Angelina Jolie Angers China During 'Maleficent' Promotional Tour
Disney’s most popular villainess may have made herself a new enemy. While in China, on a promotional tour for Maleficent,
Angelina Jolie sparked an international kerfuffle by referring to China
and Taiwan as if they were separate countries. The controversial
statement came up when Jolie was asked to name her favorite Chinese
director; she identified Life of Pi director Ang Lee, who is Taiwanese-American.
“I am not sure if you consider
Ang Lee Chinese, he’s Taiwanese, but he does many Chinese-language films
with many Chinese artists and actors,” Jolie answered. “And I think his
works and the actors in his films are the ones I am most familiar with
and very fond of.”
Chinese social media has since reportedly blown up,
with comments calling Jolie “traitorous” and a “deranged Taiwan
independence supporter.” Some threatened to boycott her for, in the
words of one user, “disrespecting Chinese sovereignty.” Meanwhile,
Taiwanese internet users are said to be praising the actress, with one calling her a “brave and brilliant woman.”
Jolie’s Ang Lee statement doesn’t
sound too extreme from an outsider’s perspective, but China’s
relationship with Taiwan is a touchy subject. Although Taiwan calls
itself the Republic of China, the region has been governed separately
from mainland China since 1949. An active Taiwan independence movement
still exists, which the Chinese government vehemently opposes. Though
relationships have improved since 2008, the Taiwanese Strait is still
considered a potential conflict zone.
All of which is probably why
Jolie, a U.N. ambassador, was so careful in choosing her words to
describe Ang Lee — a choice that clearly backfired.
Fortunately, Jolie is being
joined on her press tour by somebody who understands her situation very
well: Brad Pitt. The actor was reportedly banned from China after making
the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet, which portrayed the Chinese military in Tibet as harsh and unjust. Ironically, the Maleficent press tour marks Pitt’s first public trip to China since that controversy.
It remains to be seen whether Jolie’s words will affect Maleficent’s international box office, of which China is a key part. Thus far, the movie has been doing well; according to the Wall Street Journal, it’s currently the second highest-grossing film in Taipei, after Edge of Tomorrow.
As delicate a subject as
Taiwan-Chinese relations are, Jolie is literally a diplomat — so perhaps
she’ll find a way to recover. And just think: if she’d answered Zhang Yimou instead of Ang Lee, none of this would be happening.
*This post has been corrected since its original publication.
Photo: Reuters
end quote from:
Chinese blast Jolie for 'traitorous' words
The star wades into an international conflict by answering a seemingly harmless question.
'Disrespecting' Chinese sovereignty? »
This is what happens when the Chinese mainland people are only fed fairy tales and not the truth about anything. This is the kind of thing that happened to Japanese people before the Rape of Nanking in China. So, we might see this kind of behavior of China against other nations now as a direct result of this kind of stifled thinking.
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