GOP Senator Ted Cruz reminded Hollywood who’s boss when the Defense Department updated its rules for working with movie studios. The Pentagon will no longer help or give access to any movie studios that will cave to China’s censorship demands.
Ted Cruz led the effort to get Hollywood in line by inserting language into the fiscal 2023 defense policy bill that forced the rule. Cruz said:
“The Chinese Communist Party spends billions on propaganda and censorship. For years Hollywood helped them by censoring movies so they could be screened in China, while still working with the U.S. government to get those very same movies developed.
“This new guidance — implementing the legislation I authored in the SCRIPT Act — will force studios to choose one or the other.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that they’ll make the right choice and reject China’s blackmailing.”
According to the new rule, the Department of Defense “will not provide production assistance when there is demonstrable evidence that the production has complied or is likely to comply with a demand from the Government of the People’s Republic of China to censor the content of the project in a material manner to advance the national interest of the People’s Republic of China.”
The issue came to a head when ‘Top Gun Maverick’ removed the Taiwan flag from Tom Cruise’s flight jacket to appease a Chinese investor.
Cruise put the flag back on the jacket after a backlash and the movie was banned in China. It still went on to shatter box office records, unlike John Cena’s movie.
Cena shamed himself when he issued a groveling apology after he mentioned Taiwan.
“What does it say to the world when Maverick is scared of the Chinese communists?” Ted Cruz said at the time.
According to Politico:
Chinese government censors can be unpredictable and demanding.
They pushed the producers of “Spider-man: No Way Home” to remove the Statue of Liberty, according to Puck.
And they wanted the filmmakers of “Lightyear” to cut a short same-sex kiss, according to CNN.
Neither of the studios complied, and neither film was released in mainland China.
In Top Gun, on the back of Maverick’s jacket he had the Taiwanese flag & the Japanese flag. Chinese censors didn’t like that. In return, Hollywood meekly removed the flags.
What does it say to the world when Maverick is scared of Chinese communists? pic.twitter.com/P61OLK4yzo
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) December 20, 2020
