Hollywood Movies In China Essay

Hollywood studios in recent years have became very worried whether the Chinese government will allow its films to be played in China’s theaters. This is because most films are being banned by the government because they are not meeting their censors, which results in losing out on hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in box office revenue. As was the case with Disney’s “Captain Philips,” which fell $9 million short of projections after Chinese regulators decided to reject the film because of its overly positive depiction of the U.S. military. In the past years the Chinese film market has been dominated by the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda films. Chinese theaters started showing American movies only in 1994, when the government finally allowed The Fugitive to play in Chinese theaters. As can be seen in a 1991 New York Times article China’s Films: More Propaganda, Less Art, how Chinese government was feeding its people subliminal messages: “This summer the propaganda films are everywhere, and Chinese workers are being organized to see them in the hope that the movies

In China, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) must approve any movie before it can be screened. The 37-person committee, as stated in the U.S. government report “Directed by Hollywood, Edited by China”, has mandate to ban all movies that are “anti-China”, that showed depiction of the supernatural, displays of “gratuitous violence,” and any reinterpretations of history or the Chinese version of it. The government has total control of the movies made in China: “SAPPRFT is notorious for providing vague feedback, with foreign filmmakers navigating a largely informal process to gain important approval. In addition, because China does not have a rating system for its movies, all films must be appropriate for audiences of all ages, though in practice this standard is not uniformly