Hot take: What if filmmakers stopped producing glorified propaganda for either country? Listening to China means pretending Taiwan doesn't exist, and listening to the U.S. means evangelizing for...
Hot take: What if filmmakers stopped producing glorified propaganda for either country? Listening to China means pretending Taiwan doesn't exist, and listening to the U.S. means evangelizing for military worship. They both suck.
Glorification vs censorship is a huge difference. The article opens taking about Top Gun Maverick. Does it glorify the US military? Sure. But fighter jet fights are fun AF. That's a huge...
Glorification vs censorship is a huge difference. The article opens taking about Top Gun Maverick. Does it glorify the US military? Sure. But fighter jet fights are fun AF. That's a huge difference to China censoring the Taiwanese flag in the movie.
Difference of kind, not of scope. The overzealous glorification of the U.S. military is a large part of what enables so many to ignore so much of the horrendous things it's done. The list of war...
Difference of kind, not of scope. The overzealous glorification of the U.S. military is a large part of what enables so many to ignore so much of the horrendous things it's done. The list of war crimes committed by that institution is a long one, and I won't let that go just because jets look cool.
Incompetence of our government, and down right evil politicians is a common trope in Hollywood. I'm sorry, but cherry picking a few examples to compare to Chinese entertainment propaganda is a...
Incompetence of our government, and down right evil politicians is a common trope in Hollywood. I'm sorry, but cherry picking a few examples to compare to Chinese entertainment propaganda is a weak argument.
... I didn't even give examples, so how am I cherry picking? Also, I don't really care if evil politicians is a trope, the reality is that the DoD works with Hollywood all the time – either by...
... I didn't even give examples, so how am I cherry picking? Also, I don't really care if evil politicians is a trope, the reality is that the DoD works with Hollywood all the time – either by editing existing scripts or helping out ones that already favor them – to create plenty of pro-war garbage. This is more than problematic enough to outweigh any Evil Government tropes, especially when you consider how much the last couple decades have left us veritably drowning in TV shows that feature the police, FBI, CIA, or various other three-letter agencies in the role of the protagonists.
The Chinese government is awful, no doubt. I'm no more in favor of their military or entertainment censorship than I am the States' efforts. But that doesn't give the U.S. a free pass to be shitty as well.
The US does censor movies though. For example, they've censored a line in Tomorrow Never Dies about America's failure in Vietnam, and a line about the high rate of military suicides in Iron-Man....
The US does censor movies though. For example, they've censored a line in Tomorrow Never Dies about America's failure in Vietnam, and a line about the high rate of military suicides in Iron-Man. The fact that you don't really hear about these while you hear all about Chinese censorship is itself another part of the propaganda machine.
You're comparing a finished product to a process, though. Unlike with things that are censored post production for the Chinese market, we don't see or hear about things that are censored before...
You're comparing a finished product to a process, though.
Unlike with things that are censored post production for the Chinese market, we don't see or hear about things that are censored before filming.
It's a bit of a mistake to assume that when a movie has a Department of Defense appointed Military Adviser on set, there is no censorship involved.
If that were the case and filmmakers could just put in whatever they liked, I don't think the Pentagon would be so pushy about the military advisers in the first place.
Still different. You don't need the help of the DoD. You can make an independent movie critical of the military and you won't get censored. When you enlist (heh) the help of the military for your...
Still different. You don't need the help of the DoD. You can make an independent movie critical of the military and you won't get censored.
When you enlist (heh) the help of the military for your movie, and get all sorts of props and locations made available. Ostensibly for free. It's not necessarily a strange request to be positive about your benefactor.
I don't think the message behind their military glorification is good, but it's miles apart from Chinese state censorship. Quite simply because complying is voluntary.
In regards to China, the answer is pretty obvious. Your movie won't be allowed in China and you'll lose a 1.4 billion people market. In regards to the US... you won't lose much really because the...
What if filmmakers stopped
In regards to China, the answer is pretty obvious. Your movie won't be allowed in China and you'll lose a 1.4 billion people market.
