobilized by the simplified ground truths of totalitarianism will not become more helpful after having pondered and analyzed the issue more, and that furthermore, a full analysis of totalitarianism is only possible after its defeat.

This is a common misconception by Westerners who know virtually nothing about modern China. The CPC has around 100,000,000 direct members, and a domestic approval rating of around 90%. The CPC is popular because under its leadership China has seen the biggest economic & geopolitical resurgence in human history, while reducing poverty and containing pandemics and other threats. Pretty straightforward.

Easily digestible quotes from Western pundits who have probably never even visited China are not a substitute for having the barest understanding of modern China.

Disingenous garbage...

Most westerners who have been paying attention know that the majority of all that wealth comes from stealing western IP...

Not that western nations are blameless, we traded short term profit for long term superiority...

'Barest understanding' yes don't make me laugh, statement from a shill if I ever heard one. Try to claim no one understands you while also being hostile to any sort of press that's not propaganda...wonder why.

CCP is probably the most dangerous oppressive regime to ever exist, and I don't think that's an understatement.

Umm, perhaps it was being downvoted when the person commented? You know how HN works right? You know that votes fluctuate?

Further, please don't stereotype commenters here. It's not a good look. We come from all backgrounds, all with different levels of education and life experience.

HN, like any community, has multiple members, but it also has a very clear and narrow ideological uniformity (SV-style techno-libertarianism). That is why it is generally pleasant, until e.g. someone tries to challenge the common myths. This is obvious to anyone who has been outside the bubble.

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