In contrast to the affluent roots of Shinzo and several other prominent Japanese politicians, Prime Minister Suga was raised by parents who were strawberry farmers in the country’s north. In a country familiar with bureaucratic leaders from influential families, some citizens see Suga as an anti-establishment political figure that can relate to the struggles of the common people, something they have explicitly called for in the last 60 years. 

The ongoing and evergreen struggle in Japan between its monarchical and historical political structure and its ever-growing modern citizenry is a common theme in many forms of art, entertainment and literature detailing the country’s sociopolitical environment.

However, there is perhaps no stronger allusion demonstrating these key themes dominating Japan’s current political scene than in the 2000 Japanese thriller film “Battle Royale.” The movie, created by Kunji Funkansuku, illustrates the desires of Japanese citizens to be heard by politicians and, through entertainment, represents the frustration many citizens feel toward the government, with themes of social deviance and government defiance permeating the film. 

The film begins with the Japanese government passing a law known as the “BR ACT” after a major economic recession. This act, designed to allow the government to contain and control the rebellious Japanese youth, forces a different class of 40 students to participate in an annual competition where they must fight to the death. 

Battle Royale was originally adapted from a best-selling novel by the same name and two Japanese films that told similar stories. The 1999 novel, written by Koushun Takami, was inspired by the author’s childhood in 1960s Japan when the All Campus Joint Struggle Committee, otherwise known as the Zenkyoto, protested the Japanese governmental and institutional push towards mirroring American capitalism in the Japanese collegiate system. The student organization, created in 1948, had different chapters at each university and targeted issues specific to each institution, with tuition fee reductions being their most significant objective. However, by the 1960s, Zenkyoto was calling for systemic changes in the way universities approached academics and how students and researchers operated. They believed that the education system was wrongly managed like a factory. The revolts of the Zenkyoto were met with strong resistance by the Japanese government. This only caused the protesters to become even more aggravated with the Japanese’s constant necessity for control, law and order. The repressive government portrayed in Battle Royale is a dystopian imitation of Japan’s management of the youth in the 1960s. The film is protest art, trying to unpack the oppression and the perceived misdirection of the Japanese government. 

Despite Suga framing himself as an outsider, which is a characteristic desired by some of Japan’s general public, his beliefs and actions are not aligned with any anti-establishment rhetoric. Rather, his undertakings are aligned with protecting the bureaucracy. 

When Japan descended into mass protests in the 1960s, Suga avoided the movement. After graduating from university, he served as a secretary for Hukosaburo Okonogi of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for 11 years. LDP is based on conservatism and nationalism and is frequently right of its opposition parties. The party’s platform includes export-based economic development, tax reform, privatization of state-owned industries and strong cooperation with the United States, which are direct contradictions to the stances of more left-wing ideologies.

In 1996, Suga became a member of parliament for the LDP. In this position, Suga became closer with soon-to-be prime minister Abe, also a member of the LDP. Abe appointed Suga to serve in his cabinet as Chief Cabinet Secretary. In this role, Suga had a record of trying to manage the bureaucracy. He brought more tourists and foreign workers into Japan, blocked and delayed information to the media at press conferences, and worked effortlessly to protect Abe’s image from criticism in various scandals. 

While many Japanese citizens desire a less bureaucratic and dynastic government, politicians like Suga do not try to change the damaging culture in Japan, which dominantly encourages silence in the face of oppression. As a common saying in Japan goes, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” Contrary to the Western concept of individualism, conformity is appreciated and expected. The government’s push for conformity is a product of Japanese nationalism that rose to prominence in the Empire of Japan with the 1860s Meiji government. Confucian leaders ingrained the importance of loyalty to the state. In order to ensure adherence and uniformity, the government sent officials across the country to enforce patriotic behavior. Japan successfully created a centralized government where individual communities had no control over their jurisdiction or laws. Later, in the 1920s, the Taishō and Shōwa governments modernized the meaning of nationalism by competing with other countries for international and regional power; this was done with the intention of making their country more economically successful and therefore encouraging Japanese citizens more patriotic. 

Japanese nationalism was and continues to be an initiative of creating and maintaining a unified society by focusing on the unity of culture, politics and a shared understanding of Japan’s history and destiny. This is also a crucial part of the LDP’s mission. 

