Taipei, Taiwan – Hollywood has a China problem.
The world’s second-biggest economy has become one of the biggest markets for big-budget Hollywood films, but a racially motivated backlash against Disney’s The Little Mermaid is just the latest example of the price film studios can pay for ignoring China’s sensibilities injure.
Chinese state media and netizens have condemned the casting of the black Halle Bailey as Princess Ariel – echoing some Americans, who have expressed anger that the Atlanta-born actress is neither the fair-skinned character from the 1989 animated film nor from the Year 1837 resembles fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen.
In an editorial last month, The Global Times, an English-language Chinese tabloid known for its nationalist reporting, accused Disney of “turning classic fairy tales into ‘sacrificial lambs’ for political correctness” by casting non-white actors in classic fairy tales .
“When the beautiful stories that have accompanied the childhoods of countless children become scenes of racial conflict, they lose their meaning and, devoid of romance and fantasy, are replaced by arguments about skin color,” the tabloid said, stressing that such casting controversies not caused by others racism, but “lazy and irresponsible storytelling”.
The backlash – largely openly racist – has also been felt among ordinary Chinese moviegoers online.
On social media platforms like Sina Weibo, some users have criticized Bailey’s looks and black features.
Other Chinese online commentators left more positive reviews. A poster on the Mayoan film site said Bailey’s looks make little difference to children and she embodies Princess Ariel’s most important character trait – a brave spirit – well.
American actress Halle Bailey has received backlash for her role in Disney’s The Little Mermaid [File: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters]Though China doesn’t have the same racial history or politics as the US, viewers are still sensitive to how race is portrayed in Hollywood movies, said Chinese-born YouTuber Yao Zhang, who follows Chinese and Taiwanese news and culture from Canada.
Traditional Chinese beauty standards emphasize fair skin and big round eyes, Zhang said, and some viewers — and government officials — want to reflect Chinese values on screen.
“There is no right way of looking at it [the film in the US]’ Zhang told Al Jazeera. “But in China, there is a 100 percent correct way to understand it.”
Zhang likened the backlash to the public’s reaction to supermodel Lu Yan, whose small eyes and high cheekbones were considered unattractive in China but earned her respect in the West – although some Chinese bloggers have claimed Lu’s success was a Western ploy to get China through Denigration Making “ugly” women look bad.
Despite the negative press, The Little Mermaid performed poorly at the Chinese box office, grossing just US$3.6 million in the ten days following its May 26 release, according to Artisan Gateway, an international film consultancy.
According to the report, live-action remakes of Disney classics typically fetch between $40 million and $85 million in China.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Fast and Furious X, also released in May, have grossed about $80 and $120 million respectively since release.
The flop of The Little Mermaid is just the latest example of how difficult it has become for Hollywood to navigate one of the world’s largest and most lucrative motion picture markets, which once had an insatiable appetite for US films.
China is particularly competitive, with Chinese censors only accepting a few dozen foreign films a year. In May 2023, only 39 foreign films were released, including 18 Hollywood titles. Unlike decades past, Hollywood must also compete with a thriving domestic film industry producing its own blockbusters.
China is one of the largest film markets in the world [File: Aly Song/Reuters]Studios also face the dilemma of accepting changes to meet the demands of Chinese censorship or risk being forced out of the market.
Sony famously changed the 2012 remake of Red Dawn in post-production to show a North Korean invasion of the US instead of a Chinese one, costing the studio millions.
In 2016, a screenwriter for the Marvel action film Doctor Strange suggested that the background of the character “The Ancient One” had been changed from Tibetan to European in order not to anger China.
Spiderman: No Way Home, one of the highest-grossing films of all time, was banned from cinemas in China in 2021 after Marvel refused to cut the film’s “patriotic” ending, which is set in New York’s Statue of Liberty, reported the news site Puck cost the studio an estimated $170 million to $340 million in lost revenue.
Angering Chinese moviegoers may also have repercussions for other films or actors, which could dampen Hollywood’s appetite to defy Chinese censorship.
Disney’s 1998 animated film Mulan was famously delayed in China after the studio backed another film, Kundun, about the Dalai Lama, said Chris Fenton, a former Hollywood exec and author of Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Billion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA”. , & American Shop.
“They suppress everyone involved in a particular film, including the studio involved,” Fenton told Al Jazeera.
“Sometimes the blackballing is transient, like with Sony after Red Dawn or Disney after Kundun. Sometimes it’s almost permanent, as with [Dalai Lama supporter] Richard Gere, or possibly Brad Pitt — although we never know for sure if actors are banned or not. It just proves that the films they are involved in never get a license.”
Hollywood’s recent resistance to the trend will only work as long as the dollars and cents add up, as China is simply too big a market to ignore, Fenton said.
“Most of the time, money drives the drive to do the right thing or the wrong thing, but the good thing is that doing the right thing can now be more profitable,” he said.