On one side, we’ve got Enes Kanter, who is becoming a U.S. citizen today and legally changing his name to Enes Kanter Freedom. At great risk to his career — and possibly his personal safety — Kanter has stood up and repeatedly denounced the Chinese government’s litany of human rights violations.
And on the other side, we’ve got Disney, who — as an entire company — doesn’t have the backbone to do anything more than bend over for the ChiComs:
Disney has allegedly removed one episode of The Simpsons from the Hong Kong edition of Disney+, which described the family’s visit to Beijing and carried this famous scene.
Via @StandNewsHK https://t.co/PAs1SdoxEk pic.twitter.com/VwXiFHADAK
— Alvin Lum (@alvinllum) November 27, 2021
Kudos to Disney for being so flexible. It’s not just anyone who can grab their ankles with their own arms.
Disney+ Drops ‘Simpsons’ Episode Featuring Tiananmen Square Joke – The Hollywood Reporter https://t.co/x7XhNvP99S
— Morgan Ortagus (@MorganOrtagus) November 29, 2021
More from the Hollywood Reporter:
The 16th season of the iconic Fox animated show jumps from episode 11 to 13 when viewers in the city browse the flagship Disney streaming service. The missing episode 12, first broadcast in 2005, happens to be the one where Homer takes his family to China, where they visit Tiananmen Square and come across a placard that reads: “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened.”
It appears the episode has suffered precisely the kind of the censorship it was written to ridicule.
The censorship of such content would come as no surprise in Mainland China, where any mention of the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy student protestors has been scrubbed clean of public discourse for decades. But the apparent voluntary removal of the episode in Hong Kong — especially when done by a major U.S. media company — is a relatively new feature of civic life there.
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A feature that Disney is more than willing to engage in and facilitate.
An American company is shamelessly indulging an authoritarian regime’s desires. Indulging everything this country supposedly stands against.
It’s mind-boggling and nothing short of utterly infuriating.
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize..
The Joke was "On this site, in 1989, nothing happened" and that was so offensive that Disney had to memory hole the episode. https://t.co/iIgmj6VaWr
— Tim (@Plain_Old_Tim) November 29, 2021
Least surprising development of the year.
— Dave Tuskey (@DTuskey) November 29, 2021
That’s what makes it especially mind-boggling and infuriating: given what we’ve seen from Disney, we’d only be genuinely shocked to learn that they were actually standing up to China for a change.
If this doesn’t terrify you, you aren’t paying attention. https://t.co/cw2oxcrU9s
— susan price (@sbprice) November 29, 2021
Bend the knee to your master…..
— Jaymz 🎉🔺 (@Adding_Alpha) November 29, 2021
They have no spine.
— Robert Garvin (@frostybob123) November 29, 2021
Disney loves communism
— Josh Bunch (@jbbunch1023) November 29, 2021
Disney is evil.
— Gods of the Copybook Headings (@copybook_gods) November 29, 2021
“South Park” was right.
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