Wonder the Woman: Identity Politics + Wonder Woman = A Problematic Post.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Somehow, Wonder Woman keeps ending up atop the plinth of misdirected self-absorbed outrage.  Apparently, this time it's because a distinct lack of visible armpit hair is an affront to everything in the universe and you're a misogynist agent of the patriarchy if you don't get out in-front of DC's offices right the hell now with a protest sign and 3 different whistles.  It is amazing how identity politics wielded as a cudgel by out-of-touch people just ruins everything it encounters.  Actually that's not amazing. What is amazing is that this is working its way into pop-culture via a most agonizing exploitation of ridiculous minutia.

Just to point something out, I naturally don't have any significant armpit hair.  It's always been like that.  You gonna get on my case for not growing it out harder?  WTF.

Get Woke, Go Broke.
Via Living with Hipstergirl and Gamergirl

The above sentiment is what brings an added degree of frustration to this mess.  The people doing all the bellyaching, moaning, whining, kvetching, shouting, ranting, back-turning, and finger waving or whatever various other unproductive disruptive activities they do, know exactly nothing about Wonder Woman other than "something something The Patriarchy!"  They also will never bother to learn.  To many people critical of these things, pop-culture is still something for the "nerds" or "basement dwellers" out there and they themselves with their oh so mighty opinions of what is and isn't appropriate are just so much more sophisticated.  It's understandable that people thought that way in 1987, but not 2017.  Seriously, ask one of them what Wonder Woman's real name is and they'll have no idea, but they'll have plenty to say about her outfit and what books/art you should be able to read or buy.  These social pontifications serve only to damage an existing brand and prevent people from accessing it who wish to do so.  Therein lies the problem.  The "I think it's bad!  So no one can have access to it no matter what" mentality is simply censorship under the guise of socially progressive propositions.  But this does not build anything, nor does it offer alternatives to something they believe is deficient in terms of being "woke" or whatever the comic book equivalent of that is.  It just destroys what it deems as antithetical to its own sensibilities and moves on to a new target. Or just comes back to bashing Wonder Woman again because these people are insane.

Yes this actually happened. 

This is either sexism or the school engaging in micro-tyrancy. Or both.

Yes that's a school punishing a student for bringing "violent imagery" into the classroom in the form of those above images.  This is most likely a case of not only hostility to Wonder Woman, but also the broader problem that schools have devolved into Zimbardian nightmares of out of control administrators and teaching staff, seeking to dehumanize every student to the point where they can exercise absolute control over them.  There is really not much difference between punishing a student for something so innocuous as the instance above, and that scene in Cool Hand Luke where the prison guards make him dig a hole and then fill it back in just for the hell of it, so they can show him who's boss.  It doesn't end well in either situation.

Returning to the armpit hair issue, Wonder Woman is Greek, and has been alive for a long time.  Regarding specific tastes, you ever see Ancient Greek statues?  You know what's not there on the ones of both women and men?  Armpit hair.  So maybe we can get historical accuracy in on this and say that it is period specific if it means so much to people?  Actually, she's basically half Goddess, so she probably has the ability to straight up will her hair right the fuck off any part of her whenever the fuck she feels like it. 

Hell, the Ancient Egyptians hated body hair so much they all shaved and waxed every inch of themselves (that's both the havers of XX and XY chromosomes), so if an Ancient Egyptian character had no armpit hair and a bikini wax, would that be sexist?  Of course not, it would be straight up historically accurate, but some people would call it sexist anyway by incorrectly applying modern social norms to areas outside their effective purview.

Something something, PH balanced, something something, punchline.

UNwoke:

Oh but that isn't the only bone of picking that the Anti-Wonder-Warriors have with Wonder Woman.  In late 2016, she was "fired" from being an Honorary U.N.  Ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls, because... sexism I guess.  Like maybe she is sexist, or represents sexism or is the result of sexism ...something stupid, the reasons don't make a lot of sense.  This kind of thing is so ridiculous.  Sure there are legitimate issues of sexism and imperialism you could bring up when talking about an affiliation of Wonder Woman with the U.N., however the action was intended to be positive, and helpful.  Then, rather than offer a replacement role-model, these protest people seem only concerned with tearing her down.   A fictional character getting removed from a semi-fictional position at the non-fictional U.N., is something that is apparently worthy of major action, because nothing says gender equality and female empowerment like firing a woman because of her looks. 

