Entertainment
Woke Disney Faces Backlash in China Over Little Mermaid
China the world’s second-largest economy has emerged as one of the most important venues for big-budget Hollywood films, but a racially charged response against Disney’s The Little Mermaid is just the most recent reminder of the price film studios can pay if they upset Chinese sensibilities.
Chinese state media and netizens have condemned the casting of Black actress Halle Bailey as Princess Ariel, echoing some Americans’ outrage that the Atlanta-born actress does not resemble the light-skinned character from the 1989 animated film or the 1837 fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.
The Global Times, in China known for its nationalistic coverage, accused Disney of making “classic tales into’sacrificial lambs’ for wokeness” by casting non-white performers in classic tales in an op-ed last month.
“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 colour,” said the tabloid, insisting that such casting controversies were driven by “lazy and irresponsible storytelling,” rather than racism.
The backlash, many of it explicitly racist, has also played out online among regular Chinese filmgoers.
Some commenters have attacked Bailey’s appearance and her Black face traits on social media platforms such as Sina Weibo.
Race portrayed in Hollywood films
Other Chinese internet reviewers were more enthusiastic, with one poster on the film site Mayoan noting that Bailey’s appearance made little difference to youngsters and that she successfully embodied Princess Ariel’s most important character characteristic – a brave spirit.
While China does not have the same racial history or politics as the United States, Chinese-born YouTuber Yao Zhang, who follows Chinese and Taiwanese news and culture from Canada, believes that consumers are nevertheless sensitive to how race is portrayed in Hollywood films.
According to Zhang, traditional Chinese beauty standards highlight pale complexion and large round eyes, and some viewers – as well as government officials – want to see Chinese values mirrored on the television.
“There is no correct way to look at [the film] in the United States,” Zhang told Al Jazeera. “However, in China, there is only one correct way to understand it.”
Zhang compared the backlash to the public’s reaction to supermodel Lu Yan, whose small eyes and high cheekbones were deemed unattractive in China but earned her renown in the West – despite some Chinese bloggers claiming Lu’s success was a Western ploy to make China look bad by elevating “ugly” women.
The Little Mermaid has performed poorly at the Chinese box office, collecting only $3.6 million in the ten days following its May 26 debut, according to Artisan Gateway, an international film consultant.
According to the advise, live-action remakes of Disney classics regularly gross between $40 million and $85 million in China.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 and Fast and Furious X, both released in May, have grossed approximately $80 million and $120 million, respectively, since their debuts.
Little Mermaid latest Disney Flop in China
The failure of The Little Mermaid is only the latest illustration of how tough it has become for Hollywood to negotiate one of the world’s largest and most lucrative theatrical film markets, which used to have an insatiable demand for American pictures.
China is extremely competitive since Chinese censors only allow a few dozen foreign films into the country each year. As of May, just 39 foreign films had been released in 2023, including 18 Hollywood titles. Unlike in previous decades, Hollywood now faces competition from a strong domestic film sector that creates its own blockbusters.
Studios are also faced with the option of accepting alterations to fulfill Chinese censors’ demands or risk being blackballed from the market.
Sony notoriously revised the 2012 remake of Red Dawn in post-production to incorporate a North Korean invasion of the United States rather than a Chinese invasion, costing the company millions of dollars.
In 2016, a screenwriter for the Marvel action film Doctor Strange indicated that the character the Ancient One’s origins had been changed from Tibetan to European in order to avoid upsetting China.
Spiderman: No Way Home, one of the highest-grossing pictures of all time, was denied a 2021 release in China as Marvel refused to edit the film’s “patriotic” ending filmed at New York’s Statue of Liberty, according to the news site Puck, costing the studio an estimated $170 million to $340 million in missed sales.
Angering Chinese filmgoers can have a knock-on impact on other films or stars, perhaps dampening Hollywood’s zest for defying Chinese censors.
Push back from China
According to Chris Fenton, a former Hollywood executive and author of Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, and American Business, Disney’s 1998 animated film Mulan was famously delayed in China due to the studio’s backing of another film, Kundun, about the Dalai Lama.
