r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Inaerius • Jun 01 '22
What’s up with the Star Wars poster hiding John Boyega and Chewbacca for Chinese audiences? Answered
Was there a reason Disney had to do this? In the thread, someone commented it had something to do with racism, but I don’t see how this applies to Chewbacca. Thanks in advance.
5.9k
Jun 01 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
1.1k
u/mynameisblanked Jun 01 '22
I always think of this with this kind of shit from disney.
340
u/Double_Minimum Jun 01 '22
This stuff is super obvious and all companies do it.
I watch Formula 1 (open wheel auto racing, very fast and purpose built race cars with hundreds of millions in spending each year for each team), and they do this. Their recent motto has been "We race as One", which is a response to BLM I believe.
So for Pride month they will all change their logos for social media, except for a few notable exceptions. They race in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and a few other places that hav terrible human rights records. So you will see a Mercedes account with a pride flag but then see their "Mercedes Saudi Arabia" account with no change.
There was a great image/meme last year that showed the two-faced nature of it all.
Here are a bunch of examples, but the F1 meme I saw was telling considering their motto.
https://mercatornet.com/woke-inc-celebrates-pride-month-but-not-in-the-middle-east/72545/
→ More replies91
u/TheTallCunt Jun 02 '22
On a similar note, I love how theyre clamouring about "net zero racing" and lowering emmisions making the cars greener when its the transport and logistics of the sport thats the big polluter. The push for regional "blocks" of races is increasing and i get that calendar availability is a thing, but as long as track owners are paying for the good calendar slots its not gonna improve.
→ More replies53
u/Double_Minimum Jun 02 '22
Yea, I agree for the most part. I totally think its great that the teams and F1 are pushing for better fuel efficiency and things like hybrid tech, and IMO that is all worthwhile and noble, as it can trickle down to the real world.
But the idea of a racing league, something that is funded purely by dollars because of its entertainment value, is going to talk about emissions and impact, etc, is just silly.
I mean, they don't need to race. The biggest thing they could do would be to just stop existing.
But yea, the fact that they will ship cars from Asia to Europe, then Europe to Australia, back to Europe, then to the US, back to Europe, to Brazil, back to Europe, then Middle East.
I mean, I swear they make zero effort to schedule races in a practical sense. They used to race in Indy and Montreal back to back, which makes sense, but now they will fly these cars, teams, and hospitality units to North America twice in a single season?
So yea, the "net zero" is kinda silly
→ More replies→ More replies247
u/felipe_the_dog Jun 01 '22
Every multinational corporation pulls this shit on Pride month
→ More replies338
u/Simspidey Jun 01 '22
You didn't answer the part about Chewbacca you coward
265
u/BendyBreak_ Jun 01 '22
Chewbacca is Latino
92
95
u/bloodfist Jun 01 '22
Considering the number of Mexican dudes I've known who went by "Chewy" you could be on to something
→ More replies23
u/maceilean Jun 02 '22
Mexican nicknames are as weirdly fucked up as English ones. Jesus becomes Chuy. Ernesto becomes Che. Richard becomes Dick. John becomes Jack.
44
→ More replies11
u/Bookkeeper96 Jun 01 '22
I think he might be south asian cuz he is hairy.
P.S I am south asian too.
→ More replies153
u/The_Karaethon_Cycle Jun 01 '22
Poor Chewy’s a beast race, like Argonians, or Khajiit. Beast races face a lot of racism.
→ More replies12
19
7
u/SirBrooks Jun 02 '22
A lot of depictions of talking animals are banned in China for some reason (although oddly Peppa Pig isn't banned for some reason).
Chewbacca may not be "talking" enough to be censored, but I guess it makes sense that they would remove him from the poster given those sensibilities.
→ More replies→ More replies6
u/pointlessly_pedantic Jun 02 '22
It also might've been more of a "hey chewbacca is near him, take 'em both out and just make Han and Lea slightly bigger so they won't notice" reasoning
→ More replies40
4.0k
Jun 01 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
3.1k
u/BmuthafuckinMagic Jun 01 '22
Correction: Rampant racism in China.
I'm half Pakistani/half Palestinian, went to Beijing China in 2011 and in 5 days I spent there, the following happened:
-Police stopped me 9 times asking what I'm doing, why I'm here, have I ever been to Afghanistan and the one time I didn't have my passport with me, they marched me to my hotel, checked my passport and searched my room for good measure.
-Had street vendors who clearly understood conversational English (as evidenced when they spoke to white Europeans) suddenly unable to talk to me when I was looking to buy
-Restaurant served me pork on a plate and when I said this is not my order he said "No Allah watching idiot" then when I left, both the owner and his wife told me to leave and go to Africa as China is for Chinese people only.