This guy knows what I'm talkin' about...
Yes that should worry you, it's terrible.

The armpit-police and people cheering Wonder Woman's removal from the U.N. are some of the same people out there who will insist that the 2016 Ghostbusters is the best movie ever and you're a total misogynist agent of the patriarchy rapist if you didn't go see it 17 times in the theater when it came out.  But then still admit the movie itself was bad when they think no one is listening.  The thing is, they really are wasting everyone's time.  Their efforts might better serve women's issues if directed at other situations, such as;
  
Saudi Arabia is on the UN Human Rights Council.  You know, this place:

 

 

 

She's dead now.  Seriously.

Yes you heard right, Saudi fucking Arabia is (somehow) on the U.N. Human Rights Council.  Saudi Arabia should not be on the U.N. Human Rights Council.  They behead people for "witchcraft" there.  But yay, you got Wonder Woman fired over using a Schick, because what kind of message is the U.N. sending by associating with a fictional character who has been portrayed battling sexism herself but has the wrong outfit on while doing it and was "too sexy" or something...  she should cover up I guess!  Hey wait, doesn't Saudi Arabia have something she can use? 

It's a good thing the U.N. isn't doing anything else that might send out an even worse message to the world... like letting the country where this shit happens (Warning: very disturbing image) have a say in how the world approaches human rights. 



You probably forgot, but...

Most of these girls (and lots of others as well) are still missing, but that hashtag you put on your twitter 3 years ago is definitely totally helping, they should be getting rescued by Instagram any minute now.   You know Vine was actually killed for getting too close.  

Wouldn't it be great if there were perhaps a League out there, which dedicated itself to Justice, made up of people with powers beyond that of average people, they could rescue these kidnapped children by using those powers for good...  perhaps rescued by a Wondrous Woman if you will, who would fight for the safety of other women and girls throughout the world? 


You're about to open up Google Maps right now...

There is still a violent war and terrifying rape epidemic in the Central African Republic.  I am guessing you don't know where that is.  But hey, you wrote an angry Facebook post when Harambe got shot so it totally evens out (I am guessing you can't remember what the date was when that happened either). 



Hey look, a little closer to home...

 

People are still starving to death in Venezuela.  Yeah it's starting to get close to Raft of the Medusa levels of terrible over there.

Too depressing?  Here's a First World problem for you...

The art instillation in New York City known as Fearless Girl is a temporary one and is scheduled for removal at a later date.  There is vocal support for making it permanent.  All you have to do is contact the office of the Mayor and if you live in NYC you should also contact your City Council Representative.  If you don't live in NYC, you are still a potential visitor/tourist/student/whatever so you should write in anyway.  If you have 5 minutes and a stamp, this shouldn't be a hard decision to make.

There, I just listed a bunch of stuff that you really should be concerned about, and might be able to actually do something that resembles helping, depending on the resources you have available to you.  You're not helping anyone involved by "checking" your "privilege" ...you help by using it to improve situations for others.

Maybe just stick to TV?
Coming back to super-hero movies, I would like to add the disclaimer that I hate hero movies.  Marvel/DC cinematic tripe is something I actively avoid.  With the exception of 30 minutes of Iron Man I saw on an airplane, I have not, nor do I intend to see any of this garbage (this includes GI Joe and Transformers).  So I already know I don't like this movie, but it's because I think the movie is going to be crap (DC couldn't even make Harley Quinn: The Movie without fucking it the hell up).  It's not because of some sort of warped notion of social values that I am avoiding this thing.

Another disclaimer I should make is that it seems apparent that the notion of armpit hair on Wonder Woman to be but a cause du jour with a relatively limited number of people and is most likely getting CNN-ed way out of proportion by the media machine.  Since Trump's tweets don't bring in the viewers like they used to, they have to come up with something.  My writing this is most likely in no way helping the situation either.  Actually since only 4 people are going to read this I don't think it's going to make any difference.

Comic book stories as TV have definitely contributed to our new golden age of television that we are currently enjoying.  Walking Dead, Lucifer, Preacher, DareDevil, Arrow, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, ...and The Flash I guess?  Is The Punisher still a show?  Also Iron Fist exists.  I know there's more and I'm not even going to go into animated shows but there's now so many all at once that it becomes possible to start doing actual scatter-plots with this stuff. Television actually removes the three main components that usually combine and conspire to kill major movies and make them utterly shitty.  So what specifically is it that makes TV better?

