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Back in the 90's you used to see famous actors walking around with shirts that said "Free Tibet", but you never see them anymore, could that be because China is

Back in the 90's you used to see famous actors walking around with shirts that said "Free Tibet", but you never see them anymore, could that be because China is now heavily invested in Hollywood? Come to think of it I haven't seen a single actor talk about Hong Kong.

bilbo0s 7y ago
>could that be because China is now heavily invested in Hollywood? I don't know man? I mean, right or wrong, it's obviously because they want to sell their movies and merchandise in China. The level of Chinese investment in the Fast and Furious franchise could be billions. It could be zero. (Probably is zero.) But that's irrelevant to whether or not the people who make those movies want to get that Chinese box office money. They want that money anyway, so they go out of their way to stay in good standing in China. Should famous actors be willing to forego getting any money from the Chinese market to support whatever cause? Well, if they believe in the cause, then yes. But what we're discovering is that most people and companies don't actually believe in these causes, they were just supporting those causes to be chic, or popular. Like most everyone else in America, and the world for that matter, what they really believe in, is money. Which, given behaviors observed repeatedly in American and world history, shouldn't really come as any big surprise I suppose.
- humble_engineer 7y ago
  You used up so many words to say Chinese money influences actor's politics. It's that simple.
coredog64 7y ago
Brad Pitt was banned from China for nearly 20 years for the film “7 Years in Tibet”. That wasn’t a career ending occurrence in the 90s, but I’d venture that it would be today.
- humble_engineer 7y ago
  And what is still happening in Tibet is sad, and the internet is full of angry atheists who have somehow been taught Tibet was a theocracy where monks held absolute authority and because religion is bad, China must be right.
  - RichardCA 7y ago
    It's a little bit more complicated than that. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-dalailama/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-da...
    - humble_engineer 7y ago
      Looks like Chinese propaganda to me, no thanks I don't read that garbage. Poor atheists, just seething everywhere they see religion, hopefully communism puts a bullet in their brain.
flukus 7y ago
Part of that is how successful their colonization of Tibet has been ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lhasa_(prefecture-level_city)#Ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lhasa_(prefecture-level_city)#... ), Han chinese making up 35% of the population as of 2000, other more modern estimates put it a ~66%. It's a lot harder to make the case for independence when there is a large Chinese minority, even harder if it becomes a majority.

bilbo0s 7y ago

>could that be because China is now heavily invested in Hollywood? I don't know man? I mean, right or wrong, it's obviously because they want to sell their movies and merchandise in China. The level of Chinese investment in the Fast and Furious franchise could be billions. It could be zero. (Probably is zero.) But that's irrelevant to whether or not the people who make those movies want to get that Chinese box office money. They want that money anyway, so they go out of their way to stay in good standing in China. Should famous actors be willing to forego getting any money from the Chinese market to support whatever cause? Well, if they believe in the cause, then yes. But what we're discovering is that most people and companies don't actually believe in these causes, they were just supporting those causes to be chic, or popular. Like most everyone else in America, and the world for that matter, what they really believe in, is money. Which, given behaviors observed repeatedly in American and world history, shouldn't really come as any big surprise I suppose.

humble_engineer 7y ago
You used up so many words to say Chinese money influences actor's politics. It's that simple.

coredog64 7y ago

Brad Pitt was banned from China for nearly 20 years for the film “7 Years in Tibet”. That wasn’t a career ending occurrence in the 90s, but I’d venture that it would be today.

humble_engineer 7y ago
And what is still happening in Tibet is sad, and the internet is full of angry atheists who have somehow been taught Tibet was a theocracy where monks held absolute authority and because religion is bad, China must be right.
- RichardCA 7y ago
  It's a little bit more complicated than that. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-dalailama/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-da...
  - humble_engineer 7y ago
    Looks like Chinese propaganda to me, no thanks I don't read that garbage. Poor atheists, just seething everywhere they see religion, hopefully communism puts a bullet in their brain.

flukus 7y ago

Part of that is how successful their colonization of Tibet has been ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lhasa_(prefecture-level_city)#Ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lhasa_(prefecture-level_city)#... ), Han chinese making up 35% of the population as of 2000, other more modern estimates put it a ~66%. It's a lot harder to make the case for independence when there is a large Chinese minority, even harder if it becomes a majority.