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Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

theguardian.com

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Re: Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

#281

Post by viraptor »

echelon wrote: post #189
melenaboija wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they understand the damage all of this is doing to brand America. Since the first Trump administration, young people in Western Europe have increasingly lost their idealization of the United States. I'm 43 and moved to the US ten years ago and I feel like I'm part of the last generation that still wanted to move here. Highly qualified people I know in Europe no longer even consider coming here.

Everyone in this thread is reading surface level media summaries. This is 1000% pro-union. IATSE workers have been decimated by the move of productions to Serbia since 2023. LA and Atlanta film productions have all but collapsed since the offshoring of production. Serbian crews work without unions for much cheaper than local IATSE members. This is designed to save IATSE and domestic American production.

Is it pro union, or does it happen to just match union's interests today? I've not seen him mention unions explicitly, neither in search nor perplexity. He did mention Hollywood finance, but whether he ment helping the workers or helping some studio owner by that is not clear to me. With the current track record of what's dismantled, I'm not sure he cares about IATSE at all. His explanation of the reasons mentions lots of other things though.

Re: Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

#282

Post by bilbo0s »

jameskilton wrote: post #88
Aeolun wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look to Idiocracy for a documentary of what happens if this keeps going unchecked?

Who would have guessed that Idiocracy was an optimistic look at our possible future...

It sounds like a lot of people are kind of missing the mark a bit on what happened here in the US.

I mean:

Next up is propaganda and filling Americans' minds with only what he wants you to know

No. "Propaganda and filling Americans' minds with only what he wants you to know" is what happened first using the internet to radicalize those without the wisdom to have seen this outcome.

And Idiocracy may not be so much an optimistic look at our future as the conservatives continue to implement their policies, as it is a cynical look at the results that conservatives implementing their policies have had on our present.

And things can get so much worse.

Re: Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

#283

Post by plemer »

habosa wrote: post #77

The MAGA people attacking Hollywood is such a big mistake. Yes I know the average celebrity doesn’t share their views, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hollywood projects American culture around the world in a way that the government could never do itself. Movies and music made here are so often cited as the reason why young people around the world idealize America and want to emulate us (buy our clothes, speak…

Only stupid if you believe Trump is trying to strengthen the US

Re: Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

#284

Post by maeln »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #155
maeln wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the 'slop, melodramatic vaudeville, or tear-jerking gut-punches' of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Wong Ching-Po, Stephen Chow, John Woo, Emin Alper, Win Wenders, Pedro Almodóvar, Sylvain Chomet, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Jacques Demy, Lee Chang-dong, Shunji Iwai, Wai Keung Lau, Wong Kar-wai, Hirokazu Koreeda, Park Chan-wook, Tran Anh Hung, Nadine Labaki, Santiago Mitre, ... Yes, the US is a wealthy country, with a big populat…

Predictably, commenters read the word "most" as "every". Most non-American movies are melodramatic slop, vaudeville slapstick or heart-wrenching soul-destroyers. Oh really? Well I found one in China that isn't. And here's one from 1970s France that isn't.

There were several from China to be exact (Hong Kong to be precise, which had its own cinema golden-era between the late 80'and early 00'), and more than one from France also, some of which are more contemporary :) .

Most movie everywhere are not masterpiece, incredible contribution to the art, tasteful and original. They are easy, made to profit, amateurish, etc. That is true for every art form.

Again, yes the US being the wealthiest country in the world means that they can afford to produce more, and therefore, in your own word "can afford to swing at more pitches and consequently get more hits.". That much is true. The rest of your message is just dismissive of non-US movie in general, and again just show your ignorance and unwillingness to engage with different movie.

> And don't get me started on "let's yell at each other for 120 minutes" Russian cinema.

Just because you don't like it does not make it slop.

> American movies are by far the most watchable, especially when you don't feel like going on a heart-wrenching journey of despair, which is all international cinema excels at.

If you were to look at US movies that win awards, they tend to be "heart-wrenching journey of despair". That is just a bias of the perception of "awardable" cinema. Good light-heated comedy rarely wins award (altough stories of hope also often do). That is not specific to "international" cinema. You want some fun slapstick comedy from hong-kong, watch Stephen Chow movies. Some light hearted romance from France ? Jacques Demy might tickle your fancy. A more action horiented movie, Wong Ching-po wight interest you.

Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist.

Re: Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

#285

Post by ringeryless »

jzb wrote: post #191
0xAFFFF wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has proven time and time again that he didn't understand soft power.

I wish people would stop with the “Trump doesn’t understand $thing” stuff. It doesn’t matter whether Trump understands $thing. Pretending that he’s acting in good faith to make things better, but is somehow failing because he doesn’t get X, Y, or Z falls right into the trap. He’s trying to destroy American “soft power”. It doesn’t interest him. Neither does a good economy, schools, NATO, etc. All of these things are…

OTOH, trump is not very clever, and IS rather infantile. its sufficient to allege that forces that seek to destabilize American power likely aided Trump financially and he is proving a good investment. the term is "useful idiot" IIRC

Re: Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

#286

Post by kjksf »

artemisart wrote: post #162
earthcreed wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do understand this is a move to protect Hollywood, Right? It is for the very reasons you cited.

But do you understand it will harm Hollywood? This is the economic, country scale equivalent of saying "fuck your movies", do you think the answer will be "oh sorry, I'll keep buying yours" or "fuck your movies too"?

It will reduce the profit margins of Hollywood studios. Maybe reduce the bonuses of their CEO.

It'll help thousands of Americans that used to be employed by said studios but were fired not because they couldn't do the job but because the greed of studio execs made them move production outside of the US, playing financial arbitrage games against the interest of the US.

Trump is trying to reverse this by making movies outside of the US, especially by US companies, more expensive. The goal here is not some statement about Hollywood but to bring movie production jobs back to US. The extras, the people who build sets, people who make food for actors etc. And jobs bring tax revenue and grow GDP, which helps every american.

Re: Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

#287

Post by eqvinox »

Hamuko wrote: post #260
eqvinox wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're answering the wrong question. Why would 911 be "obviously trying to contact emergency services"?

Because it's a number used for emergency services in many parts of the world, and not for ordering pizza, plane strikes or whatever.

Relatively speaking, it actually isn't that popular - check the map on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_...

That's what, 10% of world population? 112 has India going for it…

Re: Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

#288

Post by JCharante »

dom96 wrote: post #197
DeusExMachina wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it's about movies produced overseas, I don't think the nationality of the actors or the overseas revenue counts. But it probaby counts that it was shot in the UK. The reason why Disney does that is because they get tax breaks from the UK government, which I think it's what Trump is referring to.

So let me get this straight... he's not happy with the UK because of VAT (value added tax) and he's also not happy with the UK because of tax breaks? Amazing.

I think there's a big difference between VAT for consumer goods and cities providing big incentives for filming there. I'm not giving an opinion on whether they're good or bad, just saying that they're very different and I don't think they should be compared.

Re: Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

#290

Post by [deleted] »

echelon wrote: post #147
habosa wrote: post #77

The MAGA people attacking Hollywood is such a big mistake. Yes I know the average celebrity doesn’t share their views, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hollywood projects American culture around the world in a way that the government could never do itself. Movies and music made here are so often cited as the reason why young people around the world idealize America and want to emulate us (buy our clothes, speak…

I was actually shocked by this tariff. It's a pro-union, pro-labor, classic progressive move. If you haven't been following what's happening with film production, basically production has moved from LA, Atlanta, New York, etc. to cheap countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. A vast majority of IATSE film crew productions have now vacated the US. It's decimated the local film crew workforce and forced many to leave the…

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