In regards to the US... you won't lose much really because the US has freedom of speech. The military won't let you film their jets for free I guess? In fact, most filmmakers are refusing to do it already. Movies like Top Gun are an exception, most of Hollywood has very negative view on military and war in general. Seriously, how many Vietnam movies have you seen where the message was "wow, the US sure did great here! yay for the us military!"? How many movies portray the Afghanistan or Iraq war in positive light?
It's more than that. The second you think about filming any type of military hardware, the pentagon steps in and demands edits to the script. Only once they approve the new script are you allowed...
The military won't let you film their jets for free I guess?
It's more than that. The second you think about filming any type of military hardware, the pentagon steps in and demands edits to the script. Only once they approve the new script are you allowed to film their stuff. There's also rules too. Certain angles, in certain light, certain models, not near this coast but OK near this coast, things like that.
The real terrible part is how they get complete rights to edit the film in whatever way they see fit for whatever reason.
So unless you want glorification of the US military, your other option is to not use military assets.
Which means you can't really tell the story of the military that you want to tell. Isn't it interesting the real critical movies of the Vietnam conflict was the last era where Hollywood outright bashed the US military?
Everything else since then has been glorification or ignoring the entire conflict to focus on some heroic act. Where's the criticism of the middle East conflicts, desert storm, and the Syria proxy war? Stuff is coming out now for the Cold War where America is somewhat as guilty as the USSR which is a nice change of pace, but I don't think we're going to get anything spicy any time soon. Even
Citations Needed did a pretty good episode on this actually. It's not necessarily that movies are made about the US doing a good job in Vietnam, but the Pentagon has censored movies (Not...
It's not necessarily that movies are made about the US doing a good job in Vietnam, but the Pentagon has censored movies (Not necessarily war movies, James Bond for example is cited) that said things they didn't like about Vietnam, or other things that made the military look bad. If China demanded a movie censor a reference to the Tianaman Square massacre, it would be outrageous, but if the Pentagon censors a reference to the My Lai massacre somehow that's better?
There's a story I read about the Pentagon's oversight on film production a read some years back: Something about this makes me feel very uncomfortable about the media I watch. That a line that may...
One particular disagreement during the filming of an “Iron Man” movie stands out.
In the script, one military officer told another that people would “kill themselves for the opportunities he has.” Strub said he didn’t like the line and made recommendations. It was no shock the director didn’t like the suggestion.
“It never got resolved until we were in the middle of filming,” Strub said. “Now we’re on the flight lines at Edwards Air Force Base (California), and there’s 200 people, and [the director] and I are having an argument about this. He’s getting redder and redder in the face and I’m getting just as annoyed.
“It was pretty awkward and then he said, angrily, ‘Well how about they’d walk over hot coals?’ I said ‘fine.’ He was so surprised it was that easy.”
Something about this makes me feel very uncomfortable about the media I watch. That a line that may invoke the thought of military suicides must not be uttered else it might reduce recruitment rates is such a sneaky and subliminal method of manipulating thought.
Alternatively, having known multiple PA officers and people who've served in the Hollywood liaison role, it's less likely that he was thinking that hard and more wanted to flex some control so...
Alternatively, having known multiple PA officers and people who've served in the Hollywood liaison role, it's less likely that he was thinking that hard and more wanted to flex some control so they don't just look like set dressing. I've had to have full, hour long 'discussions' over the stupidest things which I've resolved by right clicking and selecting the thesaurus and giving the officer a word that means the exact same thing.
Basically, sometimes we don't want to say "kill" more than anything else. Not because it involves military suicide but because we don't want to say it. Look at the Task Forces fighting ISIL's Twitter and watch them use every word but kill. And that's ISIL we're taking about. No one likes them but we still try not to say kill.
Then the SDF goes and posts images of the stack of dead ISIL combatants and makes an the hand wringing seem hilarious.
Hollywood has had no issue making movies with terrible representations of the military and has done so notoriously for ages. Selective outrage against the periodic films that offer positive...
