During the weekend, Ted Cruz, senator for Texas and occasional podcaster, shifted his attention from covering the Biden family to attacking a popular children’s toy, Barbie, and more significantly, the upcoming film based on the famed doll.
Due to a sequence in which China’s claimed area in the South China Sea, known as the nine-dash line, is depicted on a map, Vietnam has prohibited the release of the highly anticipated Barbie film starring Margot Robbie. It’s important to note that both Vietnam and the Philippines lay claim to land inside the line in question. The prohibition was announced Monday by state media.
Cruz criticized the movie and said that the company responsible was “pushing Chinese propaganda.”
Sen. Cruz has been battling for years to ensure that U.S. firms, particularly Hollywood studios, do not change or restrict their material to appease the Chinese Communist Party.
The SCRIPT Act (Stopping Censorship, Restoring Integrity, and Protecting Talkies), enacted by Cruz in 2022, prohibits the Pentagon from collaborating with Hollywood filmmakers that follow Chinese censorship restrictions.
The Chinese government utilizes its massive film markets to impose pressure on American firms to promote CCP propaganda in an effort to influence what people in the United States see, hear, and ultimately believe. The usage of the map in the Barbie movie suggests that this occurred.
Before being shown in mainland China theaters, all foreign films must be approved by China’s censors, a procedure that sometimes results in cuts, convoluted translation, and even title changes. Studios in Hollywood have obliged in order to get entry to the Chinese market, which is the second largest in the world.
For example, in order to placate Beijing, the flags of Taiwan and Japan were digitally deleted off the back of Tom Cruise’s flying jacket in the latest “Top Gun” movie franchise, which was co-financed by China’s Tencent Pictures.
Placating China to make money is one of the many failings of Hollywood.
