Taipei, Taiwan – Hollywood has a China problem.
The world’s second-largest economy has become one of the biggest markets for big-budget Hollywood movies, but a racist backlash against Disney’s The Little Mermaid is just the latest example of the price movie studios can pay for offending Chinese sensibilities .
Chinese state media and netizens have condemned the casting of Black Halle Bailey as Princess Ariel — echoing some Americans who have expressed anger that the Atlanta-born actress does not resemble the fair-skinned character of the 1989 animated film or the 1837 film fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.
In an op-ed last month, The Global Times, an English-language Chinese tabloid known for its nationalistic reporting, accused Disney of “turning classic stories into ‘sacrificial lambs’ for political correctness” by casting non-white actors in classic stories.
“When the beautiful stories that have accompanied countless children’s childhoods become arenas for racial conflict, they lose their meaning and become devoid of romance and fantasy, replaced by arguments about skin color,” said the tabloid, highlighting that such casting controversies were not driven by racism but “lazy and irresponsible storytelling”.
The backlash – largely overtly racist – has also played out online among ordinary Chinese moviegoers.
On social media platforms such as Sina Weibo, some users have criticized Bailey’s appearance and her black facial features.
Other Chinese commenters online left more positive reviews, with a poster on the movie site Mayoan saying that Bailey’s appearance made little difference to children and that she well represented Princess Ariel’s most essential character trait – a brave spirit.
While China doesn’t have the same racial history or politics as the US, audiences 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 pale skin and big round eyes, Zhang said, and some viewers — and government officials — want to see Chinese values reflected on screen.
“There is no right way of looking [the film in the US]Zhang told Al Jazeera. “But in China, there’s 100 percent a right way to understand it.”
Zhang compared the backlash to the public’s reaction to supermodel Lu Yan, whose small eyes and high cheekbones were considered unattractive in China but made her famous in the West. “ugly” women.
Amid the negative press, The Little Mermaid performed poorly at the Chinese box office, earning just $3.6 million in the 10 days following its release on May 26, according to Artisan Gateway, an international film consultancy.
Live-action remakes of Disney classics typically gross between $40 million and $85 million in China, according to the advisory.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 and Fast and Furious X, also released in May, have earned around $80 million and $120 million, respectively, since their release.
The Little Mermaid flop is just the latest example of how difficult it has become for Hollywood to navigate the world’s largest theatrical movie market, which once had an insatiable appetite for American movies.
China is particularly competitive because the Chinese censorship only accepts a few dozen foreign films per year. As of May 2023, only 39 foreign films were released, including 18 Hollywood titles. Unlike 20 years ago, Hollywood also has to compete with a thriving domestic film industry that produces its own blockbusters.
Studios also face the dilemma of accepting changes to meet the demands of Chinese censorship or risk being banned from the market.
Sony famously altered the 2012 remake of Red Dawn in post-production to show a North Korean rather than Chinese invasion of the US, costing the studio millions.
In 2016, a screenwriter for the Marvel action film Doctor Strange suggested that the background of The Ancient One character was changed from Tibetan to European so as not to upset China.
Spiderman: No Way Home, one of the highest-grossing films of all time, was rejected in China in 2021 after Marvel refused to cut the film’s “patriotic” ending, set near the Statue of Liberty in New York, the news site reported. Puck. the studio estimated $170 million – $340 million in lost sales.
Angry Chinese moviegoers can also have ripple effects on other films or actors, which could dampen Hollywood’s appetite for defying Chinese censorship.
Disney’s 1998 animated film Mulan was famously delayed in China after the studio backed another movie, Kundun, about the Dalai Lama, said Chris Fenton, a former Hollywood executive and author of Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, & American Business.
“They blacklist everyone involved in a particular movie, including the studio involved,” Fenton told Al Jazeera.
“Sometimes the blackballing is temporary, like with Sony after Red Dawn or Disney after Kundun. Sometimes it’s almost permanent, like with [Dalai Lama supporter] Richard Gere or possibly Brad Pitt – although we can never be sure if actors are banned or not. There is only evidence that the films they are involved in never get approvals.”
Hollywood’s recent backlash against 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.
“Money usually drives you to do the right thing or the wrong thing, but the good thing is that doing the right thing now can be more profitable,” he said.