“Battle Royale” demonstrates that this kind of society does not work. Despite the government’s emphasis on togetherness, culturally and politically oppressing the Japanese people led to serious violence, as seen in the 1960s protests. Instead of confronting the political frustrations of the people, Suga, just like his predecessors, does not seem interested in dealing with the desired change.

Looking forward, Suga will have to run again in September of 2021 once his term comes to an end this summer. His success in this next election may depend more on how he deals with the coronavirus and its economic and social fallout, rather than an assessment of his ability to unite the nation after its decades-long social and political turmoil. 

With our world in such disarray, inclusion and diversity of ideas in Japan’s political arena is an overlooked issue. In spite of this, the issue of government oppression and strict bureaucracy in Japan is not any less relevant.

“Battle Royale” still serves as an ode to change today, despite being a response to Japanese political issues of sixty years ago. Clearly, modern reform and progress in Japan is stagnant, which begs the question: Will the desired systemic change in Japan ever really occur with Suga in charge? 

The post Out With the Old: What Japan’s New Prime Minister Can Learn from “Battle Royale” appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

The past year was a game changer for Hollywood. The COVID-19 pandemic forced theaters to close, drastically affecting profits from ticket sales, and many distributors decided to either delay their release of films or make the daring move to premiere blockbusters on streaming services. But as Hollywood continues to adapt to a new era of movie-making distribution, for the first time in its history, China has officially overtaken the United States as the largest box office in the world.

Prior to the pandemic however, China’s box office revenue was already poised to surpass the American box office in 2020. PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the largest global accounting firms, predicted in a 2016 report that the following years, “…are set to see the United States lose the dominant position that it has held in global box office revenue since the silent movie era began more than a century ago”, indicating that projections pre-pandemic already favored the Chinese. In the first quarter of 2018, the film industry caught a glimpse of this phenomenon when Chinese box office revenue held a brief lead in front of the U.S. box office for the first time. 

Chinese competition in an industry that has been dominated by the U.S. for over 100 years poses a challenge to America’s ability to exert soft power in this particular sector. In an arena where both countries use film as a tool to promote their respective ideas and values, whoever is the leader of the industry is more desirable to production companies. Hollywood needs the resources that both China and the United States have: massive audiences and massive opportunities for revenue.

Box office numbers and the global film industry matter from a political perspective as movies capture the attention of foreign publics and can be highly influential tools of media. Essentially, film is a tool of public diplomacy.

Disney’s Marvel franchise, for instance, is full of pro-American and pro-military themes. While production is not state funded, it has recently become publicized that the U.S. Department of Defense has consulted on hundreds of feature films and even shows for television. When production companies approach defense agencies looking for accurate insight into how different arms of the military or government function, the U.S. government gets to manage how they are portrayed to the American and foreign public, an important controlling tool of soft power.

While Marvel movies are only a recent example, Hollywood has a long standing relationship with the Pentagon that traces back to World War I. The first ever Academy Award for Best Picture in 1927 was given to the silent film “Wings,” which centered around World War I pilots. The U.S. Army helped with the production of “Wings” with full support in the form of men and staging areas, and by the end of World War II, the army had an official Hollywood office and liaison. The Central Intelligence Agency also established a similar office in 1996.

Conscious or not, Hollywood became an unofficial propaganda machine for Washington throughout the 20th century. Movies were the perfect medium for promoting American militarism, capitalism, and way of life, both domestically and internationally. This idea soared during the Cold War. In the age of Mccarthyism, purging communist sentiments within the United States was a critical objective of the United States. Under the threat of communism, American military movies were essential for portraying the country as the hero, creating the popular narrative of the United States as the quintessential “good guy.” Sources of entertainment, thus, were used as some of the strongest tools in the ideological battle over the hearts and minds of global publics.

A real turning point in the relationship between Hollywood and Washington was after 9/11. The War on Terror began and a new wave of American war movies were filmed and produced, in large part in coordination with the Pentagon. According to many critics, films such as “Zero Dark Thirty” were used to sell the War on Terror to American audiences and garner support for the military and its actions. The film was criticized for portraying torture as valuable for finding Osama Bin Laden. A 2014 study even found results that 25% of viewers changed their opinions about the government and its actions after seeing the films “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty.”

As Tanner Mirrlees, associate professor at Ontario Tech University, told CBC Radio: “No country in the world churns out as many images of itself as the military hero… like the United States does. That is a unique cultural phenomenon.” 

