China’s Box Office and the Future Of Diversity In Cinema
At the beginning of 2016, talk show host Bill Maher came under fire because he blamed the Chinese box office for the continued practice of “Whitewashing” in Hollywood. “The dirty little secret is most movies are made now with an eye to the foreign market, and Asians really are racist.”
The internet subsequently dragged him.
The problem with Maher’s assumption is that it doesn’t account for the box office performance of sci-fi giants that featured diverse casts (like Star Wars: the Force Awakens), and the fact that at the end of 2016, the highest grossing film in China was Stephen Chow’s film The Mermaid, in which no staff nor actors were White or from the Hollywood elite. In fact, a quick glance at the films that topped the box office of China that were not homemade say more about the audience’s preference for sci-fi and fantasy than any sort of prejudice against diverse casting. After all, Star Wars: the Force Awakens still made the top ten despite starring a Black man (John Boyega) and a woman (Daisy Ridley).
Addressing the question of China’s role in the future of cinema, however, is now at the forefront of studio executives’ minds because by 2019, the country is expected to account for the largest film-going audience. At the outset, it may seem that Hollywood will ultimately benefit from business as usual in China: more franchise films, more gigantic sci-fi spectacles, and animated films with generally inoffensive subject matter. However, the idea that these are the only films that can be marketed to China appears to be a smoke screen that studio executives are all too ready to use as an excuse for its own lack of diversity, even in the face of evidence that diversity in fact is what box offices are now demanding.
While the call for diversity in cinema has always existed, it appeared to become the forefront of issues facing Hollywood upon the OscarsSoWhite hashtag in which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts came under fire for two years in a row nominating predominantly white actors and filmmakers. Add in John Oliver’s blistering criticism of Whitewashing and several high profile actors boycotting the ceremony, and it became clear that Hollywood would have to make a change if they wanted to retain a majority of U.S. viewership.
Diversity for the most part appeared to increase — this year alone finally features Black actors in all of the acting categories and the first Black woman to ever be nominated for an Oscar in editing. Moreover, the latest Star Wars installment Rogue One featured perhaps the most diverse cast in the franchise’s history. But one could argue that taking risks with diversity — like hiring directors of color to make completely new properties, continues to lag.
Ultimately, China’s box office was bound to be challenging in some regards. First, there is the matter of quotas placed by the government that prevents the Chinese film market from being over-saturated by Hollywood’s blockbusters in favor of locally produced films. Secondly, there is the matter of censorship that prevents controversial topics from being featured. While that may appear to stifle much creativity, one might argue that instead, Hollywood has used those rules to guarantee the success of their gigantic budget (yet critically underwhelming) films. Perhaps the most recent example of this is Passengers, a film that U.S. audiences and critics certified rotten, but Chinese audiences poured $34 million into. In fact, the trend of under-performing Hollywood franchises that survive because of the Chinese box office might appear to be disturbing at face value. However, the trend arguably says more about Hollywood’s profit based models of business than it does about the film preferences of Chinese moviegoers.
Since the utterings that the film industry was dying began, the criticism was always geared toward the unwillingness of studios to take risks. The films chosen for release and major marketing campaigns have to have either an existing fan-base (aka comic book or book series adaptations), or revolve around a subject that could yield sales by being licensed for toys, clothes, and other merchandise (kids movies, Marvel, etc). All of this remains the same, even in the face of the U.S. box office continuing to choose to reward films that involve things that meet the criteria of diversity. Additionally, the films that wind up topping the Chinese box office are also diverse, even if the film was not produced in China. The last Hollywood blockbuster to take the top spot in the yearly returns in China was Furious 7, a film that features Latino, Black, and Asian actors, and was directed by Asian-American director James Wan.
Ultimately, it is disingenuous to imply that Chinese audiences would not be interested in diversity — especially in the face of the country’s own continued laud for Chinese-American talents and Chinese productions. It would be one thing if the country’s quotas and censorship still did not yield top blockbusters made in China, but that is not the case. Instead, Hollywood continues to produce franchise films and remakes (sometimes even when audiences caution immediately that no one wants such a film), cutting their losses in the foreign box office, or ultimately flopping if they can’t.
That ultimate flop, a situation where not even a massive marketing campaign in China can save the film, is becoming more commonplace upon considering films like the 2016 Ben-Hur remake, The Huntsman: Winter War, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 all yielding losses for the studios this past year. All three of those films also happen to be some of the least diverse films put out by studios. The correlation doesn’t appear to be a coincidence.
While the investigation of how interests in China’s box office are affecting the choices of studio executives are still new, it appears that any arguments about diversity not having a place in cinema is misleading at best, and worthy of the same blistering critiques of recent years at worst.