“They blackball everyone involved in a particular film, including the studio involved,” Fenton explained to Al Jazeera.
“Sometimes the blacklisting is only temporary, as with Sony following Red Dawn or Disney following Kundun.” Sometimes it’s nearly permanent, as with [Dalai Lama supporter] Richard Gere or possibly Brad Pitt – though we never know for sure if actors are banned or not. There is only evidence that the films in which they are involved are never approved.”
Hollywood’s recent push back against the trend will only be effective as long as the dollars and cents stack up, because China is simply too large a market to ignore, according to Fenton.
“Money drives doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing, mostly, but the good news is that doing the right thing can be more profitable now,” he said.
GENEVA – On Monday, the Paralympic Games begin their 100-day journey to the opening ceremony in Paris in August, with Paul McCartney assisting.
The former Beatles’ “We All Stand Together” — the theme song from an award-winning animated short he created and produced 40 years ago — will be featured in a promotional film for the International Paralympic Committee
“Sir Paul really understands what we stand for as a movement, and he was extremely generous to us,” IPC president Andrew Parsons told The Associated Press. “He was not difficult to convince, it was something that came very naturally.”
AP – VOR News Image
Paul McCartney Song Starts Paralympics On 100-Day Countdown To Opening Ceremony In Paris
On August 28, 100 days from Monday, the Summer Paralympics opening ceremony will occur along a stretch of the Champs-Élysées and Place de la Concorde. Over the next 11 days, the 4,400 athletes will compete in places such as the Eiffel Tower and Versailles Palace in front of up to 2.7 million spectators.
“We probably have the most famous avenue in the world,” Parsons stated in a recent interview. “That is very exciting. The city is really supporting Paralympic athletes and athletes with impairments.”
“With our games, we talk a lot about inclusion, and this is a fantastic representation of that. That extremely inviting attitude is a great way to start our games.
A watershed moment for the Paralympic movement occurred in London in 2012 when the host country rose to the occasion with record ticket sales and a completely new approach to broadcasting by Britain’s Channel 4.
“Still the benchmark games of our movement,” added Parsons, whose native country of Brazil staged the 2016 edition in Rio de Janeiro.
AP – VOR new Image
Paul McCartney Song Starts Paralympics On 100-Day Countdown To Opening Ceremony In Paris
Channel 4 produced the “We’re the Superhumans” musical film to promote the Rio Paralympics. The film was a landmark in terms of its high production values and inspirational imagery.
“Many broadcasters come to us in their preparations in different parts of the world and they normally ask, ‘What is Channel 4 doing?'” Parsons stated. In that vein, the IPC trailer, inspired by McCartney’s “Rupert and the Frog Song” film, follows suit.
The Paris Paralympics will record 164 broadcasters worldwide, with 549 events across 22 sports.
Beyond the field of play, the Paralympics strive to change society, particularly in the host nation—and have previously achieved this.
In France and Paris, Parsons admitted that “there is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to people’s mindsets and perceptions of people with disabilities.”
“It has progressed since they received the games in 2017, but there is still a long way to go. “And it does not end with the closing ceremony.”
Two weeks after the Paralympics end on September 8, the United Nations conducts a global gathering that Parsons hopes will spark change.
AP – VOR News Image
Paul McCartney Song Starts Paralympics On 100-Day Countdown To Opening Ceremony In Paris
The UN will assess progress toward its 17 sustainable development objectives during the Summit of the Future, which will occur on September 22 and 23.
“We do believe our movement has, in terms of persons of disability, been a little bit left behind, if you compare to other human rights movements such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity,” Parsons stated. “They have become increasingly prominent in the major debates at the highest level.
“We believe that these (Paris) games will be able to really remind global leaders that there is 1.2 billion persons with disabilities out there that need to be included in those conversations.”
SOURCE – (AP)
Celebrity
Rock Band Cage The Elephant Emerge From Loss And Hospitalization With New Album ‘Neon Pill’
NEW YORK — To say Cage the Elephant’s latest album had a rocky start would be an understatement. The band coped with loved ones’ deaths, the pandemic, and its lead singer’s arrest and illness.
