When Chloé Zhao won the Golden Globe last year for best director for her film “Nomadland”, which was the first Asian woman to receive the award, the Chinese news reports were jubilant. “The pride of China!” read one heading with reference to me. Zhao, who was born in Beijing.
But the mood changed quickly. Chinese online sleuths dug up an interview with an American film magazine in 2013 in which Zhao criticized her homeland, calling it a place “wherever it lies.” And they quoted another, recent interview with an Australian website in which Zhao, who received much of her training in the United States and now lives there, quoted: “The USA is finally my country.”
The Australian website later added a note stating that it was Ms. Zhao misquoted and that she actually said ‘not my country’. But the damage was done.
Chinese nationalists have jumped online. What her nationality was, they wanted to know. Was she Chinese or American? Why should China celebrate its success if it is American?
Even a research center overseen by the government-affiliated Chinese Academy of Social Sciences weighed in. “Look at her true attitude towards China.”
On Friday, sensors penetrated. Searches in Chinese for the hashtags “#Nomadland” and “#NomadlandReleaseDate” were suddenly blocked on Weibo, a popular social media platform, and Chinese promotional material also disappeared. References to the planned release of the film in China on April 23 have been removed from prominent film websites.
It was not a complete eclipse. Numerous stories about the film have been online since Saturday. And so far there have been no reports that the release of the film in China has been jeopardized. (China’s National Arthouse Alliance of Cinemas, which will oversee the theater release, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Searchlight Pictures, the Hollywood studio behind ‘Nomadland’.)
But the online censorship was the last reminder of the power of rising nationalist sentiment in China and the increasingly complex political minefield that companies have to navigate there.
For years, the central government was the only major gatekeeper for films in China, determining which foreign films received the official stamp of approval and eventually gained access to the country’s thriving box office. Now, more and more, China’s online patriots can also influence the fate of a movie or a company.
In many cases, winning – or at least not offending – patriots, sometimes condescendingly called ‘little pink’, is an important consideration for companies looking to enter the Chinese market.
“There’s a lot more room to hit figures like Chloé Zhao,” said Aynne Kokas, author of ‘Hollywood Made in China’.
The setback against ‘Nomadland’ was somewhat unexpected. Apart from me. Zhao, the film, in which Frances McDormand plays in a sensitive portrait of the lives of American Americans, has little or no connection with China. Although it is said to be a strong contender for the Oscars, it would not be expected to garner large Chinese audiences, given its limited theatrical release and slow pace.
But the patriotic frenzy could become a major issue for another film directed by Zhao, “The Eternals,” a superhero film for Disney’s Marvel Studios starring Angelina Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani and Salma Hayek. It is scheduled to debut in the United States in November, but a release date for China has not been announced publicly.
Experts believe that while Zhao’s background would probably be a major selling point for ‘The Eternals’ in China, it could now become an Achilles’ heel – a potentially devastating blow to the film and to Marvel, which has borne much fruit in the Chinese market with movies like “Avengers: Endgame.”
Such a scenario would be particularly damaging this year, as the pandemic has destroyed boxes in almost all major markets, but in China, where the virus is largely under control and the local film industry is thriving.
“The blocking of references to ‘Nomadland’ emphasizes China’s new position of power,” she said. Kokas said with reference to the online censorship, which was previously reported by Variety. “As the largest market in the world, there is much less need to bring Hollywood studio films to market.”
Until recently, little in China from me. Zhao (38) heard.
She was born in Beijing and went to boarding school in London, to high school in California and eventually to film school at New York University. Before “Nomadland”, Ms. Zhao gained recognition for the highly acclaimed art film “Songs My Brothers Taught” I ”(2015) and“ The Rider ”(2017).
In China, however, she was best known as the stepdaughter of the popular comic actress Song Dandan, who in 1997 with Mrs. Zhao, the former head of a Chinese state-owned enterprise, got married.
Me. Zhao talked about what she sees as her shifting identity, a product, according to her, of years they have moved around the world. She described her Chinese heritage as part of the identity.
In a recent profile in New York magazine, Ms. Zhao refers to northern people in China as ‘my own people’ and describes herself as ‘from China’. Global Times, a Chinese state-backed nationalist pony newspaper, posted on Twitter On Wednesday, Disney said Zhao was a Chinese citizen.
The quote in which me. Zhao said there were ‘lies’ everywhere’ in China, first appearing in 2013 in an article in New York-based film Filmmaker. According to the archived versions of the website, it was still as good as in October in the article. But by mid-February, the quote was removed and a note added that the article was “edited and summarized after publication.” The quote is not in the latest version of the article, although it appears elsewhere on the magazine’s website.
Filmmaker Magazine did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did it respond to Disney. Ms Zhao could not be reached for comment.
Amid the nationalist shouts, many Chinese rushed to me. Defending Zhao and despising the ‘little pinks’ because they were too sensitive. “Nomadland” was a beautiful film, many said, one that transcended the ugliness of politics and national borders.
Nothing comparable to the insignificant depiction of the struggle of gig workers and America’s weakening social safety net could be made in China, others said. On Douban, a review site popular among relatively liberal Chinese, the film received nearly 66,000 reviews and a strong rating of 8.4 out of 10.
Some commentators have also pointed to the irony that Chinese nationalists want to tie a film that seems to fit so well with the narrative that official propaganda bodies have recently put forward, of a rising China and a decline in the United States.
“Chloé Zhao’s ‘Nomadland’ deeply reveals the crisis of lower-class American citizens and the difficult lives of its people,” Qiao Mu, a former professor of communications at Beijing Foreign Studies University, wrote about Weibo. “It should strengthen our pride in socialism and our confidence in the Chinese way.”
“She is the pride of the Chinese people,” he adds, “not someone who insults China.”