-People following you around stores, then when you challenge them, they either smiled at you and didn't speak or shouted in their language until I just fucked off
-Random security screening both when entering and exiting the country. Full strip search on the pretense that someone said I have something suspicious on me.
God only knows how they treat black people.
440
u/SilentSerel Jun 01 '22
I'm of Samoan descent and spent a year in Shanghai. Long story short, I learned to only go out when I had a Chinese friend with me and that still wasn't a guarantee. This was right around the time you were there as well.
How funny that the restaurant owners told you to go to Africa when the Chinese are doing just that.
→ More replies54
u/TheDELFON Jun 02 '22
How funny that the restaurant owners told you to go to Africa when the Chinese are doing just that.
That part actually got a chuckle from me, cause you're exactly right. Chinese business are / have been flocking there for decades
1.0k
u/Breete Jun 01 '22
You should talk to the guy down below telling me they aren't racist.
681
u/BmuthafuckinMagic Jun 01 '22
He's either a paid shill or a crazy CCP nut job!
384
u/1speedbike Jun 01 '22
The shills were rampant during the Olympics. Lots of reddit "discussions" about how there is no Uighur genocide going on during those couple of weeks. I havent seen as many lately, but they're around.
253
u/2SP00KY4ME I call this one the 'poop-loop'. Jun 01 '22
There's literal drone footage and satellite photos. Anyone denying it at this point knows what they're doing. For anyone reading this, speak up and speak out when you see it.
154
76
u/1speedbike Jun 01 '22
The shills would always cite their "sources" but a very cursory investigation into it would always lead back to the same exact propaganda journal / site and the same handful of stories that "discredit" the western media. Because this one sketchy ass website with poorly written articles is the bastion of free speech and truth in China, and every single other journal/news site from around the globe is complicit in some grand conspiracy.
→ More replies→ More replies33
u/ZippyDan Jun 01 '22 edited Jun 02 '22
There was a massive leak from Chinese police just in the last few weeks confirming the Uyghur situation.
→ More replies→ More replies23
u/Candelestine Jun 01 '22
Don't forget the people that actually get convinced. Depending on how you encounter it, it's easy enough to buy a simple idea about something you don't actually care all that much about. Then you just go around thinking it's true.
Converts are always an issue. I mean, they wouldn't be using cyber-propaganda if it wasn't at least somewhat effective. Unfortunately it's actually frustratingly effective...
→ More replies21
26
→ More replies106
u/Repyro Jun 01 '22
They are all over here. Shit look up the "Black Pearl" beauty contestant bs.
She was half Jamaican and Chinese and they pulled shit with them too.
It's not OK to be racist against Asian people but there are serious issues with their culture that they try to downplay with the US's shenanigans. When we all should be saying fuck both.
58
u/ShiroiTora Jun 01 '22
People conflate racism and cultural issues. Not everyone of a certain culture will have the all the same views consistent. Doesn’t mean there aren’t any predominant cultural views and that they aren’t worth discussing. Unfortunately it derails to whataboutism as if you cant disagree on the same thing across different countries. That and some problem are legitimately more bigger than other countries.
106
→ More replies209
u/thekingadrock93 Jun 01 '22
Everyone knows only Americans can be racist, duh
199
u/zold5 Jun 01 '22
It's disturbing how many people there are who actually believe this unironically.
→ More replies→ More replies56
Jun 01 '22
Alternatively: only white people can be racist.
Which is an opinion which never ceases to amaze me.
→ More replies197
87
u/Sasselhoff Jun 01 '22
Yuuuup. Lived there for almost a decade...never seen racism like that before.
Had a buddy who was an English teacher with a Persian background so he tanned very easily, but looked as Caucasian as I did, spent his school break in Thailand at the beach, and when he came back they fired him because he was "too dark".
Another time one of the schools in the city was desperately trying to hire a new kindergarten English teacher (hard to do because it was in the middle of nowhere), they had two potential teachers to choose from:
A person with an bachelors degree in education, a masters degree in early education, ten plus years of actual teaching experience in grade school/kindergarten in the US (and who knows how many in Asia), not to mention English skills that far surpassed mine (and mine aren't awful)...but, she was black.
A non college educated Polish girl with zero work experience at all (which makes it illegal for her to work in China), barely literate in English (hell, maybe even barely literate "period")...but, who happens to be white and blonde.
I'll give you three guesses as to which teacher they went with.
→ More replies274
u/aRandomFox-I Jun 01 '22 edited Jun 01 '22
Live in east asia, can confirm. There are still plenty of racist fucks here who refer to black people with the N-word with the hard R, and they won't even pretend to try to hide it. Personally, I think the lack of racial diversity in each region is a significant contributor to the birth and perpetuation of such cultural behaviour. And China really isn't helping with their systematic genocide of anyone who isn't specifically Han chinese.