In the 21st century, Washington’s role in the media has gone much further than one would expect. In television, over 1,100 titles received Pentagon backing. Files released in 2017 under the Freedom of Information Act verified that between 1911 and 2017 more than 800 feature films were supported by the Department of Defense.

But Washington is not the only major political influence vying for influence in the world’s film industry; Hollywood has also been considerate of Beijing’s interests and has catered to its censorship as its market has expanded in recent years. The Chinese government is explicit about its intentions to release films that are propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a decision made in order to control what the Chinese consumer digests. Despite the censorship, there is seemingly little resistance by Hollywood filmmakers to challenge the popularization of biased, pro-CCP narrative in the movies as they seek the approval of the Chinese government to release their films in the country. The reason for this is the increasing dependency Hollywood has on China’s movie industry. 

This dependency results from the dominating lead China currently holds in the sector. The Asian movie industry consultancy firm, Artisan Gateway, announced that China’s box office closed 2020 with $1.99 billion in revenue. The North American box office earnings were surpassed by $50 million dollars. With the desire to expand its audience and, as a result, its profit, Hollywood turns to China in an attempt to take advantage of those opportunities.

The most recent and highly publicized case of Chinese investment in American films can be found in the Disney+ digital release of the live-action Mulan film in 2020. The movie faced controversy due to its percieved complicitness with the CCP’s persecution of the Uighurs — a primarily Muslim Turkic ethnicity populated in the Xinjiang region of China and surrounding areas. Disney shot a number of scenes from the film in this region and faced criticism from U.S. leaders for allowing the Chinese government to mislead the public by brushing over issues of genocide in the province. Although these concerns were raised about Mulan, the desire to be approved by the Chinese review board in order to profit seemed to be enough for Disney to overlook the social ramifications. 

Appealing to foreign film markets isn’t a new phenomenon for Hollywood; the industry has been negotiating deals with film-classification boards around the world for nearly 100 years. It is, however, much more difficult for Hollywood to appeal to a country that restricts media consumption to a dangerous degree, while simultaneously being the largest movie industry in the world. Film production studios have to compete for a slot in the CCP’s limited release of foreign films every year, and companies who do not choose to comply with China’s restrictions miss the opportunity of reaching an audience of nearly 1.4 billion customers.

This results in movie adjustments and plot changes like the ones that occurred in Rian Johnson’s 2012 science fiction action film Looper, where the portrayal of time travel, a concept usually frowned upon by the Chinese government, was approved after a script change framing the future China as “powerful and the center of the world.” Similar occurrences can be found with movies like Red Dawn (2012), The Great Wall (2016), and Doctor Strange (2016), all three of which had storylines that were changed or scenes censored in order to be released in China.

Whoever has control over the dominant narrative in the entertainment industry will in turn be able to impact the focus group they desire to influence. In this era of globalization, particularly within this sect of the entertainment industry, the focus group isn’t just the average American, nor just the average Chinese; it’s the global media consumer. Whether it’s the Department of Defense or the CCP, the investments being made into blockbuster films in Hollywood are setting an agenda. If the consumer isn’t aware of this, they play into the propaganda. The U.S. has long enjoyed using Hollywood as a tool of soft power to promote patriotic messages of America to its base at home and around the world. Now, the country faces a real challenge as the CCP vies for the same global cultural influence with the economic incentives needed to draw Hollywood into the agenda. 

Whether or not the average movie goer is aware, two of the strongest governments in the world are in a conflict that is taking place on their screens, and there’s not much they can do about it except grab some popcorn and watch the show.

The post Sit Back, Relax and Enjoy the Show: Hollywood’s 21st Century Cold War appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

As more people move into the middle class in China, disposable income spent on goods and services will only increase. But disposable income extends far beyond goods and services, and to date some 300 million more people in the world are ready to start spending money on entertainment. In a 2013 study by Ernst & Young, the firm noted “spending on entertainment and recreation [in China]jumped from $350 billion in 2010 to $547 billion last year.” Because American content – whether television, film, or music – is universally revered, huge opportunities await US Media and Entertainment (M&E) companies in a region capable of hauling in more than $10 billion in value by 2017. Hollywood’s most successful films are reliably hitting the $100 million revenue mark at the Chinese box offices.