Hollywood has had no issue making movies with terrible representations of the military and has done so notoriously for ages. Selective outrage against the periodic films that offer positive portrayals says more about you than it does about the greater film industry.
You’ve completely glossed over the part where they were filming at a US military base. If you offer for filmmakers to come into your space to shoot a film, then there’s going to be strings. For starters, don’t disrespect the house you’ve been invited into.
I think that it’s popular to assert that any perception management on the part of the US military is some kind of well oiled propaganda machine, but the bottom line is that it’s a massive worldwide organization and people want to feature what it does in their movies. Nobody is going to take an active hand in making themselves look bad in screen.
Why make a policy about just China? How about a blanket rule about not letting other nations censor your films period regardless of what flag they fly?
Why make a policy about just China? How about a blanket rule about not letting other nations censor your films period regardless of what flag they fly?
It’s not really a law problem, it’s a capitalism problem. China has one billion people who can potentially be watching your movie. So film makers cater to them because we have decided more money...
It’s not really a law problem, it’s a capitalism problem.
China has one billion people who can potentially be watching your movie. So film makers cater to them because we have decided more money means better as a society.
An old boss of mine used to call this kind of thinking, perhaps a bit insensitively, "Chinese Math." Where some business major has the bright idea that since there are so many people in China, we...
An old boss of mine used to call this kind of thinking, perhaps a bit insensitively, "Chinese Math." Where some business major has the bright idea that since there are so many people in China, we should ruthlessly target their market above all else, because even if you only get 1% of their population to buy a product that's still 10 million more sales. What they always forget is what they lose a long the way...
Nobody really cares if someone makes a small change to a movie to have it do better with, say, European audiences. I don't know if that's ever happened before in the first place, but if it has it...
Nobody really cares if someone makes a small change to a movie to have it do better with, say, European audiences. I don't know if that's ever happened before in the first place, but if it has it hasn't drawn any criticism.
On the other hand, having your new Top Gun movie edited to remove flags of our allies to make China happy isn't exactly a good look, especially when everyone knows how involved the military is with the production of that film. This change is a response to that.
If other countries start trying to censor movies in ways Americans don't like then similar changes will be made to target them as well.
Sure I agree it's a terrible look, so make it a blanket statement for ALL countries. Singling out one country is just another form of propaganda and shows the military doesn't really care about...
On the other hand, having your new Top Gun movie edited to remove flags of our allies to make China happy isn't exactly a good look, especially when everyone knows how involved the military is with the production of that film. This change is a response to that.
Sure I agree it's a terrible look, so make it a blanket statement for ALL countries. Singling out one country is just another form of propaganda and shows the military doesn't really care about hollywood getting lobbied / bullied / etc they just don't want it done by ONE country not another.
If other countries start trying to censor movies in ways Americans don't like then similar changes will be made to target them as well.
Why wouldn't you cut it off right from the start? If the policy is a good one "we don't want other countries censoring or manipulating American movies" then it shouldn't matter who it's applied to right?
Because good luck getting 51% of Congress to agree to that. The attempt to edit the flags out of the Top Gun movie is a very obvious example of why we need this law in place, nobody has an...
Why wouldn't you cut it off right from the start? If the policy is a good one "we don't want other countries censoring or manipulating American movies" then it shouldn't matter who it's applied to right?
Because good luck getting 51% of Congress to agree to that. The attempt to edit the flags out of the Top Gun movie is a very obvious example of why we need this law in place, nobody has an objection for why China should be able to edit our allies out of movies that are supposed to be tools for boosting American soft power, so the law gets passed and DoD policy gets updated. This isn't something the DoD did on its own, if you read the article, they are doing it to comply with the new defense bill.
There's no clear reason why such a law would need to be applied to any other country. And if you know anything about Congress you know how difficult it is to get any laws through it, especially when the House and Senate are split between Democrat and Republican. So in the absence of a clear and unanimously agreed upon reason to make this law apply to everyone else, it isn't going to be applied to everyone else. If the Germans want to edit all the jokes out of our movies because they're unnecessary, that's odd, but it isn't worth passing a law over.