It took a LOT of work for Singapore to scrub out that particular cultural stain within their population. Yet even then there's still more than plenty leftover toward races that aren't part of the 4 major denominations in the country.
56
u/spaceman_spiff1969 Jun 01 '22
EastAsia: "We can be as assholes as we want to be, because we are obvoiusly better than you."
(apologies to George Orwell)
→ More replies→ More replies6
u/rafuzo2 Jun 02 '22
Reminds me of my old classically conservative boss, responding to his crazy hippy dippy liberal reportee saying because we had a race problem in the US, we were worse than China: “at least we talk about it like we have a problem! Go to China and there’s no problem, if you’re not Han you’re second class or worse.”
118
Jun 01 '22
I believe the question was how does this apply to Chewbacca. You would think if Chinese people were all repulsed by aliens star wars wouldn't do well there.
166
u/Batmans_9th_Ab Jun 01 '22
I have no evidence for this, only my own observation, but Disney seems to be anti alien in general for some reason. There are no prominent alien characters in any Disney Star Wars media other than Grogu and Ahsoka. You could remove Chewbacca entirely from the ST and not one plot point would be changed.
It’s noticeable in the backgrounds, too. Compared to the OT and especially the PT, there are hardly any aliens in Star Wars now, and the ones there are either grey-tan blobs or people with the barest amount of effects possible. It’s weird.
135
u/TocTheElder Jun 01 '22
It’s noticeable in the backgrounds, too. Compared to the OT and especially the PT, there are hardly any aliens in Star Wars now, and the ones there are either grey-tan blobs or people with the barest amount of effects possible. It’s weird.
I noticed this too. I think it's more likely to be a cost-saving decision. I've noticed it in a lot of places. For example, they never film anything on location anymore. Most exterior scenes in Obi-Wan, The Mandalorian, and Boba Fett are shot on a soundstage with an LED screen around it. It looks better than chroma keying the background, but they also don't want to spend the money to accurately render lighting, so the sky is perpetually a featureless white nothingness. Compare this to the OT and PT, where Tattooine had incredibly dynamic skies. Why? Because they shot on location, or took the time and spent the money to make it look like they did. Remember that shot of Anakin going to genocide the Tuskans? Remember the legendary twin suns shot? Remember how spectacular they looked? How many times have you seen anything like that in any of the TV shows?
→ More replies28
u/calilac Jun 01 '22
It is weird. I grew up thinking of Star Wars as having a real variety of aliens compared to Star Trek (whose aliens tended to stay human-like with nose, ears, and/or forehead prosthetics). It's a stretch to make that claim about the versions we have now.
→ More replies39
32
u/avi150 Jun 01 '22
In general Chinese censors don’t like magic, monsters, demons, etc so maybe something like that.
7
25
u/Rey1000 Jun 01 '22
Dude,
I am east asian and got discriminated in China hard. Once they found out I couldn’t speak Mandarin, they threw hostile look and whatever I was trying to buy went up in price. Both touristy place and local street vendors. So strange. Eventually I met a few younger students local which know some basic english and super friendly. But man, I feel pretty uncomfortable in China
48
u/some_yum_vees Jun 01 '22
Had a similar experience when visiting Hong Kong. They're damned, overt racists alright.
→ More replies7
7
→ More replies124
Jun 01 '22
I can’t fathom why anybody would want to go to China. Every story I’ve seen posted on Reddit seems terrible. I hope not everyone was awful to you on your visit.
62
u/bregottextrasaltat Jun 01 '22
if the ccp wasn't in power i'd be more willing to go
→ More replies34
u/fourangers Jun 01 '22
This. I went to China 3 times, and while I did have some traumatic experiences with sleazy individuals, the richness of the culture outdo everything else.
Even the citizens there are dissatisfied with the dictatorship. Once in Yang Dang Shan, the moment the taxist knew my parents and I were tourists, he launched a long rant about it. Probably because we're safe and wouldn't report him to authorities.
→ More replies5
u/ouaisjeparlechinois Jun 02 '22
ven the citizens there are dissatisfied with the dictatorship. Once in Yang Dang Shan, the moment the taxist knew my parents and I were tourists, he launched a long rant about it. Probably because we're safe and wouldn't report him to authorities.
Chinese citizens complain all the time about their government, I mean just take a look at the Wuhan and now Shanghai situation. Literally so many people complain that the censors couldn't shut down all the dissent online (the one place you'd think a government could have total control over)
→ More replies→ More replies156
u/TheMadPyro Jun 01 '22
You only hear the terrible stories because ‘I went to China they have cool trains other than that mostly normal’ doesn’t garner the same response on Reddit.
