Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

Re:Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China by gbog on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @09:20PM (#13324167)

The American film industry is also a huge propaganda machine which is aimed at consolidating western cultural dominance over the world, expect it's not western culture anymore, it's just the U.S. Entertainment industry. In the movie and cartoon sectors only the Indians, the French and the Japanese can have a tiny slice of the cake, the Chinese have nothing. So it's the only survival path for them as an original form of human experience: block content that's too offensive, buy the producers to influence them, and recreate a local film industry. But the last step takes 50 years, meanwhile they have to keep guard.

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Re:Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China by seanmcdirmid on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @09:40PM (#13324270)

China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume. The best Chinese movies last year were mermaid and monster hunt...I saw both (bored on an air china flight), they were both absolutely awful.

There was a time in the late 90s when the golden Beijing Institute of Film class (the first one after the cultural revolution) was producing wonderful art house films that DID get viewership abroad. Sadly, this ended with increasing control of the gov over the film industry, and even the Taiwanese and Honk Kong films that we once enjoyed have disappeared to an industry that is now largely catering to the mainland market.

The future of the chinese film industry is more Warcraft and less "eat, drink man woman" (a Taiwan film) or "farewell my concubine" (I think the latter one was banned in the mainland), there is nothing there for us.

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Re:Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China by sangnoir on Thursday January 05, 2017 @03:29AM (#13325649)

> China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume

This is empirically false: Crouching Tiger, Ip Man 1-3 were all well-received[1] in the US. I could add anything by Jackie Chan (and for a while Jet Li), but not all if them were Chinese productions.

1. The first had some overt propaganda in the form of a sadistic but inept Japanese occupying officer.

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Re:Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China by seanmcdirmid on Thursday January 05, 2017 @09:34AM (#13327341)

Ip man wasn't that well received. Crouching tiger was the late 90s. Jackie Chan went Hollywood after the 90s.

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Re:Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China by nradov on Thursday January 05, 2017 @12:03AM (#13324894)

Nonsense. Since around 1970 the American film industry isn't aimed at anything more than making a profit (with an occasional bit of art for art's sake). Any propaganda effect is entirely incidental.

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Re:Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China by Intermernet on Thursday January 05, 2017 @05:27AM (#13326079)

I'm not sure about the veracity of these two articles[1][2], but there seem to be a lot of instances where the US government have provided assistance, and indeed applied pressure to Hollywood. I wouldn't call that "entirely incidental".

[1]: http://www.globalresearch.ca/lights-camera-covert-action-the...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/nov/14/thriller-ridley...

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Re:Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China by DanBC on Thursday January 05, 2017 @02:51PM (#13330717)

There are many US movies that involve military themes that are made with the assistance of the US military. It's not surprising that the US military chooses which films it works with. So, if you want a US aircraft carrier in your film you're going to either use CGI (relatively recently available for most films) or you're going to use a script that doesn't show the US in a bad light.

This isn't overt propaganda in the traditional sense, but the effect is the same.

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Re:Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China by seanmcdirmid on Thursday January 05, 2017 @01:51AM (#13325282)

The film industry has been oriented at making a profit since the late 1800s.

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Re:Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China by ap22213 on Thursday January 05, 2017 @12:49AM (#13325050)

S. Korea and Japan make some great films that are also globally profitable and influential. Seems like there's something else going on that is stifling China's film industry.

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