Be Nice to China: Hollywood Risks “Artistic Surrender” in Effort to Please

China sets a quota on foreign films that can be shown in the country, 34 each year, and filmmakers jockey to win a place in the world’s second largest market for films. China is expected to surpass the United States as world’s biggest film market within a decade. “The only way to circumvent the quota is to turn a film into a Chinese co-production, meaning Chinese elements in the story, production and funding,” reports Rory Carroll for the Guardian. “Such ventures give Hollywood 43% of the profits versus the usual 25%.” Profits take priority over artistic freedom and values. Top filmmakers cut scenes offensive to Chinese censors and avoid Chinese villains, Carroll writes, while North Korean and Middle Eastern villains are acceptable. According to one activist, the quota system enlists global filmmakers in propaganda-making, and the satirical site Hollywood & Swine suggests that Hollywood has gone from blacklisting communists to “taking script notes from a communist government.” – YaleGlobal