Well aware of these opportunities, American film studios have made China a top priority marking a dramatic shift in perceived foreign markets only a few years ago. Notably, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Global Research released a study this year detailing these opportunities and reaffirmed that “from 2007-12, China’s box office has improved at a compound annual rate of 47% to $2.7 billion […] fueled by a 30% CAGR in screens […] The top 10 Hollywood films in China generated a steady 30% share of the 2012 box office.” Breaking down these statistics, 26% of the China box office goes to local films – roughly 560 Chinese domestic films get made every year – and 150 of those are released theatrically with only 70 becoming notable box office contributors. These statistics not only reflect the expanding local production industry in China, but also their preferential regulatory treatments standing as a major entry barrier for US film studios.

Along with preferential treatments, an import quota on Hollywood films makes for fierce competition among US studios. Before 2012, China capped the number of US films to be released in mainland cinemas at 20; only last year was President Obama able to get China to increase their quota to 34.

Looking to 2030, however, it is unlikely that China’s film quotas will disappear all together. With the Hollywood quota already maxed out for 2013, China’s domestic films have been able to flourish. As of November 25, 2013, Chinese films hit the $3 billion revenue mark with prospects of another late boost as cinemas rush for a photo year end finish marking a remarkable shift from a considerably more lackluster balance sheet just over a decade ago with FY2002 revenues below $164 million.

While still a burgeoning industry in China – America’s $385B industry dwarf’s the PRC’s $73.2b – Ernst & Young predicts Chinese M&E will grow 17% annually for the next five years. En masse injections of private capital have been the major driver, truly enabling the industry to soar. In 2013 alone, China built over 4,500 new movie theaters (over 10 per day) increasing their countrywide total to over 17,600.

A major bankroller in the industry has been Wang Jianlin who is Chairman of property giant Dalian Wanda Group Corp. along with being China’s richest man. Earlier this year he bought America’s second largest movie theater chain, AMC, for $2.4 billion. Following that, in November Wanda announced their plans to build China’s own version of Hollywood with a $4.9 billion to $8.2 billion investment in a mega-entertainment center. The Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis, or “Chollywood” as it is being called, will include 20 massive studio lots and is being supported by A-list stars such as John Travolta, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCaprio. With signing agreements with four top global talent agencies, by 2030 we could see a substantial “brain drain” from Hollywood into China. Because the US is unquestionable global hegemon in the entertainment world, the demand for American expertise in content, storytelling, marketing and distribution is very high in China. Yet, there is a great deal of doubt surrounding Wanda’s project.

China’s politicians have made clear that conceptual films portraying China in a negative light will have no market on the mainland, as highlighted in World War Z’s recent debacle with the PRC. In one of the first cuts of Brad Pitt’s zombie movie, there was a scene where his character concluded the zombie apocalypse originated in China. Fearing governmental backlash, Paramount producers changed the origin to South Korea. In sum, China wants non-controversial films that pay tribute to Chinese life and culture. However, even if Wanda’s “Chollywood” project is completed, and in 2030 China’s film industry becomes large enough that China no longer needs import quotas to achieve their growth objectives, the government’s intense and seemingly unrelenting relationship with censorship will become an impediment to future growth.

As stated above, out of the 560 films made per year in China, only 70 make it to the box office. Much of this is due to strict government examination. All 34 Hollywood films allowed in China also go through close inspections to ensure alignment with government principles. To mitigate potential issues with their films, US studios are increasingly re-editing content, and with some going so far as to shoot entirely different versions for a PRC release.

A recent example is Relativity Media’s 21 & Over, a story about a Chinese-American medical student besieged by parental-induced anxiety who chooses to alleviate exam stress by partying at a fraternity house. Before production began, Relativity Media told producers there would be two movies made, one for an American audience and one for a Chinese audience. With a vastly different storyline from the original plot, the movie’s director Jon Lucas said in an interview: “21 & Over, in China, is sort of a story about a boy who leaves China, gets corrupted by our wayward, Western partying ways, and goes back to China a better person […]” Hollywood is an industry where the realm of creative possibilities is endless. Studios have always strived to balance creativity with profits; movies like Gravity prove that you can have both, no matter how expensive. However, this question of balance is taken to new heights when looking ahead to 2030 and the inevitable interconnectedness that will define the China-Hollywood relationship.

At what point is the creative process impacted by geopolitical constraints that define China’s film market? The multi-billion dollar question facing Hollywood today is whether film studios can fully tap into the China market without marginalizing the creative process that should, and hopefully will continue to, define the industry.

The post Hooray for Hollywood? – Where Hollywood Meets the PRC appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.