This season’s crop of awards shows produced the usual political soliloquies from the Hollywood crowd.
Since the period, well over a half century ago, when Senator Joe McCarthy harshly probed the influence of Communism in the United States, it has become almost taboo to question the loyalty or motivations of those in the entertainment community who take left-wing positions. Therefore, even when sporadic acts that raised serious legal questions were committed in the subsequent decades, there was little backlash or repercussions.
One of the more salient examples was the deeply disturbing antics committed by Jane Fonda during her trip to North Vietnam, providing moral support for the very forces that were concurrently killing American troops on the battlefield. The question wasn’t about support or opposition for that war; it was the provision of comfort to those that were fighting the U.S.
There have been incidents both eyebrow-raising and ridiculous. Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea and his cavorting with one of the worst dictators in existence, Sean Penn’s friendly meetings with a member of a brutal Mideast regime, and the praise provided by Michael Moore and Oliver Stone after their visits with Fidel Castro, one of the world’s leading sponsors of terror and practitioners of repressions within his own nation, are just a sampling.
Lately, something even more insidious has occurred. Even though China has backed off on plans for some major purchases of Hollywood assets, the influence of the Beijing regime continues to grow, and it is neither paranoid nor inappropriate to examine what this means for the independence of America’s signature art form, and whether this is leading to a pandering by movie personnel, both in the boardrooms and in front of the cameras, to foreign interests.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Chinese companies engaged in $4.5 billion in purchases of Hollywood assets. “The new dynamic highlights Hollywood’s dependence on China, where the slightest change in state policy has ripple effects across the entertainment industry. China’s deep pockets have become a frequent topic of speculation and intrigue among entertainment executives, some of whom see the country as full of prospective buyers willing to pay high premiums for flashy Hollywood holdings.”
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An NBC Today review notes that “If you got to a movie theater right now, there’s a pretty good chance that the film you see will have been partially financed in China.” Correspondent Ronan Farrow outlined how that influences the scripts of the movies Americans watch.
To understand how China’s investment provides influence for the Beijing government, it must be understood that Chinese companies are subservient to and work diligently for China’s foreign policy. That, however, is only part of the story. The appetite for films in China’s largest-in-the world population is vast, and even those Hollywood studies not financially dependent on China have a significant financial interest in producing movies that appeal to their worldview, even if that is detrimental to American interests.
Politico provides another example of the interrelationship between Chinese companies buying major stakes in Hollywood and Beijing’s political goals. Dalian Wanda is a Chinese firm that has intimate ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and it is intent on making major purchases of Hollywood assets.
Politico asks “For American moviegoers, the peril lies in the unseen. Would a war movie called South China Sea ever play in one of Wanda’s theaters? What about an action flick with a Chinese villain?…When you control the movie experience, you can subtly influence public opinion. And the Chinese government — Wanda’s staunch supporter — has been transparent about that goal. The Communist Party has banned or currently bans thousands of books deemed controversial. It heavily censors the Internet, while Facebook and Twitter remain prohibited in China — one of the reasons Freedom House ranked it a more restrictive society than Iran and Saudi Arabia.”
With all that money and influence in the minds of Hollywood’s moguls, don’t expect to hear many patriotic statements on those award shows anytime soon.