{"id":4209,"date":"2015-01-04T17:38:48","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T22:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=4209"},"modified":"2015-01-04T17:53:21","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T22:53:21","slug":"what-if-the-interview-took-place-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/what-if-the-interview-took-place-in-china","title":{"rendered":"What if \u2018The Interview\u2019 Took Place in China?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sony<\/a>When it comes to censorship, it’s Beijing — not Pyongyang — that poses the real threat to Hollywood.<\/p>\n

BY ISAAC STONE FISH<\/p>\n

Isaac Stone Fish is Asia editor at Foreign Policy, where he edits, reports, and writes stories from across the region.
\nPreviously a Beijing correspondent for Newsweek, Isaac wrote stories on such subjects as the Dalai Lama\u2019s effect on international trade, China\u2019s love affair with rogue states, and crystal meth in North Korea, a country he has visited twice. A fluent Mandarin speaker, Isaac spent seven years living in China prior to joining FP; he has traveled widely in the region and in China. His articles have also appeared in the New York Times, the Economist, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, and he has appeared as a commentator on MSNBC, BBC, NPR, Al-Jazeera, and PRI, among others.<\/p>\n

DECEMBER 31, 2014<\/p>\n

What if \u2018The Interview\u2019 Took Place in China?<\/p>\n

The television host Dave Skylark, played by James Franco in The Interview, wants to know why people hate him and what he represents. Why do some people detest his right to host a trashy talk show about Eminem\u2019s sexual preferences and Rob Lowe\u2019s baldness? \u201cDo they hate us because they ain\u2019t us?\u201d he asks his longtime producer Aaron Rapoport, played by Seth Rogen.<\/p>\n

Seen in the context of the tempest that The Interview created, it\u2019s tempting to pose that question about American popular culture. Did the shadowy terrorist group Guardians of Peace \u2014 the allegedly North Korea-backed organization that threatened Sony, and caused them to pull The Interview from theaters \u2014 do what they did because they hate America\u2019s right to produce trashy movies featuring gratuitous sex scenes and jokes about camel toes? And was Sony\u2019s decision to reverse course and release the film a victory for \u201cus\u201d against our haters? (Rogen, who tweeted \u201cFreedom has prevailed!\u201d after Sony announced their new decision, certainly thought so.)<\/p>\n

But like so much about this dumb buddy comedy and the controversy it caused, those questions are misleading. Hollywood\u2019s biggest worry about freedom of expression is not North Korea, or terrorist groups, or those who make anonymous threats to movie theaters. And celebrating our \u201cfreedom\u201d over North Korea, an impoverished state of 25 million, is both sad and laughable.<\/p>\n

The far bigger worry is self-censorship \u2014 and there\u2019s no bigger threat here than China. The Chinese don\u2019t hate us because they are like us, or because they are not. In fact, they don\u2019t hate us at all. Beijing poses a major censorship threat because the ruling Chinese Communist Party is keenly sensitive to criticism and has the economic muscle to punish those in Hollywood who make films that displease it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For detail please visit here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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