China and Censorship: Top Hollywood Executives Discuss the Business

Hollywood Journal

Paramount's Jim Gianopulos, Disney's Alan Horn, Warner Bros.' Tony Emmerich, Universal's Donna Langley, Sony's Tom Rothman, Amazon's Jennifer Salke and Netflix's Scott Stuber joined for the Executive Roundtable discussion.

Transcript

00:00I wanted to talk a little bit about China because we've seen some of the issues flare

00:07up lately this battle between commerce and free speech and appeasing the Chinese government and

00:12I'm curious where you guys think the limit on that is for Hollywood films and what you're

00:19willing to do to stay in that market and it's come up with Mulan recently it did first of all

00:26for Mulan doesn't work in China we have a problem but my feeling is that first of all free speech is

00:35an important component of our society certainly and folks ought to be able to say what they want

00:40to say and I can't speak for what Yifei says in China and we didn't know about it what she was

00:46going to say and that's up to them we try to be non-political apolitical when it comes to all this

00:52stuff is just too important the whole there's always an issue somewhere in the world and

00:57China happens to be a very very big market but it's not the only market where there have been

01:01issues the only thing I have said to the folks that work with me is that keep in mind that when you

01:08speak they don't quote you because like for me it wouldn't be quoted because I'm Alan Horn they don't

01:16care about Alan Horn they care about me as long as I have this job and the second I don't I whatever

01:21I say will be quoted anyway it just so I say to people remember that you are what you do and that's

01:30what will be reported and that carries with it a certain responsibility to at least be aware that that

01:36occurs and to be sensible and and think before you speak especially on social media does it bother you

01:44that that you the movies can't offend China no I mean I there's places all over the world as we say

01:51where not hard to offend somebody somewhere and I didn't say they can't they they did so people will

02:02say what they will say for us we just say look we're in the movie business and we're making movies

02:07that are designed to be seen by an appreciative hopefully audience that will enjoy our movie

02:14it's the entertainment industry and want them to go out and see our movie and have a good time

02:20we're not we don't wish to be political and to get dragged into a political discussion

02:25I would argue is sort of inherently unfair it's not what we do we're not politicians it's not what we

02:31do we're not a governmental organization we're making movies yeah I think there's also a difference

02:36between pandering and cultural sensitivity you know there's a big spotlight on China because of

02:41its size because of its glowing growing global dominance and because of the limitations in press

02:48and freedoms in the country but Malaysia other parts of the world India there are many times when we've

02:53been censoring movies for years just to address the concerns social and cultural of individual

02:59markets when you do it in China it becomes pandering but I mean I think Jim's point is the right

03:05one which is we run a business you know we have to be sensitive to important markets

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