China has recently decided to lift its censorship of Marvel movies, allowing Disney and the MCU to expand into the world’s second-largest theatrical market. Good news for them, but it comes with a big caveat that will affect the day-to-day Marvel fan. Given China’s erratic taste for censorship, Disney will have to watch their step if they want to prevent a wholesale ban from happening again. And this means we might start seeing MCU movies made specifically to pass the Chinese censors. So you can expect not to see any Chinese villains in the coming years.
Disney’s corporate relations with China are also somewhat political. While Chinese censors are famously fickle with their decisions and even more surreptitious in their reasoning, Disney will have to be careful not only with the content of their movies but how their stars and directors act off-screen. Some believe Chloe Zhao’s Eternals had been banned in Chinese markets because of her outspoken words against her home nation. It’s not unheard of for big companies to give their employees public relations coaching when going into very visible interviews. The Marvel we see going forward may be one crafted to succeed in both markets instead of just crafted.
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The Relationship Between Marvel and China
Marvel Studios
China began its consistent ban of Marvel movies in 2021, during a time when trade policy between the US and China was strained by the pandemic. Private media companies have always had a tense relationship with China, and it’s often the case that some industries will be banned simply out of spite due to America’s export policy or comments made over Taiwan. It’s part of an aggressive conversation between the two most powerful economies in the world. So Chinese censors don’t always specify exactly why one movie was censored as opposed to another, leaving private companies to guess what may have gone wrong.
Most of Marvel’s Phase 4 was not allowed to play in China, including Black Widow, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder. Though the movies seem to line up in a block of time in which Chinese and American trade policy was tense, Xi Jinping had begun greater enforcement of a more nationalistic policy, and American xenophobia was highly focused on Asian countries due to the pandemic. Critiques of Chinese civil liberties were also high. Many commenters believe Thor: Love and Thunder was banned due to a brief LGBTQ moment in the film.
But some thinkers in the industry look for smaller-scale reasons than macroeconomic relationships. For example, soon after Eternals premiered, a Chinese internet user dug up an old (2013) interview with director Chloe Zhao that showed her saying in China “there are lies everywhere.” Soon after, the rest of her films were taken out of circulation in China and her Oscar acceptance speech for Best Picture was censored. Simply everything Zhao touched suddenly disappeared. In this case, the Chinese Communist Party may have had a vendetta against this specific director instead of the whole industry.
How Marvel Might Change
Depending on how Disney wants to interpret why its movies were banned will affect what its movies look like going forward. It’s in the company’s interest to appease China, especially at a time when its stock is suffering and its leadership is in a stressed relationship with its stockholders. So the upcoming Marvel movies might demonstrate a slight change in policy. Captain America might be less concerned with certain civil liberties and Shang-Chi might find his way into a brighter spotlight. You might expect divisive LGBTQ+ content to be avoided in certain movies as well.
But don’t be so quick to languish in defeat. The recent change in Disney leadership has Bob Iger leading the company, and last fall, he made his views clear at a town hall meeting.
Iger was specifically addressing the issue his company had with the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill, but one would think this position applies to foreign exports as well. Still, Marvel may attempt to walk a fine line between championing morality and selling their product. The messages seen in movies may be able to appeal to US and Chinese audiences, or China may receive a cut version of a film while the US gets the full movie. How strong these superheroes really are remains to be seen. Will they stand for their ideals or will they crumple under the weight of their corporate agenda?
“One of the core values of our storytelling is inclusion, [and] acceptance, and tolerance. And we can’t lose that, we just can’t lose that. How we actually change the world through the good must continue,” he went on to say. “We’re not going to make everyone happy all the time, and we’re not going try to. We’re certainly not going to lessen our core values in order to make everyone happy all the time.”