No law has been passed - a bill was introduced and passed to the committee, but it has yet to be voted on in any manner yet. DoD acted on its own here to try and save face after the events...
the law gets passed and DoD policy gets updated. This isn't something the DoD did on its own, if you read the article, they are doing it to comply with the new defense bill.
No law has been passed - a bill was introduced and passed to the committee, but it has yet to be voted on in any manner yet. DoD acted on its own here to try and save face after the events surrounding Top Gun (likely the largest movie to date they have been involved in).
There's no clear reason why such a law would need to be applied to any other country.
There absolutely is if the intention of the bill is to protect the image of US interests you would want no foreign entity interfering with American soft power propaganda films. When you narrow focus it like this it simply becomes a "China bad" propaganda bill to serve some talking point - which is fine but people should see it as that American propaganda instead of an actual functional policy or potential law.
Sure - it's not the rule I'm against it's the narrow application, the only reason you do a narrow focus is to make it a political / propaganda type thing. If the POLICY is what really matters...
Sure - it's not the rule I'm against it's the narrow application, the only reason you do a narrow focus is to make it a political / propaganda type thing. If the POLICY is what really matters you'd do it blanket.
For example, America doesn't have a law that says you can't perform espionage for Russia, they have it for ALL countries.
I think its hilarious that he's implicitly acknowledging that the US Military censors films in the same way as the Chinese Government. It reminded me to read a few of the script changes and...
“This new guidance — implementing the legislation I authored in the SCRIPT Act — will force studios to choose one or the other, and I’m cautiously optimistic that they’ll make the right choice and reject China’s blackmailing.” - Ted Cruz
I think its hilarious that he's implicitly acknowledging that the US Military censors films in the same way as the Chinese Government. It reminded me to read a few of the script changes and documents around them I had bookmarked a while back, and a surprising number of things stood out to me from them. They only really go up to the mid 2000s.
To what probably shouldn't be my surprise, West Point was officially involved with the making of The Birth of a Nation, an infamous movie promoting the Ku Klux Klan. Given the movie's extreme historical inaccuracies, the fact that West Point helped with historical accuracy is even more rough.
Wow, they are involved in a lot of movies and shows; I think the number is over 800, but there are also notes for many movies that were never made.
In the documentation around if and what support was provided by the military, there's a notes column, which has some buck wild stuff in it. There's mini-reviews of the movies; The Rock with Nic Cage is described as
Absurd to think a general would put himself in a position with no way out. Absurd, but sometimes exciting
There's a joke in the note about Star Trek IV about using transporters. They describe a movie as being "positive propaganda" for the military. A 1950s movie called Retreat, Hell! was almost rejected for having "Hell" in the name. Just so much random ass shit for an official document.
Its really clear that the point of military support is for recruitment purposes, general propaganda and sometimes ego.
There seems to be a lot of cooperation between military branches, but also the FBI. Not particularly surprising, but it still got me that there were more then a few movies that were rejected for negatively portraying the FBI.
It doesn't seem like much documentation was actually kept; so many movies have 'No File' and all dates seem to be approximate. Seeing how it spans a hundred years, I kinda get it, but it also makes the military seem pretty incompetent.
This went a lot longer then I thought, but here's the Source Link if your interested in it yourself.
I think this Wikipedia page on the Military-entertainment complex is something everyone should read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93entertainment_complex
All this results in is fictional universes with fictional flags when they need a Chinese investment. Think San Fransokyo from Big Hero 6 except it’s now San Fransjing or similar. I wouldn’t be...
All this results in is fictional universes with fictional flags when they need a Chinese investment.
Think San Fransokyo from Big Hero 6 except it’s now San Fransjing or similar. I wouldn’t be surprised if a major studio announces all future movies will be set in a fictional universe like this, complete with an announced fictional flag.
Look, if it gets us one step closer to an Ace Combat movie that's exactly as cheesy as it should be then I'm okay with that. Can't make Top Gun any more, gotta make Top Belkan.
