A Chinese woman just made history in being the first woman of colour to win a best picture Oscar as Chloe Zhao took home the top award of the ceremony for her film Nomadland. A remarkable achievement — but why is China censoring this news in her home country?
Chinese influence over Hollywood is an increasingly thorny issue. The market represents big business that studios are loath to forgo, but escalating tensions between America and China, and the issue of collaborating with human rights abuses, makes further integration difficult.
Discussing these tensions between a censorious CCP and American businesses is Chris Fenton, author of Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, & American Business. He joins host Sonny Bunch on The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood podcast and lays out the case that this is a problem that is not going away. The western world needs to contend with this issue in a meaningful way, he says.
“The average american or the average citizen of the western world isn’t thinking about China in the way that we need to. I’m not saying they are an enemy of ours, but they are a real challenge that affects all of us in so many different ways and we have to start discussing and thinking about it more. Because quite frankly China is accelerating towards this self-independence and a really powerful, spread-its-wings superpower at lightning speed. We are running out of time,” said Fenton
