The map looks indeed ridiculous. And I don't know if the movie was trying to appeal to China, or whether it was actually some misguided sarcasm, but the whole dashed-line isn't just some small controversy. It is a big deal, if not the deal for the whole area. Just last year, Uncharted (another AAA movie I believed) was also banned by both Vietnam and Philippines.
At this point, if your movie is banned due to this issue, I don't think it was accidental anymore. This is the third hundred-million dollars movie that was banned for this reason just in the past few years.
I have no opinion on whether movie should try to avoid the issue itself, but I do think it's justifiable and non-surprising (ie. it's good) that the government bans the movie. Geopolitics is both hard and weird, and being consistent is good.
> I don't know if the movie was trying to appeal to China, or whether it was actually some misguided sarcasm
...or we could apply Hanlon's razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"). One way or the other, I imagine a poor graphics artist at Mattel Films (or whatever company was responsible for that map) is in very hot water right now...
"The White House said on Monday that recent encounters between U.S. and Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea reflect a growing aggressiveness by Beijing's military that raises the risk of an error in which somebody gets hurt."
That dotted line is not just a claim, it's where Chinese gunships will patrol and where Chinese bombers do exercise flights. I am actually surprised that the US government is so happy to tolerate large US companies completely undermining their own geopolitical position just to increase profits, like with Blizzard.
"The public's response, which included a boycott and a letter from United States Congress representatives to Activision Blizzard, prompted Blizzard to reduce the punishment, but not to eliminate it."
I believe what all those movies and the Blizzard incident show is that the dream of large profits from China appears to be extremely successful at influencing US companies to help with China's agenda. And the US government appears to be not too successful at preventing that. Also, there is some history w.r.t. that line in movies and on merchandise:
"In pursuit of this goal, China uses any means it can to promote the visibility of the nine-dash line, displaying it on passports, maps, exported globes, movies, books, online games, clothing, tourist leaflets, booklets, television shows, and more. A case in point—in October 2019, a nine-dash map was visible in “Abominable,” an animated family movie jointly produced by China-based Pearl Studio and America’s DreamWorks Animation. In 2018, a group of Chinese tourists wearing T-shirts with a nine-dash line drawing arrived in Vietnam."
"I am actually surprised that the US government is so happy to tolerate large US companies completely undermining their own geopolitical position just to increase profits, like with Blizzard."
They tolerate it because it doesn't affect the politics of the situation, and because the 1st amendment guarantees freedom of speech, so any action to try and stop them would be struck down by the courts.
>I am actually surprised that the US government is so happy to tolerate large US companies completely undermining their own geopolitical position just to increase profits
Well that's because until Pompeo, US had no formal position on sovereignty claims - US historic position was neutrality and now just whatever is anti PRC. It takes time for US to manufacture consent and decouple / "derisk" markets until companies get the hint or are forced to.
> I am actually surprised that the US government is so happy to tolerate large US companies completely undermining their own geopolitical position just to increase profits
If this surprises you, I don’t think you’ve considered who the ruling class of capitalist society is, and whose wishes the government, therefore, naturally embodies, and what that implies its actual interests are.
Sounds absolutely awesome haha. Mind if I ask what your job was at the time? What were your interactions with the gun boats like? What exactly were you surveying in the Spratly Islands? Did you ever run into pirates?
Software developer for a land based mine planning company branching out into ocean based exploration software.
Interactions with gun boats were stop, talk, stand aside while people wander about, passport inspections, and (allegedly!) envelopes of cash and stacks of soft core magazines disapeared (after being left out).
If you check the Spratly Dispute link we're talking Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Borneo, etc. anybody with an interest. Often with Russian, US, UK observers | advisors from major petro companies.
Maps showing borders are best avoided in disputed areas - just map the physical earth forms and leave poltical boundaries off if you want to avoid trouble.
I had the same issue in the disputed areas between Pakistan and India - not the place to travel with a map showing boundaries, someone will always disagree with any line drawn.
