Sen. Ted Cruz will introduce legislation that punishes Hollywood studios that allow the Chinese government to gain creative control over the content of their films.
On Tuesday, Cruz joined Fox News host Tucker Carlson to announce the SCRIPT Act, or “Stopping Censorship, Restoring Integrity, Protecting Talkies Act,” which would prohibit the Department of Defense from contracting with studios that allow China to censor their content. Cruz said the coronavirus pandemic has revealed the need to act immediately.
“The problem of censorship is a massive problem within China. China’s own censorship and coverup of this pandemic helped produce 250,000 deaths worldwide, and when it comes to Hollywood, Hollywood is not an innocent bystander here,” Cruz said. “Hollywood is fully complicit. Hollywood works with the Chinese censors.”
Cruz outlined the heavily edited upcoming 2020 film Top Gun: Maverick, which removed the Taiwanese and Japanese flags from Tom Cruise’s jacket to appease the Chinese Communist Party. Cruz also highlighted how Chinese censors demanded the removal of any reference to former Queen singer Freddie Mercury being gay.
“Pause to think about how many Hollywood producers like to virtue signal about their courage and free speech and artistic integrity and yet they happily try to edit out the fact that Freddie Mercury is gay!” Cruz said.
Cruz said the SCRIPT Act would Hollywood studios access to coveted Pentagon resources that companies rely on to film scenes they couldn’t otherwise.
“The Pentagon assists Hollywood over and over again with access to planes, ships, assets, about a thousand movies,” added Cruz. “I introduced legislation that says, ‘You don’t get to use Pentagon assets if you’re gonna cooperate with Chinese censors.’ We’re not going to facilitate Chinese communist censorship.”