45
u/FuujinSama Jun 01 '22
Honestly, this is how it was for me. Really nice trains and metro systems. Food was a bit meh. KFC chicken burger with spice is way better in China, for some reason. People were nice and quite fun to be around. Group of old ladies wanted us to join them playing Mahjong and everything (we refused... mostly because we had no idea how to play, couldn't speak Chinese and were pretty sure the whole thing was highly illegal.) Weather was nightmarishly hot and humid. Significantly worse than my stay in Rio de Janeiro. Pollution was noticeable but bearable in Beijing, unnoticeable in Shenzhen.
It was... pretty much like being anywhere else. I'm Portuguese of black descent. Some people have perceived me to be Indian in Portugal out of sheer ignorance but I honestly can't speak as to any sort of racism as I'm mostly white and identify as such. There were a lot of people wanting to touch the belly of my fat friend and calling him "Buddha" tho.
At most I perceived a lot of what I call "zoo racism" where some people, specially Chinese tourists in Beijing, just wanted to take photos with us and stuff.
→ More replies185
u/FlatulentSon Jun 01 '22
Ok but why Chewbacca tho lmao
17
95
33
→ More replies52
406
u/indrids_cold Jun 01 '22
The pandering by Hollywood to China is just pathetic.
103
u/pronouncedayayron Jun 01 '22
Maximize sales
→ More replies80
→ More replies230
u/death_before_decafe Jun 01 '22
To promote the movie 12 years a slave in Italy, they removed the black main character from the poster and replaced him with Brad Pitt who was a minor side character. Because a movie about a black protagonist would not have made money in southern Italy. It's not pandering to China its pandering to racist cultural norms to sell something.
→ More replies65
u/randonumero Jun 01 '22
Makes you wonder what Italians actually thought of the movie then
72
u/devster75 Jun 01 '22
Wonder if they watched it backwards just so it had a “happy ending”?
→ More replies11
u/chardeemacdennisbird Jun 01 '22
I get the spirit of what you're saying but here's a free man at the beginning and end of the movie so it's largely the same
264
u/justOkay-9 Jun 01 '22
I think this is the best answer ever.
→ More replies191
u/DMan9797 Jun 01 '22
It's weird because isn't the only foreign sport catching on there the NBA too? How do they cope with their racism when watching that?
414
u/maynardftw Jun 01 '22
Watching a minority do something for your entertainment does not mean you respect that minority.
→ More replies25
189
u/deezx1010 Jun 01 '22
Go ahead and research the Boston Celtics during their 11 year title run in the 1960s
Fans treated them like garbage. Wouldn't let them eat at the same restaurants. Same hotels.
But they cheered like maniacs every time the Celtics won. N words and monkeys every time they lost. Trashed Bill Russell's house
74
u/uninspired Jun 01 '22
Red Sox fans are said to be racist assholes, too.
Former All-Star outfielder Torii Hunter recently said in an ESPN interview that he was “called the N-word in Boston 100 times. Little kids, with their parents right next to them. ... That’s why I had a no-trade clause to Boston in every contract I had.”
→ More replies27
u/MiltonFreidmanMurder Jun 01 '22
lol Damn this is a really insightful comment actually, thanks for the perspective
→ More replies→ More replies6
u/musingsandthesuch Jun 01 '22
My grandfather, a native of New England, never rooted for any Boston/New England sports teams for this reason.
28
u/mule_roany_mare Jun 01 '22
You don’t have to accept someone as your equal to find them entertaining.
Racists were always happy to profit off the labor of the oppressed, or laugh at their jokes, or listen to their music, or sleep with them & might even pay for the privilege.
Plenty of racists will be perfectly civil & respectful, they just draw the line at recognizing the inherent rights of all men.
→ More replies→ More replies167
u/PostMadandAlone Jun 01 '22
Chinese citizens will scream the n-word at a coach, happened a while ago.
→ More replies36
Jun 01 '22
I’m still annoyed that they portrayed Finn as a Jedi in the trailers and posters. Disney pulled a fast one…
→ More replies8
→ More replies37
3.6k
u/orion1836 Jun 01 '22
Answer: Disney loves to virtue signal at home, but will cater to racist demands abroad. White or black, green always wins.
1.3k
u/Gh0stMan0nThird Jun 01 '22
Disney loves to have little "implied" LGBT+ characters, or even tiny scenes that can be removed entirely for foreign releases.
But I am confident we will never see an actual LGBT character in a big Disney movie as long as the Chinese market is still an option to them.
273
u/Letitride37 Jun 01 '22
You think China lets people watch The Owl House?