Look, if it gets us one step closer to an Ace Combat movie that's exactly as cheesy as it should be then I'm okay with that.
Can't make Top Gun any more, gotta make Top Belkan.
Money talks. Going forward I think we will see even more superheroes, superhero battles, space wars etc, even fewer real soldiers and war movies, and more pandering to the Chinese box office.
Money talks. Going forward I think we will see even more superheroes, superhero battles, space wars etc, even fewer real soldiers and war movies, and more pandering to the Chinese box office.
I had no idea that the DOD would assist private filmmakers regarding censorship of their film overseas. What's the advantage of the government assisting with that in the first place?
I had no idea that the DOD would assist private filmmakers regarding censorship of their film overseas. What's the advantage of the government assisting with that in the first place?
Hot take: What if filmmakers stopped producing glorified propaganda for either country? Listening to China means pretending Taiwan doesn't exist, and listening to the U.S. means evangelizing for military worship. They both suck.
Glorification vs censorship is a huge difference. The article opens taking about Top Gun Maverick. Does it glorify the US military? Sure. But fighter jet fights are fun AF. That's a huge difference to China censoring the Taiwanese flag in the movie.
Difference of kind, not of scope. The overzealous glorification of the U.S. military is a large part of what enables so many to ignore so much of the horrendous things it's done. The list of war crimes committed by that institution is a long one, and I won't let that go just because jets look cool.
Incompetence of our government, and down right evil politicians is a common trope in Hollywood. I'm sorry, but cherry picking a few examples to compare to Chinese entertainment propaganda is a weak argument.
... I didn't even give examples, so how am I cherry picking? Also, I don't really care if evil politicians is a trope, the reality is that the DoD works with Hollywood all the time – either by editing existing scripts or helping out ones that already favor them – to create plenty of pro-war garbage. This is more than problematic enough to outweigh any Evil Government tropes, especially when you consider how much the last couple decades have left us veritably drowning in TV shows that feature the police, FBI, CIA, or various other three-letter agencies in the role of the protagonists.
The Chinese government is awful, no doubt. I'm no more in favor of their military or entertainment censorship than I am the States' efforts. But that doesn't give the U.S. a free pass to be shitty as well.
The US does censor movies though. For example, they've censored a line in Tomorrow Never Dies about America's failure in Vietnam, and a line about the high rate of military suicides in Iron-Man. The fact that you don't really hear about these while you hear all about Chinese censorship is itself another part of the propaganda machine.
You're comparing a finished product to a process, though.
Unlike with things that are censored post production for the Chinese market, we don't see or hear about things that are censored before filming.
It's a bit of a mistake to assume that when a movie has a Department of Defense appointed Military Adviser on set, there is no censorship involved.
If that were the case and filmmakers could just put in whatever they liked, I don't think the Pentagon would be so pushy about the military advisers in the first place.
To be fair the US military will a thousand percent censor your movie to let you get access to that hardware.
Still different. You don't need the help of the DoD. You can make an independent movie critical of the military and you won't get censored.
When you enlist (heh) the help of the military for your movie, and get all sorts of props and locations made available. Ostensibly for free. It's not necessarily a strange request to be positive about your benefactor.
I don't think the message behind their military glorification is good, but it's miles apart from Chinese state censorship. Quite simply because complying is voluntary.
In regards to China, the answer is pretty obvious. Your movie won't be allowed in China and you'll lose a 1.4 billion people market.
In regards to the US... you won't lose much really because the US has freedom of speech. The military won't let you film their jets for free I guess? In fact, most filmmakers are refusing to do it already. Movies like Top Gun are an exception, most of Hollywood has very negative view on military and war in general. Seriously, how many Vietnam movies have you seen where the message was "wow, the US sure did great here! yay for the us military!"? How many movies portray the Afghanistan or Iraq war in positive light?