Hey, Maze, you got... a little something... on your... um... never-mind.

#1: No MPAA.  TV Ratings turned into a joke the day VOD became widespread.  With entire streaming services out there now making original content, the notion of making a solidified TV rating system akin to the draconian MPAA a reality, is reduced to a complete fallacy.  I have previously mentioned how damaging MPAA ratings are and most moviegoers who aren't 100 years old have recognized them as mostly useless relics of time when interracial marriage was illegal.  

As long as movies mutilate themselves in some sort of manic episode of body-dismorphia, cutting off their own fingers to fit within the glove of the "commercially viable" PG-13 rating, we will get nothing but equally mutilated works of cinema.  Like a super-model with anorexia, it is not fun to look at, no matter what designer rag you drape around it and how much "confidence" it has.  Hey parents, if you're not convinced yet, then go watch 007: Casino Royale then go watch The King's Speech. Now come back and tell me which rating should be on which movie. 

#2: China hasn't ruined TV yet like it has ruined movies.  The CCP exherts a serious amount of control over Hollywood.  No, there are not people sitting in some dark room, wearing sunglasses, calling the shots and slowly smoking cigarettes while ominous music plays.  However, in financial planning, China as a market is now a significant fixture in earning projections for any project.  Producers, writers, and studio executives now have to take this into account when they decide what projects to finance and how they want them to be made.  So because of that, if you don't think that every major movie made by Hollywood studios has entire teams around them which have the sole function of making sure the final product will meet Chinese government censorship standards and resonate with Chinese audiences, then you haven't been paying attention over the past decade. So, low context stories and simple dialogue, jokes that are more "universal" and therefore more pedestrian, and a style that favors slapstick and visual effects over depth and intensity, those are what you will see a lot of, and those qualities are usually what makes a movie a stinking pile of shit.  That's why Ghostbsters 2016 sucked, it was counting on China and desperately tried to make it appealing to that audience as well... didn't really work out for them.

So to recap, Movies are multi-million dollar investments, the investors are going to want to earn as much as possible on them, and that means following CCP rules. That's how investing works.  Unfortunately, this leads to un-funny, one-dimensional, rubber-stamp stories with dialogue so simple you can't tell if the entire cast has brain damage.  Since TV doesn't need to kowtow (look, a pun) to the CCP, they can get very deep into the high-context type of narrative that domestic audiences can appreciate.  They also not only are able to freely ignore Chinese Government censorship laws but U.S. ones as well.

As awesome as this looks, it would probably end up as a shit movie unless you involve Rule 34.

#3:  Technology... technology everywhere.  This is a broad one, but technology has allowed for productions the level of which would have been unthinkable even as recently as 10 years ago. Higher production values with less equipment.  Post production and effects that can be done in a single home-studio by a creative professional.  And a pool of talent that is able to get more done remotely than ever before.  These things help make the mega-hits possible. 

But wait there's more!  It's not just RED cameras and production technology that is helping, but media delivery and storage technology as well.  When you have a delivery system that frees the audience from an appointed airtime, you have fundamentally changed how people can consume media.  For example, although the last episode of Breaking Bad aired years ago, if I wanted to get into the show, I could still just fire up the Netflix and watch every episode on my own time without having to purchase packaged media which takes up space and has no exit for me to bail in case I end up not liking the show.  No more rushing home to catch whatever episode of anything because you can watch it on your tablet tomorrow on your way to work.  While this can lead to an overwhelming feeling when you realize how much is out there, it is ultimately helpful in building bases which have strong loyalty and follow-through.  It lets people integrate this entertainment into their lives and schedules like never before, which will lead to increased commitment when it comes to following a series.

Netflix is your friend.  Who could not like this show?

So in terms of Wonder Woman, though I don't like Marvel/DC dreck, I actually hope the movie does well, because there is a notion out there about a crossover between the DC and the Power Rangers universes.  I don't know why, but that actually sounds like it would be cool.  I am sure people will complain about something being sexist and all kinds of other -ists and so on, but if both Wonder Woman and Power Rangers are successful, then a tidal wave of investment capital is going to push right through any opposition, whatever it may be, and that movie is gonna get made.

 

Please line up for the armpit sexism check.  Armpit sex is ok though, it's just armpit sexism that's banned.  It means what you think it means.

Cinematic Suckage: Oh shit, gonna talk about Ghostbusters.