> However, the outlet said, Vietnam and the Philippines aren't negligible markets, where a Hollywood hit "can earn anywhere from $5 million to over $10 million in each country."
I'm wondering if the firms already calculated that appeasing China brings in more than $10 million.
Unlike Maverick, where the scenes of the authentic jacket were ultimately worth sacrificing the entire Chinese market. That was a proper Taiwan patch though, rather than these vague dots. Respect.
>China was never going to allow a movie that made the American military look so damn cool.
Even in Europe I saw they're not that comfortable with it. In Austria they had recruitment posters ads outside the theater entrance and they played ads about joining the Austrian airforce before the movie, to try convince you to join the Austrian airforce so you can fly the only two functioning Eurofighter Typhoons in service lol.
China did their own Top Gun movie featuring their own Chendu jets.
I'm not sure what was your intended use of the word "either", but I'd be careful calling movies like Maverick "US propaganda". Maverick is a privately produced movie that appeals to the American national sentiment, and the world's fascination with the US Military, but it's NOT government propaganda. The US Military was happy to see the movie, obviously, and fully supported its development with consulting services and realistic equipment, as it is generally the case with movies that help their struggling recruiting efforts, but they were not the reason the movie exists.
Battle at Lake Changjin was literally commissioned by CPP's government, literally including its department of propaganda and is part of a concerted government effort.
Also have in mind that the Chinese government imposes actual bans on content, such as "can't have this and that flag, or this or that line, or your movie can't be shown in China" in a way similar to Vietnam and Philippines. Actual Chinese propaganda movies can be shown in the US - they don't get shown often, if at all, because nobody wants to see them.
Movies like Maverick are indeed propaganda. In exchange for all that fancy military hardware, the Navy was able to exercise editorial control over the script. In fact ‘ Jerry Bruckheimer, a top producer, said that “Top Gun” and 2001’s “Pearl Harbor” simply wouldn’t exist without military approval.’
You're just confirming what I said: "In exchange for all that factory military hardware". But we're conflating multiple uses of the word "propaganda" here.
Sure, the movie advocates the interests of the military, that's why they accepted to share the equipment, and they wouldn't share if the movie was against their aims. In the US, you can create movies for or against the aims of the government. Private initiative here was seizing an opportunity to do business with the government and pay less for realism.
These two movies wouldn't exist without military approval due to their planned use of military resources for realism/quality. It's a business deal to get low cost, top quality props. Have you seen Maverick? It looks awesome, even if you disagree with the theme. Actually, getting approval from the military is a good thing for the business purpose of the movie, it gives the movie credibility. If I was creating a movie about military success, I'd beg the military to approve it formally!
But in reality, the movie wouldn't exist if the filmmakers hadn't had the idea to produce it, rather than a government commissioning a literal propaganda movie to further their aims. It's a somewhat subtle, but major difference.
We need to immediately end the false moral equivalency between China and the US. It's very easy to come with a fallacious argument and say "it's all the same here as it is there". It's not. Go create a major blockbuster movie in China documenting the government's failures like, let's say, the old "Born on the 4th of July" with the same Tom Cruise and see what happens.
This movie, at least from the Wikipedia article, doesn't seem to be about the PLA (and rather a historical army?), so does it still count as military propaganda per se?
'Let it be known that maps shall not contain dotted or dashed lines in the count of nine. Nine dots or dashes shall not be allowed in order to protect the sovereignty of our waters. Seven or ten is fine but not nine or dangerousely close to nine, like eight for example.'
That's a really bad map but the 8 dashed line looks more like Japan and the Philippines to me. The "handle" on the bottom right of "Asia" is then Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua in one blob to the north west of Australia
Also in the news today, the kpop band Blackpink just got into trouble for showing a map with the dotted line at a concert in Vietnam https://www.bbc.com/news/66129777
The map is obviously ridiculous to begin with so I’m curious why it couldn’t just be a bunch of Foreign Ministry staff having a laugh while flexing their diplomatic muscle a little bit. It’s not like they have many other avenues to counteract growing Chinese geopolitical influence.