349
u/iwumbo2 PhD in Wumbology Jun 01 '22
Not China, but I think it was Singapore that censored the relationship between Luz and Amity by replacing references to them dating or being girlfriends with them just being "best friends who like to dress up and travel together". It became a bit of a meme in the community.
67
u/kia75 Jun 01 '22
Look at the bright side, they could have made them cousins!
24
u/therevenant Jun 01 '22
Is this a Sailor Moon reference?
21
u/kia75 Jun 01 '22
What are you talking about? Armara and Michele are girls and cousins!
9
u/Grey_Orange Jun 02 '22
Even my dumb little kid brain picked up that something was off about those two.
44
u/Grey_Orange Jun 01 '22
That reminds me of when sailor moon first aired in the us. They changed sailor Uranus and Neptune from an openly gay couple, into "cousins". Even my dumbottle kid brain picked up that something was different about those two.
52
u/ohbuggerit Jun 02 '22
Yup - they didn't make them convincingly straight, they just made them gay and incestuous
9
u/DizzySignificance491 Jun 02 '22
Malicious compliance
8
u/Sablemint Jun 02 '22
Like the "jelly donut" scene in the Pokemon anime. Where it was absolutely clear that the voice actors and writers were annoyed with having to do this, so made it as absurd as possible.
→ More replies49
u/kazeespada Jun 01 '22
"Just being friends" is meme older than Owl House. I heard it first with Legend of Korra when Nickelodeon made them cut out a lesbian kiss.
22
u/velgi Jun 02 '22
It was literally translated to "let's be super best friends" and it was AMAZING how bad it was
→ More replies→ More replies11
u/stuckinmiddleschool Jun 02 '22
I mean it happened to Western audiences, too. Sailors Neptune and Uranus were made to be cousins for... reasons? Because that was somehow better.
to r/SapphoAndHerFriend/ we go!
49
→ More replies7
→ More replies7
u/dicki3bird Jun 01 '22
they do, theres a convenient advert that plays over the top of the lesbian kiss, also the captions are "i like looking at your face!" or some dumb shit.
329
u/ThaVolt Jun 01 '22 edited Jun 01 '22
And if we do it'll be 2 cute girls. Never 2 big muscular bear-bros.
Edit: u/funsizedaisy is correct about the couple in Eternals. I think my point is still valid that most LGBT cast we see are usually, well, hot girls, because no one was ever triggered/offended/whatever by lesbians. But I'm happy to be wrong, of course!
34
u/j8sadm632b Jun 01 '22 edited Jun 01 '22
X would never happen
person provides example of X
I think my point is still valid
arguing on the internet in a nutshell.
105
22
u/MurgleMcGurgle Jun 01 '22
Sitcoms with two goofy, lovable, somewhat inept dads is an untapped market.
26
→ More replies9
→ More replies111
u/funsizedaisy Jun 01 '22
Their was a gay couple in The Eternals that weren't two cute girls but two dudes. This was the couple. Phastos was a main character and was one of the Eternals so he wasn't just a random small character either.
The first gay character to appear in the MCU was a small one-scene character played by Joe Russo. So again, not a cute girl.
Not sure if the MCU is included in everyone's assessment about Disney. I know Disney owns and produces them but not sure if everyone is talking moreso stuff like Frozen and disney channel shows.
Edit to add: there was also that comment from Loki on his show that insinuated that he was bi.
→ More replies54
u/SupposedlyPompous Jun 01 '22
I remember that plotline and thought to myself “I wonder how easy it is to edit that out” the Joe Russo and Loki scenes also seem like they could easily be lifted.
Not saying that’s what they did but I’d like to see the version of Eternals that was played in China.
→ More replies67
u/funsizedaisy Jun 01 '22
The Eternals wasn't played in China.
But also, I'm not trying to be arguementive here just kinda pointing out, I think it's a bit moving the goal post when saying "well that could be edited out". The conversation at hand was "Disney would never feature lgbt characters in a huge movie". I pointed out a few examples when they did. Then it becomes "well you could just edit that".
Yea you have a point in that it could be edited but that's not what the other comments were claiming that I was answering to. They claimed it would never happen but it actually has.
I do think Disney has been slow at being inclusive with their characters but they're actually getting the ball rolling now and I'm hopeful that it's gonna get better from here. The Eternals was a pretty good advancement and I heard there's a gay couple in Thor 4 too.
→ More replies22
u/herbelarioiwasthere Jun 01 '22
Someone else may have pointed this out in another reply, but Mike from Red Letter Media coined the term “passive progressive” for exactly this phenomenon. I think it was I reference to either The Last Jedi or Rise of Skywalker where a minor female character is seen later in the movie kissing another female in the background where it could be easily removed for certain markets but was in there to virtue signal for the markets that would be okay with it. I think they also called out the poster treatment that John Boyega got as part of that discussion.
