John Cena‘s apology to China for referring to Taiwan as a country is just a reminder of the country’s pervasive influence on Hollywood, as many other stars and celebrities have found themselves in similar circumstances in recent years.
Actor and professional wrestler Cena, 44, apologized on Tuesday in Mandarin on the Chinese social media network Weibo for making the reference to Taiwan as a country during a promotional interview for the next Fast & Furious installment, F9, in which he stars. Many Chinese people view such comments as an insult due to China’s long-held view that Taiwan is a breakaway province and not an independent country.
“I made a mistake,” Cena said. “Now I have to say one thing, which is very, very, very important: I love and respect China and Chinese people.”
John Cena apologized in Chinese on Sina Weibo after calling Taiwan a country during an interview promoting Fast & Furious 9 pic.twitter.com/dzRKIYgEzL
— Joe Xu (@JoeXu) May 24, 2021
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The actor and professional wrestler’s apology is just one of many examples in recent times of Hollywood‘s cautious approach toward politics in China, as many popular film franchises, including the Fast & Furious series, have massive popularity among Chinese moviegoers. The most recent F9 film earned $162 million internationally over the weekend and $135 million in China. The film releases later in the United States on June 25 due to pandemic-related measures.
Some users on Weibo left comments on Cena’s video that accepted the apology, while others called on him to do more by asking him to admit willingly that Taiwan is part of China.
Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy, accused Cena and others in Hollywood who have apologized to China of “having no shame.”
“They turn around and literally grovel, kowtow, to the Chinese Communist Party that has concentration camps in Xinxiang and the continued occupation of Tibet, that is threatening democratic free capitalists,” Gonzalez told the Washington Examiner.
China’s influence on the film market grants it a unique ability to make or break blockbusters from Western studios, which places movie producers in a tough position to appeal to Chinese values or suffer the consequences of slim box-office numbers.
Disney‘s live-action remake of the film Mulan tanked in mainland China’s box-office charts, earning only $23.2 million in its opening weekend, largely due to some criticism about historical inaccuracies within the film’s makeup and costumes and coupled with other lackluster reviews of the movie by Chinese nationals.
Other examples of Hollywood’s catering toward China exist in films such as the new sequel to the 1986 Top Gun movie and in Iron Man 3, which included an extended four minutes of blatant product placement.
The 2019 trailer for the film Top Gun: Maverick featured Tom Cruise’s returning character sporting an altered jacket compared to the one in the original movie, which had a patch with the Taiwanese flag. The new film now replaces the flag patch with a different version.
In the 2011 Red Dawn remake, movie distributors were concerned the film could harm business with the Chinese market and opted to edit digitally the fictional Chinese invading army in the Western version of the movie to a North Korean army in post-production. However, the movie was still refused a release in China.
Gonzalez, who has written about Chinese influence on Western media since 2015, said the reason for the subtle censorship in a growing number of popular blockbusters is because “the Chinese Communist Party demands to look at scripts, sometimes they go on set” and “demand to censor Hollywood materials.”
Last year, Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, claimed that “the Chinese Communist Party spends billions and billions of dollars to mislead Americans about China and shape what our citizens see, hear, and think,” announcing that he was drafting legislation that would prevent movie studios from receiving Department of Defense assistance if those studios censor their films in China.
Sen. @tedcruz: “The SCRIPT Act which would cut off Hollywood studios from the assistance they receive from the US government if those studios censor those films for screening in China.” pic.twitter.com/qQTF8fktSj
— The Hill (@thehill) May 21, 2020
Even luxury brands Versace, Givenchy, and Coach all apologized to China in 2019 for producing T-shirts that identified Hong Kong and Macao as countries and not part of China. German carmaker Mercedes-Benz also issued an apology to China in the same year for quoting the Dalai Lama on its Instagram page, and the Marriott hotel chain apologized for wording a customer survey in a way that could potentially offend China.
China’s effect on popular culture and consumer entertainment will likely continue for as long as it dominates the media consumption market, as the country overtook North America last year as the largest movie box office in the world.
Gonzalez suggested that Hollywood filmmakers should become more transparent about future alterations made to movies that were done for CCP approval to encourage more Hollywood reporters to cover these changes to films.
He proposed “having a disclaimer at the end of the movie that reveals and informs the viewing public that the movie was approved by Chinese Communist Party censors.”
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“In other words, have the Hollywood press write about this” when studios neglect to inform the public that a film has been altered to reflect CCP censors, Gonzalez said.
