Hollywood Diplomacy: Film Regulation, Foreign Relations, and East Asian Representations

Hollywood Diplomacy contends that, rather than simply reflect the Wests cultural fantasies of an imagined Orient, images of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ethnicities have long been contested sites where the commercial interests of Hollywood studios and the political mandates of U.S. foreign policy collide, compete against one another, and often become compromised in the process. While tracing both Hollywoods internal foreign relations protocolsfrom the Open Door policy of the silent era to the National Feelings provision of the Production Codeand external regulatory interventions by the Chinese government, the U.S. State Department, the Office of War Information, and the Department of Defense, Hye Seung Chung reevaluates such American classics as Shanghai Express and The Great Dictator and applies historical insights to the controversies surrounding contemporary productions including Die Another Day and The Interview. This richly detailed book redefines the concept of creative freedom in the context of commerce: shifting focus away from the artistic entitlement to offend foreign audiences toward the opportunity to build new, better relationships with partners around the world through diplomatic representations of race, ethnicity, and nationality. See more