Hah! No
Disney bows to China leadership, omits Simpsons Tiananmen Square episode from streaming in Hong Kong
And yet we have a higher incarceration rate than China?
Again, I dislike China’s authoritarian regime. I would not want to live there. Their human rights abuses are appalling.
But I find it ironic that the US and “the west” in general has been insisting the rest of the world follow in its socio-political mold and adhere to its cultural norms for so long, that when someone else does it, it seems very hypocritical. Especially if we are talking about an episode of a cartoon show.
Get upset about a real world abuses and I will be 100% behind you.
Probably not? But ~60 years ago who would have thought China would not just have embraced aspects of capitalism, but becoming a global giant again because of it?
If Disney+ has scrubbed an episode of The Simpsons, no-one is going to dare show a serious documentary about June 4th or any other sensitive topic.
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In the US, capitalist bureaucracies decide what is marketable, while in China, it is a singular bureaucracy representing the people of China that decides what is marketable.
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Disney is a massive, voracious corporation and we shouldn’t pretend they care about whatever China does.
I’m not picking out Disney in particular. Every huge western corporation wants to either exploit China’s cheap labour, or sell stuff to the vast Chinese market.
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Oh, there are countries offering cheap labor. Mexico, Vietnam both pay their workers less than China:
India, Malaysia and Thailand have angles on cheap manufacturing, depending:
But selling stuff to China, as we can see, especially cultural products like movies, streaming shows, etc., these are still part of America’s soft power, and are still considered desirable and interesting in China. My guess is that most Chinese who have either had contact with the West, say, attending university etc., or Chinese who in contact with relatives living outside of China, probably know full well they are getting heavily redacted and censored versions of history, news, some American products, etc.
Maybe the bigger question is whether or not Chinese folks care. Caring may come with a bigger cost than they would be comfortable paying.
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Disney has been a scuzzy operation for many decades. (I’ll cite their destruction of the public domain in the US so they can retain ownership of The Mouse forever.) Friends don’t let friends support Disney.
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