Red Dawn, a remake of a 1980s action movie about a Soviet invasion of the United States, was originally shot featuring China as the antagonist invading the United States. According to Mr. Shiao, however, the Chinese are “not interested in their country being perceived as a violent military threat to the lives of average Americans.”

and

A 'Captain Phillips' executive identified the tone of the film as a source of discomfort for censors, particularly “the big Military machine of the U.S. saving one U.S. citizen. China would never do the same and in no way would want to promote this idea.”

While I think censorship an unwise and ultimately self-defeating policy, and also agree with the basic premise that a good many of the rules are just dressed up protectionism, I can't really blame China for declining to import overt propaganda. China makes lots of propagandistic films, but the propaganda is mainly about what China should be like. It'll be some time before they produce an overtly anti-American film like Brother 2 or Valley of the Wolves (as opposed to striaght-up propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_8lSjcoSW8) and I doubt whether it would be well-received here if they did.

I was watching Argo on my Chinese IPTV streaming service in Shenzhen with my Chinese roommate and my roommate was blown away by the idea that the movie was based on a true story. He said that the Chinese government would never take such extreme steps to rescue its citizens from any such situation. I never really thought about his comment and his shock (it was a lot of shock) until reading this just now. Wow, interesting.

Argo is a deeply troubling film. From the one-dimensionality of the Iranians to the complete lack of historical context ignoring prior US meddling and interfering in internal Iranian affairs[1]. The involvement of the CIA in the production[2]. The historical inaccuracies of the film[3]. The timing of the release of the film given Iranian-Western relations over its nuclear program.

For me Argo is basically unwatchable US patriotic screen-fodder bordering on propaganda.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état#Unite...

[2] https://www.amazon.de/CIA-Hollywood-Agency-Shapes-Television...

“Argo and Zero Dark Thirty are only the latest film productions the CIA has influenced in the 15 years since the Agency opened its official liaison office to Hollywood […]”

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(2012_film)#Historical_in...

Essentially it extrapolates from an (apparently genuine) GIA document produced during the 1990s, laying out a rough 'recipe' for turning a country towards western democracy by cultural, institutional, and political influence (or subversion, depending on your point of view) - essentially the 'soft power' approach of American diplomacy, backed up by the 90s-era conviction that we'd entered the 'end of history' following the fall of the USSR and that it was only a matter of time before every country switched to democracy and free markets because That's What Works. So this film is 50% a review of history from the Chinese and communist perspectives (worth remembering that Chinese history goes back ~5000 years so they see Marxism as a political technology rather than an identity), and 50% a how-to guide on spotting insidious Western cultural viruses.

Amusingly enough some of their complaints overlap with the complaints of western conservatives about 'cultural Marxism' which alleges that the entertainment industry is bent on unmaking national social consenses and replacing them with one world globalist tyranny. I wouldn't be surprised to find some films are considered objectionable by both communists and conservatives.

Miraculous ladybug also defies the trope, but in a mixed race context (Chinese-French).

>Perhaps they just couldn't find an actor that looked the role?

Of course they could, but the problem is it seems as if they wouldn't dare try. They stopped looking after "the one hot female lead we put in every sci-fi movie now."

Note that for this reason, there was no controversy about the casting of the GIS protagonist in Japan itself. The vocal critics have all been Asian Americans. But that doesn't really say much, as this movie is being judged as an American one rather than a Japanese one; the lack of Asian American actors getting roles like these bothers me also.

Because Asian Americans are more aware of the lack of diversity in roles for Asians in American movies. Japanese people would have no idea about that because where they live, every hero on every screen in every Japanese movie is Japanese.

I'm well aware of the style in anime to present characters as "stateless", and why it's done, but that isn't the problem. Asian actors appearing to not be on equal footing with Caucasian and African American actors when it comes to the roles they're allowed to portray is the problem.

I'm sick of seeing the same few faces in everything.

Are they? Anime characters do not seem to be bound by typical (or even possible) hair and eye colours. Couldn't such characters be, well, ethnic Japanese people who happen to have an unusual hair colour? That seems to be the general assumption.

yes, it's a conscious design choice[0,1]. They're not "obviously Caucasian" so much as "not obviously anything."

[0]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mukokuseki

[1]https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Mukokuseki-rarely-appear-in-W...

In ghost in the shell, the protagonist is a robot or cyborg, ethnicity isn't fixed.

Hollywood wants major established Hollywood names that are perceived as major draws in and of themselves in major roles on any major projects. Insofar as the output of that process has apparent racial bias (and it does, significantly) it's largely an effect of the fact that the process by which one becomes an established Hollywood name with big perceived drawing power involves many, many sources of bias.

And thanks for the movie tips!

Hollywood is huge, everyone has their own standards.

Now try doing that in China. Make the PLA the enemy or portray a corrupt out of control official in Chongqing like Bo Xilai. Not allowed, because it is way too close to the truth for comfort, maybe.

Example is Battle Los Angeles (2011) and American Sniper (2015). So such things are in effect "soft propaganda".

In China, to protect themselves against such soft influence, they enact regulations. Letting people watch all US movies without a filter is effectively letting US set the cultural standards and values.

I am not advocating for such a strategy, but since some other countries don't have the technological capability to make engaging soft cultural influence movies, I get where they're coming from.

Another film example is Act of Valor (2012). An enjoyable demonstration of real military hardware, accompanied by god mode special forces operators, jumping in to any country, saving the world from super villains. This film provides a sense of security to the US and it's allies whilst simultaneously instilling fear in it's enemies.

All respect to the real heroes out there, military and otherwise.

No, it's letting the people set the cultural standards and values, by deciding what to watch and what not to watch.

Assuming that is okay for a moment. Your solution to that is to give another small group of people the power to explicitly override that decision-making, by fiat, without even having to go through the motions of convincing propaganda.

Which is better how exactly? Because this latter small group of people will be "benevolent dictators", acting in the larger group's best interests even as they override its decisions? They certainly claim to be that, but why should we believe them over the other guys?

To me it seems that U.S. likes to portray government in a negative way in films, and in real life a sizeable portion of the people are also not happy with the government. The reverse is true in China.

I mentioned the difference in people-government relationship earlier but didn't think of the link to the media and film industry: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13203027

The existence of dissatisfaction with the American government probably drives production of subversive films, rather than the other way around. People are usually predisposed to media that fits their views, not the other way around.