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2-D Avatar To Be Pulled From Theaters In China
SimonTheSoundMan notes that Avatar is being pulled from screens in China for being too successful, and too provocative in its anti-authoritarian message. (The 3-D and IMAX versions will remain.) "The communist nation's state-run movie distributor China Film Group is unexpectedly yanking the James Cameron-directed blockbuster Avatar from 1,628 2-D screens this week in favor of a biography of the ancient philosopher Confucius starring Chow-Yun Fat. ... According to a report in the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, the move was made at the urging of propaganda officials who are concerned that Avatar is taking too much market share from Chinese films and drawing unwanted attention to the sensitive issue of forced evictions."
This just means it'll spread all the more fervently via sneakernet. That we're doing business with this government while calling Cuba an international pariah is all the more disgusting. Maybe if the Cubans had oil or massive quantities of cheap labor rather than cigars and a nice view....
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Well this is just going to increase the amount of piracy in China. Which of course will piss off the US and the MPAA even more. Great job China!
interactive hologram, or it didn't happen.
So the extra D in 3D is "dictatorship"?
Maybe the PRC government did it at the request of the MPAA to cut down on piracy? You can't video tape a 3D movie from your seat. Seriously, when are corporations going to realize that the PRC is an oppressive government and no matter how much they let Wal-Mart grow, or let us feed them KFC, or build our toys for us, we are not making them more free? They are playing capitalist so they don't go the way of the Soviet Union, but if you threaten their leadership, they will shut you down.
Is that one of the movies they force prisoners to watch?
My though was the same during the burst of "OMG, Avatar hates American and the Marines!!!!" sentiment.
Avatar is a fairly simplistic (but very well animated) tale of the good guys and the bad guys. Even if the direction hadn't been so heavy handed, the good guys would have been obviously in the right and the bad guys obviously in the wrong. One side was on the other's planet, busy machine-gunning them for their resources. They didn't even have a sincere-to-them-but-monstrous-in-retrospect motive along the "saving the heathens' souls" lines.
Given that, asserting that "OMG, Avatar hates China" or "OMG, Avatar hates America" is basically equivalent to saying "OMG, the policies of the national entity I support could plausibly be seen as being allegorically represented by the cartoonishly evil bad guys in this sci-fi movie!". Why would you admit something like that? Why not just say "Eh, nice pictures, should keep the kids happy, pity the plot was shallower than a wading pool" and keep conversation from drifting in unfortunate directions?
The 2D version is "too provocative in its anti-authoritarian message" and draws "attention to the sensitive issue of forced evictions" but the 3D and IMAX versions are ok? And censors realized it one week after they approved the movie and a lot of people already watched it? I'm puzzled. Instead could that be a not-too-harsh message to the USA and the world after last week Google affair?
"In a follow-up statement, the China Film Group explained that they could not ban the 3D version of Avatar because it was 'too fucking awesome'. They also explained that they were re-shooting the Biopic of Confucious in 3D, and in this 3D version, Chow Yun Fat plays the title role as a 12-foot smurf."
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Those who imagined that Google was taking a principled stand against Chinese dictatorship might want to read this article in Foreign Policy:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/14/chinas_foreign_internet_purge
It builds a strong case that Google was simply cornered into protesting by an extreme and deliberate provocation - the most recent of many that have chased out by blocking or having their buttons pushed until they walked.
After reading it, I can't help but think that this is yet another case of protectionism disguised as censorship. That sounds strange - to most at /. that's like disguising a common assault as a kidnaping. But, of course, to the money guys at the top, protectionism is by far the worse - and more actionable - sin.
Business=government in China.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Personally, I'd much rather see the biography of Confucius.... Presumably there are like minded people living in China -- so there is an up side.
Wasn't the link I supplied. Error on /., not the submitter.
IMHO District 9 was an equally biting movie with its critical viewpoint to modern day government censorship and control, as an aside I wonder how that movie went over in the People's Republic of Corruption.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Cuba is small and within our sphere of influence. Therefore, it can be abused as much as we like, maligned, embargoed, scapegoated, and even invaded. After we tried to turn it into a puppet state, the local population revolted and threw us out. It continues to remain a symbol of successful resistance to American control. (Critics will point to it's economic failures, which have almost everything to do with the results of our desire to crush it.)
