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Hollywood Bending Over Backwards To Appease China
from the and-i-thought-they-were-all-thieves dept
For decades, we've been hearing complaints from the entertainment industry about just how evil China was, and how rampant "piracy" was in China and how the country needed to crack down... blah, blah, blah. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Great Wall, it seems that Hollywood has finally realized that there are over a billion people in China, and a lot of them are interested in paying for American movies. Back in March, when the MPAA's yearly numbers came out (showing continued growth, of course), the report repeatedly mentioned the rapidly growing Chinese market.
What's interesting, though, is that this is now causing Hollywood to actually rethink how movies represent people in China. That link is to a recent segment from the radio show On the Media, where they talk about how Hollywood suddenly is bending over backwards to make Chinese consumers happy -- including changing the content of movies so as not to offend the Chinese. The key story: when MGM remade the movie Red Dawn (yes, another remake), it replaced the "Soviet" enemy threat from the original with a Chinese threat. Except... after the movie was done, the studio realized that might cut out the Chinese market, so they went back in and re-edited the film to make the Chinese people into North Koreans instead.
What's interesting, though, is that this is now causing Hollywood to actually rethink how movies represent people in China. That link is to a recent segment from the radio show On the Media, where they talk about how Hollywood suddenly is bending over backwards to make Chinese consumers happy -- including changing the content of movies so as not to offend the Chinese. The key story: when MGM remade the movie Red Dawn (yes, another remake), it replaced the "Soviet" enemy threat from the original with a Chinese threat. Except... after the movie was done, the studio realized that might cut out the Chinese market, so they went back in and re-edited the film to make the Chinese people into North Koreans instead.
The studio is now digitally removing Chinese flags and military symbols from the movie and are hard at work re-recording dialogue so that no one mistakes the brazen invaders for the Chinese.There seems to be something rather ironic in the fact that Hollywood spent so much time bitching about the awful Chinese market... and now they're making massive changes to movies just to appease that market... But, of course, there's a bigger lesson here: actually providing markets with what they want, rather than worrying about piracy, seems to be a pretty good way of making money. It's just too bad that Hollywood hasn't realized that back here at home yet.
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Pirates
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Re: Pirates
I may not quite have worded this properly but you guys are smart and in the know so you get the drift.
These Gov & MAFIAA think the whole Nation is a bunch of idiots or something.
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What does "Screw over the Chinese market, the last on earth willing to pay for plastic disks" have to do with irony?
I thought it was called "grasping at straws"?
Huh.
/jolly good time
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One MGM official was heard to say "I hope the military-industrial complex (also known as the US 'government') has finally made up their fuckin' minds who the US hates and brands "evil" this week - all these changes are costing us money!"
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Hollywood has become to creativity and freedom of speech what the Boston Strangler is to the woman living alone.
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Sounds like Microsoft
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Nothing to see here folks, no wolf, no boy, no crying, nada, zip, zilch.....move along
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Homefront
So does that mean Hollywood gets sued? Or maybe they can market it as not a remake? I mean, come on, nobody really played that game anyway.
Genius!
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Red Dawn?
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Re: Red Dawn?
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"and-i-thought-they-were-all-thieves"
THEY are a "perspective new emerging market", which makes them a fresh full cow to be pampered so that it can milked. Besides, THEY live on the other side of the planet and under completely different (and not very friendly) government, which makes them pretty much untouchable.
YOU, on the other hand, are just a lazy entitled sons-of-bitches they've been getting nice money from for decades that just recently decided (WRONGLY!!!) they don't want to pay them same old money for same old shit - which makes YOU not only a thief, but also an idiot, because you live close enough to be ... touched.
Allow me a short joke told here in Slovakia during the commies times :-)
You know what's the difference between Castro and Dubcek?
Castro forgot the Soviet Union is too far...
Dubcek forgot it's too close.
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