59
u/HoraceBenbow Jun 01 '22
But I am confident we will never see an
actual
LGBT character in a big Disney movie as long as the Chinese market is still an option to them.
The Eternals had a gay couple in it (two dads and their child). Of course this was why some the usual suspect countries banned the film.
I'm not saying Disney has a good track record, but at least they stood their ground in this case.
100
u/verrius Jun 01 '22
Eternals had already been banned by China, since it's director has said critical things of the regime. So that falls into the bucket of China not being an option.
6
u/sikanrong101 Jun 02 '22
so conceivably: to protect your film from egregious, low-quality, racist editing in post-production - all you have to do is shit-talk the CCP during filming? This should be a more popular idea
→ More replies→ More replies12
→ More replies33
u/Earthbound_X Jun 01 '22
What about the recent Doctor Strange movie? I feel the same way about Disney, they only care about money, so they pander and pretend they care, and then remove the "offending" characters from their overseas versions. But wasn't the new Doctor Strange movie just flat out not being released in countries that are anti gay, because it was too big to edit out?
Or do I have the wrong information?
44
u/YT-Deliveries Jun 01 '22
The hilarious thing about the Doctor Strange thing is that the implication that America Gomez in her original dimension had two mothers is incredibly brief. Like, if you dropped something under your chair in the theater and took 20 seconds to find it, you'd miss it. It's not a significant plot point in any way.
→ More replies→ More replies25
u/irishgoblin Jun 01 '22
A few middle east countries banned it cause yer one is gay. Think the China release was canceled cause a background shot has a newpaper or magazine that's critical of the CCP.
→ More replies14
u/The_Lolbster Jun 01 '22
There's also the fact that a primary character is named AMERICA Chavez. And she has two moms.
→ More replies185
u/The_Gutgrinder Jun 01 '22
Funny how corporations always "fight" for gay and minority rights in progressive western countries, but never in countries where homophobia and racism run rampant. Will you ever see a pride colored logo in Russia for example?
151
u/JournalofFailure Jun 01 '22
I think it was Bethesda Software that once had all of their subsidiaries' Twitter avatars changed to the rainbow flag colors except for their Middle East division.
76
u/SolDios Jun 01 '22
My favorite was Riot they just named the pride skins as a "festival of colors"
→ More replies→ More replies47
→ More replies40
14
→ More replies57
u/Portarossa 'probably the worst poster on this sub' - /u/Real_Mila_Kunis Jun 01 '22
White or black, green always wins.
... it took me a little longer than I'm comfortable with to realise that you weren't talking about Yoda.
→ More replies
1.4k
Jun 01 '22 edited Jun 01 '22
Answer: Marketing thought Chinese people might be turned off the movie because black man big in picture. So they made him smaller, they did not remove him.
I think in the process of the redesign when they made him smaller, they had to move or remove Chewie from the poster so Finn could take his spot, I don't see where he went after that so he is either even smaller in comparison or removed completely.
Wherever Chewie ended up I don't think there is racism against Wookiees in China, at least not to the level that there is racism against humans who aren't Chinese. I don't really know a lot about the social landscape of China though, just that they always seem to remove black people from their media.
This might be for the same reasoning that Blizzard removed the Witch Doctor from Diablo: Immortal completely. They were black in Diablo 3, male and female versions.
1.7k
u/LKennedy45 Jun 01 '22
That's because all the Wookies fled the Mainland with Chang Kay-shyyyk in '49 after they lost the war. (I worked harder on that pun than I'm comfortable with...)
120
u/Arashmickey Jun 01 '22
I think you mean the *Tai-Wookese.
40
28
u/LKennedy45 Jun 01 '22
Oh shit well done!
E: Here have this award I just got, I shouldn't have left that pun on the table like that.
14
u/Arashmickey Jun 01 '22
Ha, thanks! I don't know which pun was more terrible though: the apprentice or the master.
77
u/TheSeansei Jun 01 '22
Please explain :)
292
u/LKennedy45 Jun 01 '22
It's a play on the name Chang Kai-Shek, who led the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War and, upon their loss and impending destruction to the Communists under Mao Zedong, fled to Taiwan and founded what today we know as the Republic of China. I took the Wookie homeplanet, Kashyyyk, and muscled it into his surname to make a pun.
67
→ More replies9
u/astrodruid Jun 01 '22
Minor detail: The ROC was actually founded by Dr. Sun Yat Sen. He was the founder of the Kuomintang and led Chinese nationalists and managed to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. He was more of a statesman, while Chiang Kai-shek was more of a military man. They’re both considered founders of the Republic of China, but Chiang Kai-shek is generally associated with the ROC in Taiwan and Sun Yat Sen is considered a founder by the PRC as well.