“It’s no secret that I had a medical crisis,” Matt Shultz tells The Associated Press from Nashville on the eve of the Friday release of the 12-track album “Neon Pill.” “I am fully recovered. It does leave a scar, but it is one that can be ignored.”
The Kentucky-born singer-songwriter was charged with criminal possession of firearms in January 2023 after police discovered his guns inside his Bowery Hotel room in Lower Manhattan.
Shultz claims that in the aftermath, he discovered that for the past three years or more, he had been experiencing a negative reaction to a set of prescribed medications (Shultz did not specify which), resulting in episodes of psychosis.
AP – VOR News Image
Rock Band Cage The Elephant Emerge From Loss And Hospitalization With New Album ‘Neon Pill’
“It’s shocking how night and day the difference is from being on whatever medication is causing psychosis and being off of it,” he continues. “Once I got off the drug, I returned to my normal self. And that was strange because it felt like someone else had taken over your life.”
That so-called other person had contributed to the five-year recording of “Neon Pill,” and it was up to Shultz — who was hospitalized for two months and underwent around six months of outpatient therapy — to unravel the music.
“I went back to the lyrics, obviously to finish the album, and it was like reading the words of a totally different person and trying to decode what they meant,” he recalls. “A lot of it was going back and trying to find the sentiment of what I was trying to communicate.”
Shultz escaped jail time after pleading guilty to three firearms offenses.
“I’m so blessed it wasn’t worse than it was,” adds the man. “And grateful that I received the medical attention I required. I’m extremely fortunate to be surrounded by my family and my wife. God got me through it. I’d be dead numerous times over.
“Neon Pill” reunites the band with producer John Hill, who worked on their previous 2019 Grammy-winning album, “Social Cues.” It presents a kaleidoscope of rock, from the strutting glam of “Ball and Chain” to the piano ballad of “Out Loud” and the breezy alt-rock of “Float Into the Sky.” One song, “Rainbow,” is infectiously poppy, as if Cage covered a Dead or Alive tune.
“It was like a culmination of all the Cage records combined,” claims Shultz. “John Hill had a greater impact on this album, without a doubt.” Not that he didn’t impact ‘Social Cues,’ but with this one, he pushed us harder to go within ourselves and compose the greatest material we could.
AP – VOR News Image
Rock Band Cage The Elephant Emerge From Loss And Hospitalization With New Album ‘Neon Pill’
The album explores Shultz’s experiences, including the lyrics “Double-crossed by a neon pill/Like a loaded gun, my love, I lost control of the wheel.” The song is the band’s 11th number-one hit on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay list.
“We definitely felt like that was the title track once everything came to be,” adds Shultz, who is joined by his guitarist brother Brad, bassist Daniel Tichenor, drummer Jared Champion, guitarist Nick Bockrath, and pianist Matthan Minster.
Two songs are about Matt and Brad’s father, Brad Shultz Sr., one of which is “Out Loud.” It is about the day the older Shultz and his father had a violent dispute, and their father fled to Florida, hitching the entire way. After a year, the younger man felt sorrow and created an apology song, which he hitchhiked back to Kentucky to play for his father.
Matt Shultz says the narrative inspired him, “so I wrote a song about the song he wrote.” The lyrics to that song are: “Man, I really messed up now/ Clipped those wings and I came back home/Tried my best just to carry on.”
The album’s final tune, “Over Your Shoulder,” laments his father’s death in 2020. The Shultz brothers inherited milk crates containing hundreds of their father’s tunes on ancient cassette recordings. A new original Cage song appeared, similar to their father’s style, with the lyrics: “Don’t look back over your shoulder/I’m not saying don’t ask/When it feels like it gets colder/Every season will pass.”
AP – VOR News Image
Rock Band Cage The Elephant Emerge From Loss And Hospitalization With New Album ‘Neon Pill’
“We’d be in the studio, trying to replicate and emulate. But with this record, I believe we were simply relaxed into ourselves and striving to create something we loved.”