As much as I would like to make this nothing but a review of Ghostbuster 2 and be like "haha made you look" I am actually going to cover a topic which is exemplified by the most recent Ghostbusters movie release in 2016.

Remember when I mentioned that large cinematic productions in the USA were going to start becoming very different because of international influences?  Of course you don't you were 15 back then and now you're in college and you are spending most of your time trying to shut down the campus cafeteria because "taco Tuesday" is cultural appropriation.  No not all of you but there is totally at least one person out there doing that who is also reading this.  But some furry weirdo who I've totally never met in real life over at Geek Nights which is totally not something I've ever heard of has sent some peopl here who got all butt-hurt because I wrote something about Wizard World and SJW bullshit and apparently SJW now means something that applies to way more people than it should, and I get called me an Alt-Right GamerGate MRA or something (I actually had to look up what Alt-right was ...being a volunteer for the Green Party I was kind of surprised at that label, and I have steadfastly refused to learn anything about Gamer Gate at all... seriously I still have no idea what it is other than something to do with video games and Gawker/Kotaku and since I can't play games because of extremely poor eyesight, I still don't feel like learning anything about it.  Seriously for a while I thought was a literal gate of some kind).   Either way, whatever I did was apparently way worse than planting land mines outside a school in the in civil war combat zones of The Democratic Republic of the Congo right fucking now... go ahead google it, there's some terrible stuff happening there. I know you wouldn't know how to find that country on a map let alone name the capital of it (so I'll give you a hint, it's Kinshasa).   I think all it takes is a few minutes to read other posts here to realize that I am so leftist that I am almost, but not quite, a walking Che Guevara t-shirt.  Yay, it's the second paragraph and we're already way off topic.

But back then, what I did say, was that in order movies to access the Chinese market, which is something that studios are now starting to depend on rather than considering it just gravy, films have to comply with the Chinese censorship laws which are pretty much just arbitrary and antithetical to American values in terms of having a government body determine what is and is not allowable.  Seriously just go read the thing. American creative works have thrived because of the protections afforded by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and organizations like the ACLU and the CBLDF.  There is no other country in the world that allows creative freedom on the level that the USA does (seriously, even when we sold DVDs in Canada and Australia at Crash Media, we need approval from their Federal and Provincial governments regarding content).  China is pretty high up on the list of heavy-handed shit when it comes to censorship in media, and the hoops that major companies jump through not only effect what the final film is on a fundamental level, but do not serve as a guarantee that the film itself will still be approved for China.  So after following all the "rules" that the government of The PRC has, there is still a chance that the film will still be declared inadmissible.

I actually haven't seen the movie.  I actually haven't seen a movie in a theater for about 4 years now and I don't plan on doing it any time soon, since paying $20 to sit in an uncomfortable chair while trying to watch a movie over idiots on their phones and other people's farts isn't my idea of a good time.  However, I have come across a number of reviews and the negative aspects mentioned seem to have a significantly common small number of themes. So here are some of the main points that are brought up in recent reviews, and why they may have a bit more to do with China than you might realize:

The Visual Effects Sucked:

If you look into the history, you'll find that this Ghostbusters movie was submitted more than once to the Chinese government for approval.  They didn't submit the same version twice, they made some changes.  The reason the ghosts looked like crap, were cartoon-like, or didn't stay true to the original movies, is because they were all re-done after the first time China rejected the thing on the "realistic supernatural" grounds.  It changes didn't take, and it was still rejected.  It's probably not because they didn't toonify the ghosts enough, but because one of them had an Uncle Sam USA Stars and Stripes outfit on.   Seriously, if you think your stupid company you work for is in the dark ages regarding what kind of imagery is appropriate, imagine what kind of bubble the Party of the PRC lives in.

The Jokes Fell Flat:

Of course they did.  The humor this movie needed is high-context, but that almost never translates well.  You ever notice how just about every big Hollywood production seems like it was written by someone who is deliberately making it easy to translate into languages other than English?  So in stead of "Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!" we get ecto-puking slapstick, a Linda Blair impression, and a nut-shot. It was likely being written by someone who was deliberately making it easy to translate into languages other than English.  The important language in that mix is Chinese. It is, I'm not making this up.   This is the reason that things like nuance, colloquialisms, and high-context humor are avoided.  They are very difficult to translate because you can't just literally replace the words, but you have to find a cultural equivalent strong enough to convey the implication or idea.  The PRC and the USA  don't share much modern cultural equivalence.  Therefore, the simpler the joke, the easier it will translate.  This is why the nut-shot on the marshmallow man isn't sexist.  It's a nut-shot, which have been funny since Ancient Egypt and remain funny to this day.