Think about the easter eggs found in all manner of serious software put in by engineers for a joke. I think anyone in Vietnam can easily pirate it if they actually want to see the movie so there’s little actual damage, as long as they don’t care about the economic impact at the box office.
It's not about what people in Vietnam see and how much money it loses. It's about message it sends, you can't simply push an agenda and get away with it.
Oh, we quite understand gEoPoLiTiCs, we are hearing it our whole lives from the incompetent wannabe empires propaganda across the border. It's when small countries doesn't matter, and individual humans doesn't even register on the radar. The only thing that matters to gEoPoLiTiCiAnS is "duo-polar world", "power projection", and aggressive annextaion of neighbors property in hopes either securing lebensraum for themselves or just sowing chaos and unrest to spite everyone. "To spite the bourgeois, we will fan the world fire"(c) Lenin classic rule, used till today by gEoPoLiTiCiAnS.
Geopolitics affect all of us, particularly the "small" countries (and they matter too, because everybody deserves to live in security and free of oppression from neighboring states). Whether you want to recognize it or not. The fact that you want to paint it as propaganda just shows how ignorant you are about the world. Read a book or two instead of wasting our time.
Part of the problem for people here is, dashed lines on maps do mean something. They're very common, and their meaning in the US is widely understood. Especially when maps are used in movies, it's long since been a cliché (and leads to one of the best jokes in "The Emperor's New Groove").
What exactly is this controversy about? There's a claim that a map in the trailer shows the 9-dash line, but I read the article, and looked at the screenshot shown in the article, and all I see behind the girl is a bunch of colorful blobs that don't resemble any world map I've ever seen.
The map is ridiculous, there is absolutely zero reason to put such a line there, and the intent is completely obvious to anyone who is aware of the situation.
Well, there are dashes elsewhere, like to the green... um... place? And that indicates paths of travel. I don't object to Vietnam or the Philippines pushing back against China's aggressive pushing for the 9-dash map, so I'm not criticizing what they're doing here. But I don't actually think that's what is going on with this map.
Exactly my thoughts. These censors have much more imaginations than we have. The best I could see is actually a 8 (not 9) dash line right of "Asia" and below a hashtag (whatever that is)
Asia + dash line is obviously a deliberate message on a very controversial subject. Saying that "you are imagining it all, it's all in your minds" is gaslightning them.
No way this is an accident or a mistake. For them, the dash line is as iconic as sporting the Hitler moustache, or having 1488 personalized plates on a car. You can't claim you didn't know.
Except that there are other dashed lines on the map, dashed lines are a common way of denoting travel on maps, and the dashes in question are higher up than the disputed border is. Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." (or in this case, an understandable lack of global knowledge that some lines on an obviously childish map might cause an issue because they are very slightly similar to a real and much more detailed map.)
Did you watch the trailer? There's absolutely no reason for that map to be there (nor situation, nor dialog), it takes the whole frame, and the point in question is perfectly focused.
The best good faith interpretation I could give to it is that someone in the studio is a pro-chinese, or paid by a pro-chinese, and they sneakely included the map + lines without anyone noticing (due to ignorance). All the other bullshit lines, hastags, suns... are there to not make it blatantly obvious and have plausible deniability. But the dashed line is there on purpose.
All I can encourage is that people go look at a picture of the scene in question. It's a childlike drawing with no relation to real world geography at all. Its not "similar but wrong", it's utterly unrecognisable. It's there to show that the main character has no understanding of geography...
That's what I did, and I agree. The only thing recognizable is the text at the top saying "map of the world". Everything else looks to me like just a bunch of blobs that don't resemble any world map I've ever seen, in any orientation, but I just got a bunch of downvotes for writing this. I don't know what everyone else is seeing here.
Of course, I'm just going off the one little photo in the article. I'm not going to watch some stupid trailer. If someone writes an article making a claim about a map in a movie or trailer, it's their responsibility to provide a still image or screenshot supporting their claim. If they can't do this, and they just say "watch the trailer", I'm going to dismiss their claim as ridiculous and frivolous.
