In 2022, The Simpsons celebrated 35 years on the air.
Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, this is how the first episode of The Simpsons was called.
The adventure of “the yellow family” began in 1989.
Brands are making changes to their content with the sole purpose of being inclusive and not offending other cultures. Given that, Disney, the entertainment company, withdrew an episode of “The Simpsons” that features criticism of China from its streaming platform in Hong Kong and denounces forced labor in the country.
Disney is one of the main entertainment companies known throughout the world, and according to its annual report, Walt Disney is one of the 10 most important companies within the film industry, in general, and animation, in particular. Therefore, in the last fiscal year, ended on October 1, 2022, Micky Mouse’s company generated revenues of approximately 82.7 billion US dollars.
Disney pulls this episode of The Simpsons
The episode, titled “One Angry Lisa,” first aired in October of last year and shows Marge Simpson taking a spinning class while a screen flashes images of the Great Wall of China.
“Behold the wonders of China,” says the class instructor. “Bitcoin mines, forced labor camps where children make smartphones,” the chapter continues.
According to US media, in recent years, Hong Kong has been under increasing control by Beijing, and Disney is likely to remove the episode so as not to anger the Chinese government.
In addition, China is a key market for Disney, and the country has become one of the company’s most important sources of revenue.
In this sense, the media emphasize that although Disney promotes itself as an enlightened and progressive company, China is under fire for human rights abuses, including cultural and religious persecution, so the company’s desire to staying comfortable with the country has drawn accusations of hypocrisy.
Given this information, The Post announced that it has contacted Disney to comment on the subject, but to date they have not responded.
The “labor camp” joke in the “Simpsons” episode apparently refers to the mass detention of Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim group in western China.
According to the US State Department, as many as 1,200 state-run internment camps for Uyghurs have been established across the region.
“Detention in these camps is aimed at erasing ethnic and religious identities under the guise of ‘vocational training,’” the department writes.
Axios confirmed for the first time that the episode of “The Simpsons” had been pulled from the Disney streaming service in Hong Kong.
However, it is not the first time that an episode of the cartoon series has been rejected.
In 2021, Disney pulled a separate episode of “The Simpsons,” one featuring a Tiananmen Square joke, from its streaming service in Hong Kong.
“Disney is no stranger to China’s censorship demands and has a long history of caving in to them,” Axios wrote in its report.
Disney is not the only American company facing criticism for appearing friendly to China.
Apple, which also markets itself as a progressive company, came under fire after it hampered the use of its AirDrop tool in China amid widespread protests against Xi Jinping’s “zero COVID” policies.
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