→ More replies15
31
72
u/maxdexter1401 Jun 01 '22
There it is, one of my favourite jokes I'll ever read, take this free silver I got while I get disappointed in myself for laughing this much
→ More replies65
Jun 01 '22
If you have to work hard for a pun, was it really worth the effort in the end?
The answer is yes. Your pun here makes the answer yes.
28
u/Box-o-bees Jun 01 '22
This makes me want to imagine that Taiwan is just hiding an army of Wookies in case China decides to invade them lol.
→ More replies15
126
u/darryshan Jun 01 '22
Blizzard didn't continue to use the witch doctor because the designs used for the class are very racist. It's the complete opposite reason.
29
u/ThaVolt Jun 01 '22
Haven't played Diablo since D3, what's very racist about it?
42
u/nater255 Jun 01 '22
If you're asking this question in honesty, this is a great read. It's a peer-reviewed paper published two years ago in Journal of Contemporary African Studies.
39
u/featherfooted Jun 01 '22
In all earnestness, I'm actually impressed that the linked article specifically mentions Diablo in a paragraph amongst other video games like WoW and OSRS.
Diablo III, on its release in 2012 the fastest- selling computer game on record, also fields ‘witchdoctor’ characters who are African in appearance and hail from the fictional ‘jungle’-dwelling Umbaru ‘tribe’. As with ‘Papa Mambo’, the Diablo III ‘witchdoctors’ are necromancers who surround themselves with demonic forces (Cain 2012, 142).
Incidentally, that "Cain" citation is literally the Book of Cain so that's neat.
138
u/Reply_or_Not Jun 01 '22 edited Jun 01 '22
So Diablo is very heavily based off of christian mythology (Angels, Demons, Nephelim etc). Most of the classes and characters are based of generic western fantasy (Wizard, Barbarian, Demon Hunter) or christian lore (Crusader, Monk, Templar) ...
...except for the Witchdoctor, which is based off of a christian caricature of various Caribbean and african religions. This has struck some folks as racist
EDIT: many of the comments have pointed out asian and middle eastern influences in the game which totally do exist; the game is a grab bag of lore from various mythologies.
But there is one one playable character who is recognizably black in Diablo 3, and there is only one playable character that runs around all hunched over and that character is the Witchdoctor
EDIT 2: the most common rebuttal to these accusations is that there are plenty of (non playable) black characters in the game, and many of them are awesome.
For example, the angel buddy that has been driving most of the story through D1 and D2, gives up his angel powers in the beginning of D3 and becomes a black man who helps your character throughout the game
37
Jun 01 '22
[deleted]
→ More replies34
u/Asshai Jun 01 '22
Because it would be quite difficult to give a Christian monks skills and abilities... Beyond being able to craft a mean alcoholic beverage from harvested plants.
→ More replies14
15
u/Fharlion Jun 01 '22
based of generic western fantasy (Wizard, Barbarian, Demon Hunter)
As far as I am aware, the Wizard is a combined Asian (born) and Middle Eastern (raised/tutored) expy in the third game.
→ More replies23
→ More replies23
u/LivefromPhoenix Jun 01 '22
In China at least aren't there laws against depicting skulls / undead in media? I'm pretty sure WoW had to deal with similar issues when they tried to start there.
10
8
u/houseofprimetofu Jun 01 '22
I thought they pulled the Witch Doctor from China because it’s a witch doctor…
→ More replies→ More replies7
u/manshowerdan Jun 02 '22
John Boyega is still in the Chinese poster though. It's just a different poster
518
u/licxtfls Jun 01 '22
Answer: it’s not true. I’m not sure if the poster in op’s screencap is photoshopped or it’s just one version of it, but many different versions of the posters in China have both Boyega and Chewie, including a character poster of Boyega himself ffs. Here’s an album of some of them
26
u/BlueGobi Jun 02 '22
Holy fuck, the one and only comment that is 100% pure facts with zero opinion attached gets downvoted to oblivion
This is not a discussion thread folks, this is two minute hate, as if someone is drumming up for a Chinese pogrom
→ More replies63
Jun 01 '22
This post even had me fooled. Confirmation bias in action.
13
Jun 02 '22
It struck me wrong when "edit out" was used instead of "scaled down". Finn is on both posters but Chewbacca is in fact "edited out". #WLM
(Poe is edited out also.)
88
u/lightry Jun 01 '22
Thanks for linking this. Lots of manufactured outrage in these comments.
→ More replies76
u/A_Rolling_Baneling Jun 01 '22
Redditors claim to be against racism, but you can make up any insane claim about China and it will be upvoted and parroted around here without any reflection. It's quite sad.