It's more than that. The second you think about filming any type of military hardware, the pentagon steps in and demands edits to the script. Only once they approve the new script are you allowed to film their stuff. There's also rules too. Certain angles, in certain light, certain models, not near this coast but OK near this coast, things like that.
The real terrible part is how they get complete rights to edit the film in whatever way they see fit for whatever reason.
So unless you want glorification of the US military, your other option is to not use military assets.
Which means you can't really tell the story of the military that you want to tell. Isn't it interesting the real critical movies of the Vietnam conflict was the last era where Hollywood outright bashed the US military?
Everything else since then has been glorification or ignoring the entire conflict to focus on some heroic act. Where's the criticism of the middle East conflicts, desert storm, and the Syria proxy war? Stuff is coming out now for the Cold War where America is somewhat as guilty as the USSR which is a nice change of pace, but I don't think we're going to get anything spicy any time soon. Even
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anti-war_films#Anti-war_films
Has a lot of world War and Vietnam stuff but nothing semi recent.
Citations Needed did a pretty good episode on this actually.
It's not necessarily that movies are made about the US doing a good job in Vietnam, but the Pentagon has censored movies (Not necessarily war movies, James Bond for example is cited) that said things they didn't like about Vietnam, or other things that made the military look bad. If China demanded a movie censor a reference to the Tianaman Square massacre, it would be outrageous, but if the Pentagon censors a reference to the My Lai massacre somehow that's better?
They won't let you film anything pertaining to them full stop. Unless you agree to have them assign you a "Military Advisor" and do what they say.
The only one I remember is Zero Dark Thirty. Very good movie by the way.
The US military offers a carrot, China offers a stick. Both suck, but one is clearly better (and more tolerable) than the other.
For the filmmakers, sure, but for us it hardly matters. We end up with propaganda either way.
There's a story I read about the Pentagon's oversight on film production a read some years back:
Something about this makes me feel very uncomfortable about the media I watch. That a line that may invoke the thought of military suicides must not be uttered else it might reduce recruitment rates is such a sneaky and subliminal method of manipulating thought.
Alternatively, having known multiple PA officers and people who've served in the Hollywood liaison role, it's less likely that he was thinking that hard and more wanted to flex some control so they don't just look like set dressing. I've had to have full, hour long 'discussions' over the stupidest things which I've resolved by right clicking and selecting the thesaurus and giving the officer a word that means the exact same thing.
Basically, sometimes we don't want to say "kill" more than anything else. Not because it involves military suicide but because we don't want to say it. Look at the Task Forces fighting ISIL's Twitter and watch them use every word but kill. And that's ISIL we're taking about. No one likes them but we still try not to say kill.
Then the SDF goes and posts images of the stack of dead ISIL combatants and makes an the hand wringing seem hilarious.
Hollywood has had no issue making movies with terrible representations of the military and has done so notoriously for ages. Selective outrage against the periodic films that offer positive portrayals says more about you than it does about the greater film industry.
You’ve completely glossed over the part where they were filming at a US military base. If you offer for filmmakers to come into your space to shoot a film, then there’s going to be strings. For starters, don’t disrespect the house you’ve been invited into.
I think that it’s popular to assert that any perception management on the part of the US military is some kind of well oiled propaganda machine, but the bottom line is that it’s a massive worldwide organization and people want to feature what it does in their movies. Nobody is going to take an active hand in making themselves look bad in screen.
Why make a policy about just China? How about a blanket rule about not letting other nations censor your films period regardless of what flag they fly?
It’s not really a law problem, it’s a capitalism problem.
China has one billion people who can potentially be watching your movie. So film makers cater to them because we have decided more money means better as a society.
An old boss of mine used to call this kind of thinking, perhaps a bit insensitively, "Chinese Math." Where some business major has the bright idea that since there are so many people in China, we should ruthlessly target their market above all else, because even if you only get 1% of their population to buy a product that's still 10 million more sales. What they always forget is what they lose a long the way...
Also, they mostly lose even trying to get there.
Piss off their fans at home, and then Chinas government rejects them anyways for various reasons.