The West tried to the same intervention in China, and the result was the Boxer Rebellion. If China were smaller and closer to the United States, there would be no difference in the way they are treated. Now China has money and a manufacturing sector, so they are "worthy" of being dealt with. So much so that even the hardline nationalists don't dare to insult China and publicly restate their support of a "One China" policy, so when Beijing absorbs Taiwan, America will be able to save some face.
Decades later we are still somehow surprised by the ferocity of indigenous revolt to foreign rule. Though we can turn to romance when it's our ancestors who are doing the revolting.
Twas hard the woeful words to frame
To break the ties that bound us
But harder still to bear the shame
Of foreign chains around us
And so I said, "The mountain glen
I'll seek at morning early
And join the bold United Men
While soft winds shake the barley"
"Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!"
I'd rather let a thousand guilty men go free than chase after them.
When the Chinese became part of the WTO, they signed treaties stating:
"China will provide non-discriminatory treatment to all WTO Members. All foreign individuals and enterprises, including those not invested or registered in China, will be accorded treatment no less favourable than that accorded to enterprises in China with respect to the right to trade." - WTO, 2001
In other words, "all foreign enterprises will be treated the same as domestic enterprises in China".
By pulling Avatar in favor of domestic movies, limiting foreign films to 10 days run time, and limiting the number of screens available China is violating its commitments under the law. It would be like the US banning Chinese manufactured imports because those imports were too successful compared to domestic brands.
China needs to honor its commitments to free trade, or be kicked out of the WTO. Which, coincidentally, would make it legal for the US to ban their imports.
Who RTFAs anyway? Who cares :)
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Are you from one of those jock movies where the only way to be cool is to be completely brain-free? Sorry, but the world doesn't work that way anymore, at least not where I live.
What Cuba has is SUGAR far below the artificial price in the US. With the 1960 embargo, we lost one third of our sugar supply, and someone makes big bucks filling that void. Along with citrus and tropical fruit, this makes a seriously large campaign contribution source for incumbents that are willing to keep this potential new source of products shut down.
If we wanted Castro to fall, all we had to do was allow American money to have effect on Cuban agriculture. It is a hard thing to sit by and watch wealth being created and have no part of it (except for being the stoop labor, of course). The problem with HAVING peons is keeping them from finding out that something better exists... once they know they start doing crazy stuff like going to sea on an inner-tube. If enough of them are aware, then they burn the palace.
It's a moot point because nothing will happen with Cuba until Imperial Sugar, ADM, C&H, Dole, Chiquita, Sunkist, et al have some kind of a market lock in place... after all, that's what they paid for.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Weston Price also "found" that sugar causes tuberculosis and that root canals cause cancer. Please spare Dr. Price and his homeopathic dentistry crap.
A lot of things ARE America's fault. Cuba is a case of both sides being wrong.
When your government is some crazy military who has remained in power by force for 50 years and has isolated the country from the rest of the world
In case you forgot, America has had an embargo on Cuba for decades, which has only recently been relaxed. Cuba never isolated itself from the world; America imposed that isolation because it didn't want a communist country sitting off its coast.
Communism is certainly a crappy form of government, but that doesn't give America the right to try to force its preferred form of government on foreign, sovereign countries. If the Cuban people want to try communism, that's their right.
The other big reason America was so oppressive towards Cuba is because American corporations owned a lot of land in Cuba and used it for sugarcane farming. When Castro took power, he seized all this property and nationalized it (just like Venezuela nationalized their oil industry under Chavez). American corporations whined and the American government acted as their enforcement arm, and tried to oust Castro.
From an objective, moral viewpoint, America is completely in the wrong. That land belonged to the Cubans, not American corporations who had somehow bought it up, and it was the Cubans' right to take it back. There's a simple lesson here: if you're not a citizen of a foreign country, then you don't have any rights there, especially when a new regime takes over. Stay in your own country. If you want the same rights and privileges as citizens of another country, then emigrate there and apply for Citizenship. Otherwise, don't act surprised when they change their minds one day and kick you out.
Cuba is just another example of America's imperialism throughout the 20th century. If we really believed in freedom, we would leave other sovereign nations alone to do what they want, and stop trying to control them with military power, bribes, etc.
