After numerous mentions of this movie in the last year, I finally watched Contagion for the first time last weekend. It was eerily relevant, like a prophecy. The research, as well as an element of realism and honesty of the movie, will make people look back to it as an apt bookmark in history. And then, a scarier scenario crossed my mind that night. What if China produced a sequel to this movie? Not in China, but via Hollywood.
A movie produced in any other part of the world does not have as much influence as the ones in Hollywood. It's sort of leverage that America has enjoyed for a long time across the globe regardless of the actuality, called soft power.
Take their glittering New York skyline and Times Square for example, but are you aware that subway stations beneath the city are worse than our Delhi's Sadar Bazaar Railway station? Our youth is enthralled by the freedom and the liberal society of America, but are you aware that 70% of American schools preach religious abstinence. Yes, being a virgin until marriage. Indians despise our desi shows like Naagin but, are you aware there are hundreds of disgusting TV shows like The Swan airing for decades on American TV channels. We have long been oblivious to the other side of entrancing America. Why, and how?
By any assessment, the answer is American popular culture, particularly Hollywood.
Prologue above isn't for comparison, but to reiterate how curated American pop culture has seeped into our lives for decades. The desire for American ways, things, and dreams via Hollywood. It's powerful and, too late to be escaped. What if, this power is harnessed by China?
China understood this power decades back, and many Chinese production companies have since been investing, producing, and heavily collaborating with big Hollywood names like Disney and Fox for some time now. In fact, according to global reports, many decisions have already been made to please the Communist government of China.
LGBT content was removed from Bohemian Rhapsody, Star Trek: Beyond, Alien: Covenant, and Cloud Atlas. In scenes where Chinese people were killed, were taken out of Skyfall and Mission: Impossible III. A major character was changed from Tibetan to Celtic in Doctor Strange, a decision made by the screenwriter to avoid the risk of “alienating one billion people”. In the disaster movie, "2012," humanity is saved because the Chinese government had the foresight to build life-saving arcs. In "Gravity," Sandra Bullock survives by getting herself to the Chinese Space Station. That movie did so well in China, she went back and re-shot "The Blindside" with an underprivileged table tennis player.
Countries across the globe came to terms with Pandemic with knee-jerk reactions, months after the virus crossed the Wuhan city border, in the Hubei province of China. World Health Organization, whose sole purpose could be summed up as - “keeping the world safe” fell short.
Since then,
Voices worldwide grew louder demanding the resignation of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Director general of the World Health Organization) - did not happen.
List of nations grew longer who sought to hold China accountable for its mishandling of novel virus, China mischievously passed the buck.
WHO requested the Chinese Communist government access to ground zero to study the origins of the virus, which they did after one year and no raw data of initial cases.
Meanwhile, China exported substandard medical aid and vaccines to affected countries with a bad attitude.
It has also been aggressively challenging the sovereignty of more than 20 nations on land, in the sea, and in the air during these grim times.
The list of tactics adopted by the Communist Party of China is long, all to dethrone America as a superpower. Cunning financial aid to third-world countries, diplomatic and military aggression to its neighbors, lack of regret for its role in Pandemic, and domestic human rights violations, China has crossed the line a long time ago without any impending consequences. Could all this be forgotten? Certainly not, but could it be toned down and aligned with the interests of China? Absolutely.
Public relations (PR), the practice of deliberately managing the release and spread of information between an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, NGO, etc.) and the public in order to affect the public perception could very well be achieved by producing and influencing sequel to this prophecy film. All they'd ask is to compassionately highlight the stigma leading to racism towards ethnic Chinese groups due to Pandemic around the world and not touching base on the arrogance of the Chinese Communist government, and the world would be instantly divided. It's not a novel imagination, PR has been successfully practiced in cases of convicted criminals and terrorists invoking sympathy.
Our world runs on complexly interweaved economic arrangements whose 90% of threads pass through the autocratic Chinese regime. Big tech companies, world media, and Hollywood celebrities have all been hobnobbing, and ready to offer their services to China in exchange for the mere possibility of access to its billon plus rising middle-class population for business.
After renewed, second success, in December of 2020, Steven Soderbergh, the director of the movie revealed that he will be teaming up with screenwriter Scott Z Burns in order to give the pandemic thriller Contagion a "philosophical sequel”. How that turns out, only time shall tell, or perhaps reports that shall follow after the sequel's release.
Bad will always take advantage of the good. Good will always help bad in hope of it turning good. It's a circle. But, one endures and the other enjoys. No wonder everyone wants to enjoy it.
There are billions of anguished people who wait for China to pay for its recklessness, but the superpowers of the world are struggling with their own domestic battles. If in the meantime, China brazens it out with PR from some help with Hollywood - it'd be a failure of a modern civilized world.
unherdnow@gmail.com
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