Steven Spielberg Slowly Recognizes that China is Fucked

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Way back in April of 2006, I posted about Steven Spielberg's hypocrisy in acting as artistic adviser to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Of course, I took the requisite SG-commenter punches for said "rant," but it seems that now, over a year later, Spielberg is maybe—just maybe—starting to get it. Steven Spielberg, under pressure from Darfur activists, may quit his post as artistic adviser to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, unless China takes a harder line against Sudan, a representative of the film director told ABC News.

China, Sudan's largest oil customer and perennial defender, has come under renewed scrutiny in the lead up to the Olympics, as the country juggles its need for cheap energy with its desire to host a trouble-free games. This past March, Mia Farrow straight up compared Spielberg to Nazi director Leni Riefenstahl (yes, yes: she Godwinned him, and in a Wall Street Journal editorial, no less), asking "Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games?" Days after Farrow's editorial, Spielberg wrote an open letter to Hu Jintao, president of China. "I am writing this letter to you, not as one of the overseas artistic advisors to the Olympic Ceremonies, but as a private citizen who has made a personal commitment to do all I can to oppose genocide. … Accordingly, I add my voice to those who ask that China change its policy toward Sudan and pressure the Sudanese government to accept the entrance of United Nations peacekeepers to protect the victims of genocide in Darfur," Spielberg wrote. Beyond that, Spielberg has kept a low profile regarding the impending games, but apparently he has been "engaged in a little bit of a back-and-forth private dialogue" with the Chinese government.

Celebractivists George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and Jerry Weintraub have held China publicly responsible for the continuing genocide, raising funds to start an organization called Not on Our Watch, and going so far as to meet with Chinese authorities to discuss a shift in Chinese policy on Darfur.

Experts warn that they shouldn't get their hopes up. "Celebrities get attention and those who get attention will be listened to, but individual celebrities can do very little," said William Kirby, a China expert and professor of history at Harvard University.

Pointing to the 1980 Moscow Games and the 1984 Los Angeles Games, Kirby said the Olympics often become a flash point for controversy, but host nations rarely change their foreign policies as a result.

Even if China releases a statement as Spielberg predicts, and even if it does not announce a significant shift in policy, Kirby remains optimistic that the country's policy toward Sudan could change. And so we wait, Godwinned and Goddamned alike, to see what both China and Spielberg will choose.

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