If America had had a "hands-off" policy towards Cuba under Castro (i.e., no embargo, no assassination attempts, no invasions, etc.), and people were still trying to escape by homemade raft, then you could rightfully criticize that nation for not working very well. But you can't screw around with another country and then criticize them too. It's like tying one of a boxer's hands behind his back and then making fun of him for boxing poorly.
America is the main reason crazy leftist leaders like Castro and Chavez have been able to come to power and stay in power in Latin America. When the locals of these smaller countries are faced with a choice between exploitation by American corporations, or leadership by a nutcase who'll at least provide for them better than what they were getting, they'll choose the latter. It's not too different from Germany in the 30s: they were being oppressed by the Allied powers under the crappy treaty terms set down at the end of WWI, so in comes Hitler who turned them back into a major power, though he was a nut. If countries would stop screwing with each other so much, and mind their own business, we wouldn't have all these problems.
There are so many things wrong with your post, I don't really know where to begin. First, Communism is not a form of government, but an economic system. Unlike Capitalism however, communism only tends to survive when supports by an authoritarian regime, and normally they tend to be more totalitarian than anything. This is because economics permeates everybody's day-to-day lives, and dictating how the economy works requires dictating how day-to-day lives work.
On another note, you mention that it is IMMORAL for a corporation or any foreigner to own land in another country, and yet, you blame the US for the embargo.... This does not compute. First, the whole premise of free trade essentially requires that foreigners can own land, or own "something" in another country. Otherwise, why would they trade with the other country? What would they get back in return. Currency needs to be backed by something, and normally it is based on the countries economy, and being able to buy things from the economy. By your own logic, China is an evil immoral country, not because of their human rights violation, but because the government and the people/corporations in the country own huge chunks of land in the US, as well as trillions of dollars in government debt. Do you think the US should be allowed to write off the debt, never paying it back because they don't want another country to own so much of our country? In my view, that is stealing (what a government does best), and is immoral. It would also likely result in a huge war with china.
I agree that many US policies were constructed in fear, but I don't think we're the reason cuba is a disaster. Unlike Cuba, China threw away much of their communist control over the economy, and has reaped the rewards. If China was still a highly communist country, the fact that they are pulling Avatar wouldn't surprise anyone. It would have been more surprising that Avatar was played in their theaters in the first place.
Also, your argument of: "If the Cuban people want to try communism, that's their right." implies that the Cuban people wanted the system Castro through in place. Like many communist revolutions, the Cuban people wanted changed from Batista, as he was doing some bad things. Many of them desired freedom, and a free form of government, and Castro, at the time of the revolution praised those ideals. Batista got toppled, and Castro took control with an iron fist, quickly jailing many of the same people who helped put him into power because they wished for a limited government, and the freedoms associated with that. Some of the people may have wanted what Castro wanted, but I doubt the majority of those who fought for the revolution would have if they realized that A) Castro would retain power for the next 50 years or so, and B) the ideals of freedom would quickly be dropped, etc. This is a case of people making a bad decision, acting rashly and making a bad situation much worse. Governments are quite good at doing that.
Phil
The shocking thing isn't that the editors edited your submission to contain the wrong link. The shocking thing is that they edited a submission at all. It's a start.
the whole premise of free trade essentially requires that foreigners can own land, or own "something" in another country... Do you think the US should be allowed to write off the debt, never paying it back because they don't want another country to own so much of our country? In my view, that is stealing (what a government does best), and is immoral. It would also likely result in a huge war with china.
If China demanded all of their money back and collapsed the American economy, could we then write off the debt? If the American economy completely collapsed and China bought nearly all of our arable land, kicked out the agribusinesses that were running them, and then exported most of the food back to China, would you support nationalizing our farmland? We have done similar things to a dozen countries.
The premise here is that we never asked Cuba if they'd like to trade with us without showing them the gun in our other hand. We said, give us everything we want, or we will take everything that we want. We said, we are going take all the land that belongs to local farmers, kick them into the cities to drive down wages for manufacturing, and then turn the whole country into a profit center for sugar producers, and send all of the profits back to the US. That's not free trade. It's thinly veiled colonialism.
Stop jumping through mental hoops to protect your belief system. It's slightly pathetic at this point.