CNN’s Jake Tapper criticized Hollywood’s cozy relationship with China on Tuesday.
Tapper called out American film studios’ willingness to accept Chinese censorship of their movies.
Before beginning a segment with Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel on “The Lead With Jake Tapper,” the CNN host added that these American companies will edit their movies to appease the communist government because they are afraid of losing access to China’s vast film market, now the world’s biggest. (RELATED: TV Ratings For The Olympics In China Crash And Burn, Decline By Nearly 50% From 2018)
Tapper brought up alterations to the flags of democratic countries in the upcoming sequel to Top Gun. In “Top Gun: Maverick,” the Japanese and Taiwanese flags on the jacket of Tom Cruise’s character are replaced.
Schwartzel said Hollywood studios many times need the Chinese market to make their movies profitable.
“Even something as small as a flag on a jacket might need to be removed in case it offends the Chinese censors who decide whether or not this movie will get into those Chinese theaters,” Schwartzel said.
Tapper called the 2012 remake of Red Dawn “one of the craziest examples” of Chinese censorship.
Schwartzel said “when China made it clear that they were going to be very angry if this movie came out as it was shot” with Chinese antagonists, MGM spent approximately one million dollars replacing the original Chinese invaders with North Koreans.
Tapper also blasted China for hoping the 2022 Winter Olympics, which the country is currently hosting, will distract the rest of the world from the communist government’s “crackdowns on freedoms, and crimes against humanity and genocide.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently advised Americans competing in the Olympics to avoid “speaking out” against the Chinese government. She expressed concern “about what the Chinese government might do” in retaliation.