The Hollywood Star’s Guide To Apologising When You Anger China
ARE you a Hollywood star? And like John Cena have you said something grossly offensive like ‘Taiwan is a country’ and are now being inundated with personal invitations from the Chinese government for a personal tour of a Uighur ‘re-education’ camp?
Well then you might just be in a need a serious apology, so grovelling in nature your big budget movie won’t suddenly be yanked from Chinese cinemas – currently the most lucrative market in the world (a fact we’re sure is not related to your desire to apologise).
For your fulsome apology you’re going to need:
1) A phone
This moving tribute to a hostage video isn’t going to film itself. And sure, upload it to Instagram or Facebook, but this needs to go up on Weibo ASAP.
2) Acting skills
To really sell this you’ve got to act like the head of your movie studio has just tore you a new asshole for saying something disgusting and vile like ‘maybe don’t ethnically cleanse Muslims?’.
Now fully immerse yourself in the role of someone whose career could be crushed into dust overnight, rendering you completely unhireable for the next 7 centuries. Easy that it seems, right?
Are you sweating and hyperventilating? I don’t think we said you had to… you know what, that actually really sells the scene!
Misdirection
Instead of criticising China, could you criticise somewhere that doesn’t have such incredible box office potential? Syria still isn’t sorted out and they have fuck all cinemas. Have a go at them instead.
4) Script
If you can speak mandarin Chinese like John Cena, then apologise in Mandarin. Although in fairness he’s just showing off.
You’ve got to hit the classics for this apology to truly appease the famously chilled out Chinese authorities:
“Meant no offense”
“Love my Chinese fans”
“You want me to take a dump on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong?”
“Oh my God please don’t kill my family”
And you’re home and hosed. Your movie and career are saved. But no, visiting Beijing is permanently off the cards, just to be safe.