Misogyny:

ZOMG TRIGGRZ!!!!!  What do you think is more misogynist, the American movie-going public, or the Communist Party of China?  C'mon you know it's the second one.  Sexism in China is much more entrenched in both everyday life, and the highest levels of government than it is in the USA.  Go ahead, argue against me, cite a bunch of sources, or better yet, film something there that proves me wrong.   Christopher Hitchens once (actually a few times) articulated the fact I wish to cite better than I ever could, and to paraphrase, he said, that for a country to truly be free and successful, there needs to be an absolute equality between men and women at every level.   I know many women from the PRC, and none of them think they are being treated equally, though in public they would never admit such a thing. Why?  Because they are absolutely terrified of going to jail... seriously!  The PRC banned the movie because of a number of things, but you can be sure that the empowerment of women was one of those reasons.

Fuck Japan:

If the movie was made by Warner Brothers or Paramount, then it might have made it through after kowtowing enough (FYI the word kowtow is one of the few English words of Chinese origin). But the studio behind this one was SONY.  It's Japanese.  You know who really don't like the Japanese?  Yeah... the Communist Party of China.  Make no mistake, they are totally still in charge over there and what they say goes.  You know what they all agree on?  It is called "Fuck Japan" all the time.  So if they can dodge a direct accusation of unfair trade but still screw over a Japanese company, yeah, they'll probably do it. So it is reasonable to assume that no matter how many times SONY re-submitted the movie, it was still gonna get rejected.

Notice I'm not mentioning the cast:

I haven't seen the movie so I don't really know if they were good, they phoned it in, or if their talents were wasted on dumb gimmick type stuff.

This is good for women in media:

There are people out there who are busy yelling MISOGYNY at literally anyone who thought that this movie might actually suck.  They assert that any sort of criticism of this film just has to be from misogyny and can't be from anything else and you'll never change their mind.  Those people exist. This tactic has been also been done by various Dwarkin supporters regarding literally anything that had a human male involved (what? you thought screaming "sexism" loud and often enough to shut everything down was new?  That's been happening since the 70's...
But the thing is, the people doing that didn't realize that a huge percent of the American movie-going public are ....wait for it... women oh who would have thought!  And surprise surprise, some women actually like pop culture and know what they're talking about when it comes to a shit movie. These XX chromosome-having people, were able to give their fair and honest opinions of this turd of a movie, free from the reflexive attacks which relied solely on  calling the critic misogynist no matter what.   Seriously, you could write about the craft services going over-budget on an accounting forum and someone will call it sexist (I don't know who, but someone will).  Since you can't do that to someone who is the owner of their very own vagina, these knee-jerkers had nothing, and so reviews like these  are the best and most honest ways to find out information about this movie and decide for yourself if you feel like paying money to go see it.  They're by women you might never have heard of otherwise.











These channels exist, and these people exist.  Now you know.  There are people just now discovering these channels because they want an unbiased review of Ghostbusters 2016.  They are hosted by women and written by women, and they are getting more views than average because the rage machine can't stop them from saying what they think.  They are rising to the forefront and getting a huge amount of attention, because they are unassailable in this case.  They are being seen by thousands of people because they are the only source of unbiased commentary about a movie that everyone know sucks, but which everyone is afraid to say so.

Criticize Ghostbusters 2016 in public and you are going to be the target of a serious political movement.  Which country are we in again?

Oh...

Well the rule is give the "People" what they want.

That's show business.  There's no business like it, no business I know.

Now if you'll excuse me I am gonna take that $20 I saved from not going to the movies and go buy a bottle of Tequila and watch Netflix.

I for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords.

-
Welcome to the century of American decline.

It's not what you think... ok maybe it is.

As I have mentioned before, what little impact that the American market has on anime and manga productions in terms of creative influence has more or less evaporated with the market bubble bursting a few years ago. Now it seems that China’s emergence as a substantial market force will ensure that such influence never returns (at least not easily), by expanding its own gravitational field into the minds of the key decision makers at studios and publishers who tell the artists and writers what to do.