Nobody really cares if someone makes a small change to a movie to have it do better with, say, European audiences. I don't know if that's ever happened before in the first place, but if it has it hasn't drawn any criticism.
On the other hand, having your new Top Gun movie edited to remove flags of our allies to make China happy isn't exactly a good look, especially when everyone knows how involved the military is with the production of that film. This change is a response to that.
If other countries start trying to censor movies in ways Americans don't like then similar changes will be made to target them as well.
Sure I agree it's a terrible look, so make it a blanket statement for ALL countries. Singling out one country is just another form of propaganda and shows the military doesn't really care about hollywood getting lobbied / bullied / etc they just don't want it done by ONE country not another.
Why wouldn't you cut it off right from the start? If the policy is a good one "we don't want other countries censoring or manipulating American movies" then it shouldn't matter who it's applied to right?
Because good luck getting 51% of Congress to agree to that. The attempt to edit the flags out of the Top Gun movie is a very obvious example of why we need this law in place, nobody has an objection for why China should be able to edit our allies out of movies that are supposed to be tools for boosting American soft power, so the law gets passed and DoD policy gets updated. This isn't something the DoD did on its own, if you read the article, they are doing it to comply with the new defense bill.
There's no clear reason why such a law would need to be applied to any other country. And if you know anything about Congress you know how difficult it is to get any laws through it, especially when the House and Senate are split between Democrat and Republican. So in the absence of a clear and unanimously agreed upon reason to make this law apply to everyone else, it isn't going to be applied to everyone else. If the Germans want to edit all the jokes out of our movies because they're unnecessary, that's odd, but it isn't worth passing a law over.
No law has been passed - a bill was introduced and passed to the committee, but it has yet to be voted on in any manner yet. DoD acted on its own here to try and save face after the events surrounding Top Gun (likely the largest movie to date they have been involved in).
There absolutely is if the intention of the bill is to protect the image of US interests you would want no foreign entity interfering with American soft power propaganda films. When you narrow focus it like this it simply becomes a "China bad" propaganda bill to serve some talking point - which is fine but people should see it as that American propaganda instead of an actual functional policy or potential law.
Because China is now successfully using its market to actually control our media and it isn't just movies anymore.
Sure - it's not the rule I'm against it's the narrow application, the only reason you do a narrow focus is to make it a political / propaganda type thing. If the POLICY is what really matters you'd do it blanket.
For example, America doesn't have a law that says you can't perform espionage for Russia, they have it for ALL countries.
I think its hilarious that he's implicitly acknowledging that the US Military censors films in the same way as the Chinese Government. It reminded me to read a few of the script changes and documents around them I had bookmarked a while back, and a surprising number of things stood out to me from them. They only really go up to the mid 2000s.
There's a joke in the note about Star Trek IV about using transporters. They describe a movie as being "positive propaganda" for the military. A 1950s movie called Retreat, Hell! was almost rejected for having "Hell" in the name. Just so much random ass shit for an official document.
This went a lot longer then I thought, but here's the Source Link if your interested in it yourself.
I think this Wikipedia page on the Military-entertainment complex is something everyone should read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93entertainment_complex
All this results in is fictional universes with fictional flags when they need a Chinese investment.
Think San Fransokyo from Big Hero 6 except it’s now San Fransjing or similar. I wouldn’t be surprised if a major studio announces all future movies will be set in a fictional universe like this, complete with an announced fictional flag.
Look, if it gets us one step closer to an Ace Combat movie that's exactly as cheesy as it should be then I'm okay with that.
Can't make Top Gun any more, gotta make Top Belkan.
Money talks. Going forward I think we will see even more superheroes, superhero battles, space wars etc, even fewer real soldiers and war movies, and more pandering to the Chinese box office.
I had no idea that the DOD would assist private filmmakers regarding censorship of their film overseas. What's the advantage of the government assisting with that in the first place?
@cfabbro The author tag "authro.betsy woodruff swan" misspells "author". Just a heads up.
Whoops. Fixed. Thanks for the ping. :)
But, but, but...me money!