China is a threat to the U.S. and the world — if you don’t truly believe that, after everything that has happened in 2020, then you might as well stop reading this right now.
Can Hollywood stop pretending that it’s bowing down to Chinese demands is not a problem? If you’re going to stand for civil rights then you can’t also be in bed with an authoritarian regime that has millions in prison camps, murders innocent journalists, silences protestors, punishes doctors for telling the truth, and stifles freedom of speech. It’s an inconvenient truth. If you stand for human rights, then you should stand with it EVERYWHERE.
The CCP-owned Hong Kong broadcaster TVB said this week it will not air the April 25th Oscar telecast. This hasn’t happened in over 50 years. A censored version is the most likely way Chinese audiences will be able to watch the Oscars.
There may be concern over Chinese-born filmmaker Chloe Zhao, whose “Nomadland” is a front-runner, and comments she once made critical of China. The Washington Post also pinpoints another nominee that has the CCP very nervous:
“Do Not Split,” a 35-minute film made at the front lines of the 2019 Hong Kong democracy protests that has been nominated in the documentary short category. Directed by Norwegian filmmaker Anders Hammer and focusing on such protesters as Joey Siu, a North Carolina-born and Hong Kong-raised activist, the film covers the siege of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and other key moments during the protests, providing an immediacy-filled look at the crackdown.
China is such a fragile authoritarian state that it decided to not only ban the Oscars but also the opportunity to watch its own, Zhao, a woman who will most likely win Best Director and Best Picture on Oscar night. If you look back through history, authoritarian regimes have to control communications to maintain the system in place. This means censoring speech, monitoring telephone lines, and, in the modern-era, that means the internet. This is a way to keep the populace oppressed. The internet is access to information and making it available to everyone is a bad thing for the CCP, because an educated population is a pain in the tuchus for these oppressive regimes.
Dictatorships can't take a joke, because if their authority is undermined that's all they have. The control has to be absolute because of how thin that line between order and anarchy is with any controlling regime, if it breaks down a little bit then it breaks down a whole lot. For all the military and economic power it has accumulated, it is quite the fearful regime.
Quiver, a tiny specialty distributor that makes even Vertical and Briarcliffe look behemoth, has picked up U.S. distribution of the long-delayed film from fellow micro-indie Blue Fox.