Case in point, Sanrio’s Hello Kitty theme park is expanding in to China, not the USA. If you think that it’s geographic proximity that is the reason for this, then you seriously need to go back to 8th grade economics. I haven’t seen the actual data and analytics that no doubt took place in abundance before an investment of this magnitude got made, but I am quite sure that I can imagine what they looked like. The (very simplified) end results being something like:

Do this equation in the USA and the answer is more of a “meh” with a higher risk assessment based on lower brand awareness, higher costs for labor and what I am sure are more stringent safety regulations. This kind of business migration has been going on for a very long time in certain segments like manufacturing and agri-business (where Brazil is making a killing). Things progressing as they are, this is going to start happening in the entertainment industry as well and that includes manga and anime, as well as games, and stuff that has yet to be invented.

Many of the responses that came in from the Galapagos Article, seemed to miss the point it made, and argued that the absence of input from the American market was a good thing. That it created a unique difference in the type of entertainment media that manga and anime develop into, and it was exclusively because of that difference that manga and anime were “good.” However, that’s a flawed argument which seemed to be lost on those readers, despite it being highlighted in the same piece with the “mayonnaise on pizza” example. The Japanese put mayo on pizza as a standard, it developed because of lack of input from the American market, and it’s very different from American commercial pizza. Yet, most Americans don’t find it particularly appealing, and that’s because this quality of “difference” by itself is no guarantee of success in other markets. There has to be more than that in the equation.

It is the “more-than-that” which is in danger of being turned in a direction wherein manga and anime may become more appealing to other markets and less appealing to Americans. This is where China will play a large role. While still regarded as the “wild west” in terms of copyright there are two major factors that will continue to make it an emerging force in commercial media: 1) The government is still trying to crack down on copyright violations because as they enter a global economy, not being able to stop IP and brand piracy makes them look bad, and 2) Size Matters; Even if your property suffers 50% piracy, that’s still the other 50% of the Chinese market that didn’t pirate it, and 50% of China is 200% of the entire USA. That’s a profitable gambit no matter how you look at it. This means that when faced with the decision of story-lines, music, translations, release schedules, operations, and marketing input, China is going get a seat at the table.

It’s no guarantee that just because there is more of a minding of Chinese market and cultural sensibilities that it will result in an evolution of manga and anime into something that becomes unwatchable by American otaku standards... but there’s no guarantee that won’t happen either. The Chinese entertainment market is still under the choke-hold of a totalitarian government, hellbent on making sure that even the most abstract negative representations of itself or anything close to it, are ruthlessly stamped out. Creative freedom does not live in China, despite the PR blitz. Many of the citizens in the PRC are ok with that, and are drinking the kool aid. When I was living in Tokyo, the PRC Chinese students I was with actually made statements like “China has never violated human rights” with a straight face. When confronted by the below photo, they actually called it a fake, as they had never seen it before and had no idea what it was, when or why it happened.

FAKE!!!!!!!!

So here you have a huge market, wearing blinders to their own government’s imposed artistic limitations, who want to see certain story lines and character archetypes that are quite unique and mostly dissimilar to the ones that the manga and anime market currently produce. Producers are actively including native Chinese speakers in development planning sessions, while native English is nowhere to be found. Size and logistics are really working against the USA in this situation, and with the American economy fucked every which way, it’s not an attractive place to be. If you don’t believe me just ask Tokyo Pop.

The reason this is a serious concern, is that this is a “pull” and not a “push” situation, and that makes for a deeper and more long-lasting set of changes. China is an attractive market and the motivation to do business there is coming from a genuine desire within foreign companies, not from China demanding this, that, or the other. There is no shortage of precedence when it comes to companies agreeing to play by Chinese rules to enter Chinese markets, but in the case of art & entertainment in particular, there have been no high-contrast external examples, until March of 2011. MGM (now Touchstone) announced that they would be changing the “bad guys” in the Red Dawn remake from the PRC to the DPRK (the DPRK is North Korea btw), and make this change retroactively all in post-production. This is the most glaring example of artistic story being bent to the will of industry executives, because those executives do not want to offend Chinese sensibilities. No Chinese bad guy for you!

The reason for this goes far beyond worrying about the Chinese box office for this one particular film. The reason this is happening is because this property is now over at Touchstone, and The Mouse wants in on China bad, and he's already plenty tied up in Chinese investments even now. To make Chinese investors angry is never a good idea, especially in his situation. With this change, he can claim he’s done something of value for the great People’s Republic by swapping them out for the Norkos (even though that makes the film itself seem pretty retarded... ok more retarded). An extreme example to be sure, but it proves the possibility of this happening not only exists, but can be brought to fruition. In order not to offend PRC investors and Government (because you can't separate those two), an American movie playing to an American audience is being significantly altered. Think about that for a minute.