Really? Didn't you recognize the word "Asia"? Didn't you recognize the Malaysian peninsulae, almost the only recognizable part of the "Asia" map? And just to its east, exactly like the sea in question, the dashed line. It's clear in the screenshot, and the frame shows that the part they want you to see isn't America, Europe or Africa: it's "World Map", "Asia" and dashed line.
Even if you hosnestly didn't recognize it, this isn't here for you. This is here for the people who knows. I recall menctioning "1488" in a conversation, and there were more people that didn't have a clue than they do. But if you include a VW Beetle in a movie, with the plates "1488-HH"... that's no mistake, even if only 10% of the viewers get it. That will end with someone fired, and nobody could claim they did it unknowingly. Maybe they though it was a clever joke or an easter egg, but it's not possible by chance.
I'm not saying "you are imagining it all", just that one needs a lot of imagination.
If I were Africa, I'd be offended to look like a melting ice cream. As for Europe, can't even see it on the map. Gone? As for Russia, the largest country on earth, it looks more like it's already belonging to "Asia" (good work Xi!), or if it's that small red country on the left of Asia, then I'd be very offended to look that small. Where is Japan anyway, is that the hashtag (#)?
I think that Asia is actually rotated 90º, and that the panhandle pointing down is actually the Kamchatka peninsula. So Japan sunk into the sea and is represented by the waves.
Perhaps this is a highly sensitive topic in Southeast Asia and even an oblique, plausibly deniable allusion to it comes across very offensively. There are similarly highly sensitive topics in the US.
Could you give some examples of topics that would result in a US ban? I can't think of any topic given the allusion is equally laughably obscure as this (if it is even an allusion at all).
The US doesn’t have the legal power to ban films due to the First Amendment, but there are definitely ideas that are so politically radioactive that any sort of veiled allusion to them (a common term is “dogwhistle”) can create massive backlash. So much so that even giving a concrete example would risk causing a massive tangential flame war, so I won’t risk it.
There's also a dashed line coming off of, Greenland is it? I'm not aware of anything that might refer to... Maybe the person who drew that map intended to evoke possible routes with those dashed lines.
Yes but it's not a map of Asia, it's a blob that says Asia on it. It doesn't look like Asia, and it doesn't have any of the countries on it. How can you mistake it for someone's opinion about the real world borders?
...and the "nine-dash line" actually has 8 dashes and doesn't delimit anything (like the "nine-dash-line" does with the part of sea claimed by China), it just kinda aimlessly snakes around there. Still, with digital distribution, is it so hard to simply edit the line out? Or would China be offended then?
I can assure that whatever shithole company produces this has a make-china-happy department, which has a checklist of best practices, and that checklist will have an item roughly like: "any time there's a map on the screen, do one of the following..."
Something nobody over here cares about (or nobody that matters cares about) scribbled down like a 4 year old just got the executives infinite social credit points and a $100 million dollars.
And Beijing doesn't even notice this is the most insulting way to cater to them, that’s so funny.
Reminds me of that time an American got the nearest nomads to watch some oil for a moment and then split the proceeds with them for the next 60 years while the nomads got to run a sovereign monarchy with all the money. Americans dgaf! Goated.
The map looks indeed ridiculous. And I don't know if the movie was trying to appeal to China, or whether it was actually some misguided sarcasm, but the whole dashed-line isn't just some small controversy. It is a big deal, if not the deal for the whole area. Just last year, Uncharted (another AAA movie I believed) was also banned by both Vietnam and Philippines.
At this point, if your movie is banned due to this issue, I don't think it was accidental anymore. This is the third hundred-million dollars movie that was banned for this reason just in the past few years.
I have no opinion on whether movie should try to avoid the issue itself, but I do think it's justifiable and non-surprising (ie. it's good) that the government bans the movie. Geopolitics is both hard and weird, and being consistent is good.