Hollywood From the Inside: Cultural Subversion Through Entertainment

On this episode of NTD's International Reporters Roundtable, Hollywood. It's time for the Oscars, and the question is, what is the value of this artist's award? Hollywood, once the home of cultural icons, has become the source of degenerate subversion. Is it thanks to the Chinese government, or has it been going on even longer? Our guests, James Hersen, Nina Mei, and Kristen Toto, all Hollywood insiders, help us unveil the shadowy truth about Tinseltown. Welcome to NTD's International Reporters Roundtable. I'm your host, Don Ma. Our conversations bring together journalists and experts from around the world. They help us uncover hidden information and details of conflicts, alliances, and connections in a deep dive discussion. Today, we're talking Hollywood. The Oscars are among us, the night where the Academy of Motion Pictures presents its most prestigious award. Actors, directors, and writers, and more, vie for the symbol of success, the Oscar. But behind the glamour and the spotlight, has Hollywood lost its way from great entertainment, great stories, great performances? Is the freedom of the creative product being influenced by foreign entities? Have the good old days of Hollywood storytelling gone the wayside, that now must include excessive violence, woke elements, favorable depictions of communist China? Is the lure of 1.4 billion people of the Chinese market too important to turn down? The worldwide success of the movie Titanic caused the Chinese government to recognize the power of this medium. They started buying Hollywood connections and using them to whitewash their human rights abuses and to subtly present a rosy image of communist China. Profit, hugely important in this industry, takes a lot of money to make films. So, films need distribution. And most important, they need an audience. What are filmmakers willing to compromise to accomplish this goal? Furthermore, how long has this been going on? From 1934 to 1968, the Hays Code was in effect. It spelled out what was unacceptable content in motion pictures, such as coarse language, violence, and nudity. Moviegoers and their families knew exactly what they were in for when they were going to see a film. In the late 60s, this code eroded and door opened to degeneracy. How has this shaped the society of today, where films is at our fingertips? Hollywood's influence is powerful. So, let's go behind the scenes and uncover the truth. Our guests, all Hollywood insiders, will provide insight into Tinseltown. And now, it's time to meet our panel. Our guests today are James Herzen, a New York Times bestselling author, international business attorney, news analyst, cultural commentator, and social media scholar. He's appeared on NBC, ABC, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, CNN, HLN, CNBC, MSNBC, the BBC, and others. He's a public speaker and weekly columnist for Newsmax.com with his Left Coast Report. Herzen is also a lawyer and law professor, with the distinction of having been admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, a member of the Academy, and SAG-AFTRA. James got his start as a professional musician with a variety of productions, most notably as keyboardist for the legendary Temptations. Next, we have Nina May, the founder of Renaissance Women Productions, an educational non-profit foundation with international training in the media. Nina wrote, produced, and directed the film Life Fine-Tuned that won the International Family Film Festival in Hollywood 2012 and over 14 other awards. Nina has testified before the United Nations General Assembly and Senate Foreign Relations Committee and worked with several countries establishing exchange programs for future leaders. She was president of Nina May Design, specializing in congressional publications for over 150 congressional offices. And she's also the editor of Paradigm 2000 magazine and Renaissance magazine. And we have Christian Toto, an award-winning film critic, journalist, podcaster, and founder of HollywoodinToto.com, the right take on entertainment. He's been covering Hollywood from a right-of-center perspective for more than 20 years, including contributions to the New York Post, The Federalist, The Daily Wire, National Review, Outkick Newsbusters, and more. Christian previously served as an associate editor at Breitbart News and covered the arts at both the Washington Times and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. He's also the author of the book Virtue Bombs, How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul. So Christian, let me start off with you. And my question to you is, in the film Hollywood Takeover, which you have seen recently, Sam Sorbo says the soul of the nation is at stake. How does this statement resonate with you? Well, I think when you look at the soul of any nation, it's reflected in their art. It could be TV, it could be movies, it could be music, any kind of art. And I think what we're seeing now in Hollywood is an industry that seems almost embarrassed by itself, almost unwilling to share the good things about America, free speech, liberty. Those elements are often pushed aside when you see the stories that are being told. And often there's almost a hyper-focus on the country's flaws. And every country has flaws. America has flaws that just mention racism from the past and slavery, for sure. And all these things are fodder for films. But I think that there's this lack in the storytelling of stories that resonate, stories that matter, stories that reflect the best of the culture. And