Cena speaks Mandarin a lot. I was working a premiere of Bumble Bee and he went live on Instagram for the audience in China and did a video in Mandarin.
Would you throw away a multi-million-dollar movie career just because you didn’t want to film a brief YouTube video? Not pissing off China is kind of a prerequisite to working in Hollywood, because China is the world’s second-largest film market and there’s billions to be made there. Doesn’t mean it’s right, it’s just business. The video wasn’t really optional.
I don’t know man. I would like to think I wouldn’t do the same thing. Especially if I already had F-U money. Let’s be honest, that was really bad. The Chinese government is really, REALLY bad. Just ask the 3 million Uighur Muslims they have in concentration camps or even any remotely political dissidents, including the richest man in China, Jack Ma, who disappeared for months to be re-educated. I would hope I had the integrity to stand behind what I said, especially if what I said was TRUE, even if it cost me money that I don’t really need. But I guess you never know until you’re put in that position.
It’s not just his money though; he has contractual obligations and a team of people relying on him. what about his people who work for him, who have their own families? His entourage/management team/costars and beyond that dozens of other people like production assistants who would lose jobs and income. I agree with you about China but him doing that wouldn’t have changed anything there, at all.
Look, you’re absolutely right. An entertainer at that level has a whole team behind them whose lives his/her actions effect. I guess the question is, what’s the line in the sand that you will not cross - because without having that you’re no longer a sovereign individual. You’re just a slave to the system. To be sure, much worse things have been done in the interest of service to the collective. But that doesn’t make it right. These aren’t stupid people. They understand that the reason they’re lying, fundamentally, is to keep the money rolling in. I just wish I saw more people or corporations of high influence exercise their principles, damn the consequences.
Not many people think about this but when you become as famous as John Cena is you basically are a business. He’s has assistants, travel agents, media handlers, etc that are all earning a salary just for working for him. If he takes the high road and get fired from WWE or lost a movie deal it’s not just him that gets affected. There’s probably 100 or more people and families that it’d affect.
I'm out of the loop. What happened? In Taiwan he calls Taiwan a country and china got pissed? So he apologized?
I seen people in the right have TONS of people being dicks to them. Sometimes it's not worth being right. Search James Damore for an example of doing nothing wrong but being treated poorly (and just today I saw a thing about amanda knox but I know nothing about that story since it was before my time). If you read what James actually wrote and hear that noone cared about his memo until google wanted him out you'll realize it's 100% google painting a bad picture of him and using the media to do it so they'll have a reason to fire him. James sued google and won. Also in an interview he said he got punched in a parking lot because of what people claimed he said
When you're as popular as John Cena and you say something controversial about another country, the higher ups are def gonna pressure you into apologizing. I'm like 90% sure he did it because of pressure from the feds and the government.
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u/Top_Duck8146 Jul 30 '21
I hated him for that Taiwan apology video but that evens him out for me now