Shang-Chi star's past comments "humiliate" China. What's Marvel going to do? Published on Sep 8.

Some nationalists in China are slamming Simu Liu, a Canadian, for regarding himself as a Canadian, citing a 2017 interview where Liu said that his parents immigrated to Canada from "the Third World"/"Communist China" because people used to starve to death there.

The interview was part of @CBC's campaign to celebrate the 150th anniversary of modern Canada, in which they invited Canadians from all walks of life to share their personal stories about what it meant to be Canadians.

This negative reaction from some Chinese highlights how the Western idea of immigration clashes with the newly uprising sentiment of nationalism in fast developing countries like China.

The idea that moving across the sea in search of a better life doesn't sit well any more with many Chinese. Immigrants could be labeled (with or without justification) traitors. But in the West, this would be still a celebrated/ideal concept of immigration.

And this is the dilemma that movies like Shang-Chi face: it's very much praised in America and among many Asian/Chinese Americans. And it probably won't do well in China. So how is Hollywood gonna meet the need of Asian Asian representation without losing the Chinese market?

From NYT report: "Mr. Liu has been critical of China before. In 2016...he wrote on Twitter, 'I think countries that try to censor and cover up dissenting ideas rather than face them and deal with them are out of touch with reality'...referring to Chinese gov’t censorship".

It would be interesting to see what Marvel and Disney do next regarding Liu and his role as Shang-Chi. They sure want to maintain access to the Chinese market, but what Liu said here and in his 2017 interview isn't something China or the nationalists there can be happy with.

As some movie critics have pointed out, Marvel can 1) stand behind Liu, 2) re-cast the role of Shang-Chi, 3) marginalize his role in the MCU, such as not including him in other Marvel movies like the Avengers; 4) cut out all his scenes in other Marvel movies released in China.

It would be ironic if Marvel and Disney try to marginalize him for better business when Asian Americans have been long marginalized in society and much of what Shang-Chi was sold on was the importance of Asian representation.

This is such an interesting case because in the past the Chinese censorship mostly only affected what/how American movies get to be released THERE. It now might have a big impact here, too.