Geography Education
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Red Dawn remake swapped Chinese flags for North Korean ones

Red Dawn remake swapped Chinese flags for North Korean ones | Geography Education |

"When it comes to making a multimillion-dollar  action blockbuster, an important rule to follow is: do not alienate some1.3 billion potential theatergoers."

DB: As the reaction to the YouTube “Innocence of Muslims” trailer has shown, we must be more cautious of what we say and how we depict others as social media and cinema can now easily transcend boarders diversifying the place and space of potential viewers.


Forms of expression or entertainment such as art, music, dance, food and especially cinema can symbolize many of the values, norms, customs or fears that are prevalent within a particular society. However, these cultural expressions also may also carry a political stigma that conveys a message to its audience.  China has played a major role in the development of the November release of MGM’s remake of the movie “Red Dawn,” which was a 1984 politically-charged Cold War film about the USSR invading America. The remake of the film incorporated many themes associated with a “declining” America, yet this was not China’s concern. Originally the producers of this film intended to replace the USSR with the PRC which would portray China as the villain and antagonist of the film. Yet (as the Chinese government soon made MGM realize) this is inconsistent with the realities of 21st century geopolitics or the globally economy. The threat of having the film blocked by one of their biggest and most lucrative markets in East Asia pressured MGM to re-edit the film depicting North Korea as the villain before its release this November.


Question: How has globalization changed the film or entertainment industry in general?

Al Picozzi's curator insight, July 23, 2013 1:29 PM

Amazing how they had to change who the enemy was when they found out the Chinese were being offened.  I remember when the original was being made.  The Soviet Union was up in arms about it, did they change the enemy at that time, nope.  The Soviet Union was not seen as an "economic" threat to making money off the movie, the Chinese are.

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