At the start of his film about the chinese warrior mulan, disney is confronted with calls for boycotts. The reason for the rise is the credits of the film, screenshots of which were shared on social media.
There, the filmmakers can be seen thanking security officials in the western chinese region of xinjiang, where, according to human rights activists, hundreds of thousands of members of the uyghur muslim minority have been held in re-education camps and subjected to other repressive measures for years.
Disney did not initially disclose what exactly the collaboration involved or whether it was filmed in xinjiang. But the acknowledgement alone caused a wave of angry reactions.
It is “capitalist exploitation at its best” when a blockbuster is filmed in parts near villages where police are engaged in mass internment, wrote china researcher and xinjiang expert adrian zenz on twitter.
“It”s getting worse and worse!”, commented prominent hongkong democracy activist joshua wong under the hashtag #boykottmulan. Disney participates with its proceeding in the mass incarceration of muslim uyghurs.
Like the 1998 animated film, "mulan" tells the story of a brave, self-confident young woman who secretly slips into men"s clothes to fight for the emperor instead of her frail father.
The film, which because of the corona pandemic was not shown in theaters last friday but on disney’s streaming portal, had already drawn sharp criticism beforehand. There have already been calls for boycotts after the leading actress liu yifei expressed understanding for the police against the backdrop of the democracy protests in hong kong.