Tom Cruise, in “Top Gun: Maverick”, wears a bomber jacket emblazoned with the flag of Taiwan, which is viewed as an independence symbol by the Chinese government. Tsai Ing-administration maintains that Taiwan has already achieved de facto independence and now seeks to gain international recognition for this status.
According to several media sites, a little feature on the backside of Tom Cruise’s jacket may be to blame for the lack of “Top Gun 2” distribution in Asia.
Captain Mitchell’s leather jacket has patches placed on the back to honor his father’s tours of duty in Japan and Taiwan in the original 1980s classic. However, when the trailer for “Top Gun: Maverick” was released in 2019, those flags were changed with arbitrary symbols.
Fans Cheered When They Saw Tom Cruise Wearing Jacket Featuring Taiwan’s Flag
Some speculated that the flag had been deleted to please Chinese censors since it was either gone or couldn’t be seen clearly in a teaser for the film released in 2019. The flags reappeared, though, when the whole film was released in theaters recently. Likewise, the Japanese flag was raised once more.
When the Taiwanese flag appeared on Cruise’s jacket during an early showing in Taiwan, the audience erupted in cheers and applause, according to a report by local online media source SETN.
China is not anticipated to see the film. The box office performance of the film was the primary topic of discussion among Chinese social media users who followed movies. North American ticket sales for Maverick totaled an estimated $124 million during the Memorial Day weekend.
Hollywood’s Long History Of Giving In To China’s Censorship Demands
Since the early 2000s, Hollywood has consistently bowed to Chinese censors’ demands to remove material deemed unpleasant by the country’s increasingly conservative society.
In contrast, the choice to preserve Captain Mitchell’s jacket’s back-facing depiction of the Chinese flag implies that at least some Hollywood executives are turning a new page when it comes to China’s censorship laws.
Chris Fenton, a former movie producer and author of “Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, and American Business,” says that “Hollywood is finally pushing back.” “Trying to appease Chinese censors is simply not worth the trouble any longer in the market.”
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