U.S. lawmakers quiz Disney CEO over Xinjiang connection to 'Mulan'

[rooster59]

U.S. lawmakers quiz Disney CEO over Xinjiang connection to 'Mulan'

 

A cleaner walks past screens promoting Disney's movie "Mulan" as the film opens in China, at a cinema in Beijing, China September 11, 2020. REUTERS/Florence Lo

 

(Reuters) - A group of bipartisan U.S. lawmakers urged Walt Disney Co <DIS.N> CEO Bob Chapek to explain the company's connection with "security and propaganda" authorities of China's Xinjiang region during the production of live-action war epic "Mulan".

 

Disney's $200 million live-action remake of its animated classic about a female warrior in ancient China has run into controversy for being partly filmed in the Xinjiang region, where China's clampdown on ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims has been criticized by some governments, including the United States, and human rights groups.

 

"Disney's apparent cooperation with officials of the People's Republic of China (PRC) who are most responsible for committing atrocities - or for covering up those crimes - is profoundly disturbing," the Republican senators and representatives wrote in Friday's letter.

 

It urged Disney to make a detailed explanation.

 

The letter was retweeted by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), which monitors human rights and the rule of law and submits an annual report to President Donald Trump and Congress.

 

Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

The lawmakers, including former presidential candidate Marco Rubio, a Republican senator who co-chairs the CECC, said information on Beijing's role in the detention of Uighurs in Xinjiang was all over the media before the filming of "Mulan."

 

"The decision to film parts of Mulan in cooperation with the local security and propaganda elements, offers tacit legitimacy to those perpetrators of crimes that may warrant the designation of genocide."

 

China's foreign ministry has repeatedly denied the existence reeducation camps in the region, calling the facilities vocational and educational institutions and accusing what it calls anti-China forces of smearing its Xinjiang policy.

 

The lawmakers also asked Disney about the use of local labor, Uighurs or other ethnic minority labor, "as well as due diligence performed to ensure that no forced labor was used during the film's production."

 

The film, out on Disney's streaming service in many markets, was released in China on Friday and earned 46 million yuan ($6.7 million) at the box office by 8 p.m. (1200 GMT).

 

The Trump administration said this week it has prepared orders to block imports of cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang over the accusations of forced labor.

 

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-09-12

 

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[Dumbastheycome]

Pathetic !

[Dumbastheycome]

Can we  please re-visit  such any production of  movies involving  "heroism" in the conquest of Iraq in the illegal war search for  bogus  chemical weapons?

And  etc  etc for many other such infractions of international conventions by the US and others ?

There exists  a very  very  long list ! China certainly  features in it.

But the selective public presentation of the truth of that is opportunist in the extreme !

Polarized and manipulated perceptions via media of all formats as to the reality of reality is not a  hoax as Trump would prefer to  describe it. It is a deceptive facade formulated  to entrap and distract the majority.

In almost  every aspect that impacts the  global  community humanity  is at a point of  crisis.

The  sad and  quite  weird thing is  that we have arrived  at this point  in time in possession of technological and electronic capacity that if we were truely an intelligent animal would and could have,if  not already, at least be in the process of encompassing  the  humanitarian principles we express as  ideological ideals.

Instead  we  seem determined  to continue a primitive reactive path to annihilation.

The  objection   and  questioning   involved in this is  not  really about  humanitarian concern. It is  about  following through on a desire to thwart a perceived threat to an assumed  superior order that disregards true  humanitarian objectives  no less  than  any other.

Might  is  right...until it's  not ! Primitve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[yellowboat]

Disney's $200 million live-action financial disaster.  Spending that kind of money on such an old tale is silly.  For that price, there should have been a ride thrown in at Shanghai Disneyland. 

 

14 hours ago, rooster59 said:

"Disney's apparent cooperation with officials of the People's Republic of China (PRC) who are most responsible for committing atrocities - or for covering up those crimes - is profoundly disturbing," the Republican senators and representatives wrote in Friday's letter.

Disney has massive investments in China.  Of course, they complied with authorities there.   If the CIA does not know what is happening in parts of China, they are not doing their job.  

 

More damaging was the star's support of the Hong Kong police:   

 

[Emdog]

Seems like grandstanding to me by "lawmakers". If cooperating with local authorities is so reprehensible (Try making a film without local approval!) why didn't these moral compasses pass a law so that Disney would not be able to make their film there?

Disney is first and foremost a business out to make and maximize a profit. Same as Apple, Nike, etc.

If you don't want them to do business with China then make it illegal to do so.

If they acted within the law then <deleted> it's none of your business.

BTW I'm a liberal but this virtue signaling has gotten out of hand by sanctimonious across all of the spectrum

[chilli42]

I don’t know what the fuss is about.  The movie was shot almost entirely in New Zealand with minor scenes dropped in from China and a few other locations.  More virtue signaling.  Sick of this.

[Bender Rodriguez]

19 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Disney's $200 million live-action remake of its animated classic

say what now...

 

6,254,000,000.00 Thai Baht

[from the home of CC]

18 hours ago, Dumbastheycome said:

Can we  please re-visit  such any production of  movies involving  "heroism" in the conquest of Iraq in the illegal war search for  bogus  chemical weapons?

And  etc  etc for many other such infractions of international conventions by the US and others ?

There exists  a very  very  long list ! China certainly  features in it.

But the selective public presentation of the truth of that is opportunist in the extreme !

Polarized and manipulated perceptions via media of all formats as to the reality of reality is not a  hoax as Trump would prefer to  describe it. It is a deceptive facade formulated  to entrap and distract the majority.

In almost  every aspect that impacts the  global  community humanity  is at a point of  crisis.

The  sad and  quite  weird thing is  that we have arrived  at this point  in time in possession of technological and electronic capacity that if we were truely an intelligent animal would and could have,if  not already, at least be in the process of encompassing  the  humanitarian principles we express as  ideological ideals.

Instead  we  seem determined  to continue a primitive reactive path to annihilation.

The  objection   and  questioning   involved in this is  not  really about  humanitarian concern. It is  about  following through on a desire to thwart a perceived threat to an assumed  superior order that disregards true  humanitarian objectives  no less  than  any other.

Might  is  right...until it's  not ! Primitve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

yes desperate diversion at best, will be relieved when empathy replaces idiocy in Nov.