SOURCE – (AP)
Celebrity
Lainey Wilson Wins Big At The 2024 Academy Of Country Music Awards, Including The Top Honor
It was Lainey Wilson’s night in a variety of ways. At the 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards, she won Female Artist of the Year as well as Entertainer of the Year.
Wilson began her address with, “I’ve been in Nashville for 13 years doing this.” “Everybody in this category has loved on me and believed on me,” she said. “And I love y’all for that.”
Miranda Lambert, awarded Entertainer of the Year in 2022, is one of only a few women to have won the top prize. Carrie Underwood and Thomas Rhett tied for the title in 2020, marking the first tie in history and the first time a woman had won the category since Taylor Swift in 2012.
AP – VOR News Image
Lainey Wilson Wins Big At The 2024 Academy Of Country Music Awards, Including The Top Honor
Wilson also opened the 59th annual ACM Awards with a cover of Little Texas’ “God Blessed Texas,” seamlessly transitioning into her new hit, “Hang Tight Honey.” Clay Walker and Randy Travis then presented Jordan Davis the song of the year for his popular country radio smash “Next Thing You Know.”
In his victory speech, he remarked, “First and foremost, I want to thank the fans for their love of this song.” “I love songwriting because of songs that won song of the year, so to be holding this right now is crazy.”
Wilson won the year’s music event, as did Jelly Roll for his hit “Save Me.”
“No pun intended, but seriously, this song saved me,” Jelly Roll stated during his address. “I thought I would die and go to jail,” he added, getting upset — but instead, he celebrated winning an ACM award
Reba McEntire hosted the American Country Music Awards, which were held at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas.
In one of the show’s most anticipated performances, Jason Aldean lit up the stage with a touching homage to the late Toby Keith.
He offered the audience a moving, acoustic version of Keith’s famous “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.” They sang along, and Keith’s family watched from the audience.
Keith has won 14 ACM Awards in his career, including the title of Entertainer of the Year twice. He died in February at the age of 62 after being diagnosed with stomach cancer.
Chris Stapleton won both Album and Male Artist of the Year. “There’s so many great guys in that category, and I’m just happy to be included in this company,” he stated in his acceptance speech.
And Dua Lipa joined him as a special guest when it was time to perform his brand-new single, “Think I’m in Love with You.”
AP – VOR News Image
Lainey Wilson Wins Big At The 2024 Academy Of Country Music Awards, Including The Top Honor
It wasn’t the only surprise: Post Malone dropped a brand-new song, “Never Love You Again,” which bled into his massive new single with Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help.” Wallen didn’t perform.
Instead, McEntire later joined Post Malone to perform a brief duet of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Ramblin’ Man” in honor of Dickey Betts, who died last month. He was eighty.
Earlier in the evening, Luke Combs, the night’s most nominated artist with eight, won single of the year for his cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” Last year, Chapman’s 1988 ballad won Song of the Year at the Country Music Awards for Combs’ cover, becoming her the first Black songwriter to do so.
Dan Shay and Old Dominion won awards for duo and group of the year, respectively.
Performances came fast and furious: Jelly Roll Morton started with a thumping rendition of his new song “Liar,” followed closely by Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan, who turned her song “Mountain with a View” into his viral hit “Stick Season.”
Tigirlily Gold sang “I Tried A Ring On,” Texas-born Cody Johnson performed “Dirt Cheap,” and Miranda Lambert introduced her new track “Wranglers.”
Kane Brown sang a beautiful cover of “Georgia on My Mind.” Thomas Rhett sang “Beautiful As You,” and Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani performed “Purple Irises” on the ACM stage.
AP – VOR News Image
Lainey Wilson Wins Big At The 2024 Academy Of Country Music Awards, Including The Top Honor
Park McCollum played his smash “Burn It Down,” new male artist of the year Nate Smith and pop-punk superstar Avril Lavigne performed their new song “Bulletproof,” and presenter McEntire finished out the program with her new track “I Can’t.”
The ACM Awards were broadcast live on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch Live.
SOURCE – (AP)
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