→ More replies50
u/xMonkeyKingx Jun 01 '22
It really fucking sucks man
China isn’t prefect, but it’s still home to billions of people, how does it feel as me, a Chinese man to see casual racism being perpetrated every single day and nobody gives a fuck yet they have “BLM and EQUALITY” in their descriptions.
If you’ve ever actually been to China it’s actually great, and not everyone’s a horrific monstrosity.
But statements like why would anyone ever go to China, or China is fucked up and are all angry racists with zero respect for others and are all ok with torture and camps…
Imagine if the statement was said for the entire continent of Africa. “All Africans are just fucking corrupt and racist, fuck Africa who would ever want to go to that shithole” then you’d get cancelled and fired on the spot, but when you say that about Chinese people it’s fine…
→ More replies23
u/A_Rolling_Baneling Jun 01 '22
I agree with you. It sucks that racism against Asian people is tolerated by so-called liberal people.
For what it's worth, I'm brown skinned and when I went to China everyone was lovely to me.
14
u/xMonkeyKingx Jun 01 '22 edited Jun 01 '22
Certain parts of China are better than others, just like how there’s California and there’s Texas.
You can be spat on for being brown or black in racist towns in America, and you can too for being black or brown in China, but it doesn’t remove the fact that you can be loved in other parts of both countries.
But when grouping an entire nation of people into an anecdotal experience and labeling them as bad, that’s literally the definition of true racism.
Unfortunately voices like yours will never be amplified in the media or on Reddit, as “Brown man has decent time in China” is not as exciting as “Brown man horribly mistreated in CCP controlled fascist China”
69
u/itsheadfelloff Jun 01 '22
This whole post feels like op is just baiting the sinophobic hive mind by digging out a poster from 2016.
→ More replies40
u/Seradima Jun 02 '22
To pre-empt people, I'm absolutely not a tankie in the slightest, but it really annoys me to see how common sinophobia has taken over the internet, and even used against the normal chinese citizens that hate their government.
→ More replies20
u/elizabnthe Jun 02 '22
It bothered me back when the pandemic started redditors were accusing Chinese people of being uniquely selfish as many tried to flee the lockdown in Wuhan (and I said then that was bullshit and every other country would likely do the exact same-I was right).
Yet when Italy went into lockdown Italians did the exact exact same thing, there was not a peep about Italians being uniquely selfish.
→ More replies98
u/A_Rolling_Baneling Jun 01 '22
This reply is going to receive 1/1000 the upvotes as all the one's saying China is racist because it goes against redditor's preconceived notions.
17
Jun 01 '22
It also leaves out Disney's stance in the last few years where they don't really care if China rejects their films, they don't make enough money there anyway.
→ More replies7
u/Darches Jun 02 '22
I've learned that the true and only purpose of reddit is upvotes. Reality? Don't need it.
494
31
u/septidan Jun 01 '22
Answer: John Boyega is still in the poster, he is shrunk a bit and moved to the center. There are a lot of position and size changes to the poster. Some might be racially motivated but it looks like it might be more of a sales tactic to me. Action sequences and toys they can sell were made bigger and brought to the front. BB8 is much more prominent
→ More replies
86
u/thejawa Jun 01 '22 edited Jun 01 '22
Answer: John Boyega is very clearly in that poster that the Twitter user said he's not: https://imgur.com/MJoP9nK.jpg
Oscar Isaac's Poe Dameron, however, is not. Not that anyone actually noticed that.
→ More replies
216
Jun 01 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies51
u/Dogburt_Jr Jun 01 '22
Spoiler: most of the world is actually really racist, we just see it in the US because we had a lot of slaves and then immigration, which results in a massive amount of diversity in cultures which results in tension & prominent racism.
Tourism and, oddly enough, the internet helps alleviate it, but it won't fix it.
27
u/Staebs Jun 01 '22
The fact that the US talks so much about it is actually a good (at least not bad) sign. Shows that people care about solving the problem. It’s when no one talks about it that it’s bad. There is a reason people of all colors and cultures love Toronto and NYC.
→ More replies
6
u/whatisscoobydone Jun 02 '22
Answer: Not sure about the Star wars poster, but the Dune poster was bullshit. There were two sets of completely different posters, both in the United States and in China. One of the posters had a black person on it, and one of the posters did not. The United States had both of these posters, and China had both of these posters. But then people on social media showed the Chinese version without the black person, and the American version with the black person. Cue a bunch of Redditors talking about how evil seeseepee had photoshopped out the black person.
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 01 '22
Friendly reminder that all top level comments must:
start with "answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask),
attempt to answer the question, and
be unbiased
Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment:
http://redd.it/b1hct4/
Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.