[In] order for American filmmakers to penetrate [the Chinese movie market], they first have to comply with Chinese censors. China currently allows only 34 non-Chinese movies into the mainland, all of them heavily edited by a state agency called the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television. SAPPRFT’s mission is to portray Chinese culture favorably — and in line with the Communist Party’s agenda.
Makers of The Martian, for example, made sure the China National Space Administration played a prominent role in the film “as a way to crack into the country's huge and lucrative market.” Leading up to Iron Man 3’s China release, filmmakers inserted a scene of doctors discussing surgery on the superhero, all of whom were played by major Chinese movie stars. The 2006 release of Mission: Impossible III — partially shot in Shanghai — retroactively excluded a scene of the city featuring underwear hanging from a clothesline because SAPPRFT claimed it portrayed China as “a developing country.”
“The censorship always goes back to the Communist Party,” says T.J. Green, whose company, Apex Entertainment, builds movie theaters in China. “They're in charge and they're always looking at how China is portrayed.”
And as if that wasn't enough, the Communist Party is now coming to our shores.
China is buying up American movie theaters. So we will find that our view of China is tilted in favor of China.
On the bright side, we can be sure that no American video will rile up a mob of Chinese into an attack on our embassy in Peking!
Tip to Instapundit.