This is from the movie.

I can't really get too angry about that though, as this change wasn't brought by the hand of a government agency, but rather the forces within the private sector, a field in which I operate in. Complaining about it is one thing, but condemning it is a bit too hippie for me. Since I don't own any Disney or MGM shares, the only influence I can exert is that I could either go see it or not go see it, buy the DVD or not buy it. One could also legitimately argue that other films (particularly ones form the UK) have had to make changes to be better adapted to an American audience because the studio wants in on the US Market, and this kind of thing isn't new. But this is a case of a film aimed at it's own domestic market being changed in its own domestic market for the sake of other business interests, not to make the film itself more competitive. That adds another dimension.

Back to the topic at hand; If it wasn’t already clear a few years ago, it should be very clear now, that manga and anime are drifting away from the need to even participate in the US Market. All you undergrad kiddies taking Japanese 101 and thinking you’ll be getting a job in the industry are just setting yourself up for a world of disappointment worse than the one Harold Camping is living in right now (Camping may be upset, but he’s still sitting on a pile of money, you'll have student loans to deal with).

The worst part about this situation, is that the only way the US market can increase its viability (outside of stopping scanlation and fansub piracy), is by getting Big Hollywood back into the picture. These players can shell out for massive theatrical licenses and marketing to the point where they are still the biggest kids on the block. This in turn, creates a market for a great many smaller licenses and spin-off productions which generate enough revenue to stay relevant. Unfortunately, that has been tried, and the result was...

Worse than going to the dentist.

The final curve-ball in this mess which is working against American otaku, is that the USA is still dealing with the near-fatal cultural damage caused by the CCA and the MPAA. Their many years of bully pulpit blathering, and acts of financial terrorism had firmly entrenched any works based on comic illustration (that includes all graphic novels and all animation) were viewed strictly as for kids or the “Family Segment” as modern marketing likes to call it. While it’s true that modern audiences are leaving those notions behind, and movie ratings have been exposed for the scam that they are, this mode of thinking is still much more firmly entrenched where it counts; the investment community. The lines that many audience members no longer see which restrict comics and animation to kiddy-land, are still very indelibly fixed when it comes to project funding. I once worked on a huge pitch for a *Big Toy Company that isn’t Mattel*, with a martial arts anime geared for the 8-14 boys segment. I put a lot of hours into it and was just starting when I was cut off by one of the suits, who said it wasn’t appropriate for boys because (get this) there was a female supporting character in it. Yep, the exec took a look at the crowd-shot with all the characters, noticed that one of them was a chick, and flat out stopped everything right there. When I pointed out that there were less female characters in my property than the multi billion dollar property that was Pokemon, the exec retorted that Pokemon was a “fluke” property. Not caring to ever do business with *Big Toy Company that isn’t Mattel* again (whoopsie me) I responded with “You don’t know what you’re talking about, it isn’t the 1980’s any more,” turned, and left. The mentality of firmly drawn demographic lines and age-exclusive mediums is still very much alive where it counts, and doing as much damage as it possibly can. With that mode of thinking still posing a significant barrier to audience development and engagement, China wins again, because that problem doesn’t exist there. They've got other problems to be sure, but that's not one of them.

This isn’t going to be instant, and the PRC does a great job at putting its foot in its mouth when it comes to trying to sustain an image of something other than Stalinism for the 21st Century. But business has to go where the money is, and people don’t care. If you cared, you wouldn’t have “made in China” stamped on all the crap in your house and probably the stuff your wearing right now.

To conclude, this is not a political observation. I am not Becking about some impending takeover a-la Red Dawn (it's a movie dude... empty calories for wasting the mind's time). I'm talking about rather pedestrian market forces here. These forces make certain facts a likely reality. The fact that in the future (not instantly, but within 10 years), the Chinese market will be a significant source of influence in Japan's manga and anime industry, is something that I think is quite likely. Additionally, it could mean some very good things for the industry and the type of productions that will be made, or it could mean not so good things and manga & anime it will have less of an appeal to American audiences and shrink its American footprint. It's a coin-toss. So prepare to gradually be exposed to manga and anime that are still “different,” but not the same "different" as we're used to.

I'm still gonna go see it.
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