Americans Need to Offer Hollywood an Ultimatum: It's Either Us or the CCP

In China, the government sees it as its right to censor any piece of media that goes against their interests. In America, where speech is mostly free, the government does not have any such direct control over what people consume. That isn't to say that this freedom should be taken for granted or that it isn't under threat, but for now it exists.

For any company seeking to enter both markets, then, the path is obvious: you must appease the CCP. When Chinese and American government interests do not align, only one of those governments has the ability to do anything about you siding against them.

Numerous examples exist of entertainment companies and professionals acting out this imbalance of power. From LeBron James to Blizzard Entertainment. They know that they will get some small internet backlash for saying something that goes against Hong Kong, Taiwan, Uyghur Muslims, Tibet, etc., etc. But that has been nothing compared to the financial impact of being outright barred from the Chinese market.

The latest example, of course, comes from John Cena who issued a groveling, hostage-style video apology for having accidentally acknowledged the existence of Taiwan. Naturally out of fear that it might affect the release of his latest film in China. Cena did so on Chinese social media and even spoke in Mandarin so perhaps he had hoped that we wouldn't notice:

Now the question comes about of what exactly can be done about this sort of thing. Do you start legislation to ban CCP SIMPing? No, of course not, freedom of speech is one of the most fundamental rights.

Governments have no right to take it away and any which do, such as the CCP, are tyrants. But you, the consumer, are free to choose and you, the consumer, have the ability to make the output of pro-CCP entertainment and pro-CCP entertainers financially unsuccessful in the United States. The same freedom of speech that gives the entertainment industry the confidence to cater to the CCP gives you the ability to tell them what you think of them and ensures that myriad other entertainment options exist for your leisure hours.

You could even break out the inkwell and write them a letter if you like.

That isn't to say you don't allow people to change. If they get the message, if they stop backing murderous, authoritarian regimes or issuing statements telling you why you're awful or whatever it is that they're doing, we should show some grace. Provided it rings true.

So the time has come to give Hollywood an ultimatum: you can have American audiences or you can have Chinese audiences, but you cannot have both.

Stop giving time or money to people who hate you, who hate freedom or simply don't care enough about either to not SIMP for the CCP. No one else can make this happen in a free society. Not the government, not a ministry of truth, only you, the humble customer. Freedom means that the people have to shape their own culture and we do this by having the ability to say “yes” to just about anything.

But it comes with the responsibility to sometimes say “no.”