I think without them, there's a bit of a disconnect between the industry and the audience. And I think that's been growing wider in recent years. And Nina, I understand you also have seen this film. So same question to you. How does this statement resonate with you? And perhaps a reaction to what Christian just said. Well, to be honest, I think a lot of it is reflected in the box office. If you look at a lot of the movies that are coming out right now that are nominated for Best Picture for the Oscar, they're horrible. I mean, they're just really, really bad. And so they're not looking at how many people are coming, how much money that's being made. They're looking at it being another notch on their belt of indoctrination. And even if one person sees it and one person's mind has changed, they're successful. It doesn't matter if they spent a gazillion dollars on it. That's their underlying goal. Look at the picture that won last year. It was everything, everywhere, all at once or something. It's one of the craziest movies I've ever seen. And I honestly believe that if it had not been for the Chinese backing of this movie, and it is a Chinese movie, that it would not have gotten that kind of support. And it's sort of like The Emperor's New Clothes. We're all going, do you see what I'm seeing? Oh, no, I think it's a fabulous movie. No, really, do you see what I'm seeing? It was a horrible movie. And to be honored with the highest award in the industry is a slap in the face to everyone that works hard, diligently, telling a story, trying to be entertaining, trying to get their message out, but without any kind of indoctrination agenda. So we have to be sort of mind RPs and Qs as producers. We need to put our money where our mouth is and not fall into that trap. When we did First Lady, I was very, very careful. It's a romantic comedy. I was very careful not to have anyone know what political party she was from. I was very careful of that because I didn't want someone to go, oh, it's the Republican Party movie. I don't want anything to do with it. Or, oh, it's Democrat. I can't believe you did something with the Democrats. So I weaved it in and out, and everyone felt good about it because no one was targeted. No one was slighted. And it worked fine. And James is hinting on here. If I may just jump in is that I've been using this term for a while now. You know, they call it show business, but the business almost has an asterisk next to it because it's often more about promoting the message as opposed to just making a lot of money and making a lot of people happy. So there are films out there that are Oscar nominated that you look at their box office. It can be quite small, but that doesn't matter. If the message is right, then it kind of elevates within the industry. But they really should be trying to broaden their net and appeal to as many people as possible. And James, your reaction? Yes, the soul of a nation refers to the shared values of a nation. de Tocqueville said that America is great because America is good. And the original, call them the founding fathers, the original studio system, you referred to your introduction to the Hayes Code that was reflected of a shared culture of norms. And there were lines that would not be crossed. And particularly when it comes to what was presented to young people, what is presented to children. And not only has Hollywood, you know, has this, you know, I use the term warpness to describe it. Elon Musk calls it the woke mind virus. It's a contagion. But what it has resulted in is forms of media that instead of communicating shared values or following norms are destructive, are actually disruptive, destructive, and evil. And so America is great because America is good. Hollywood is not great because parts of Hollywood become evil. All right, we just have to take a short break. More on Hollywood when we return with our panel. And welcome back to NTD's International Reporters Roundtable. I'm Don Ma. Our panel today is discussing the destructive influence of Hollywood. So James, we left off with you before the break. So let me continue. I want to ask you this question, and perhaps I already know the answer. Has Hollywood gotten better or worse over the years? Well, in terms of technical prowess, they've gotten better. In terms of their primary vocation, they've gotten worse. You know, in America, Hollywood always had the greatest storytellers in the world and was our biggest export throughout the world. People discovered American culture through exports of Hollywood entertainment media. And because of the fact that the storytellers, first of all, believed in the foundational principles of storytelling, took their cues from the Greek tragedies and from Shakespeare and stuck with stories that resonated with human beings because we are created to resonate to stories. And we always loved stories that, you know, before there was Hollywood, people told stories. So Hollywood deviated from its primary vocation of seeking art that would uplift, entertain, create joy, create beauty to what it is today, which has become an agenda-driven, anti-freedom kind of milieu that affects the creators of the media most of all. I interface with writers of the most miserable people on earth, the writers in Hollywood, particularly comedy writers, but all writers, because they're handcuffed by these rules, some written, some unwritten, and they no longer can have that freedom of brainstorming that allows the great product to be created. And James, before the break, you said something that caught my attention. You said Hollywood is evil, and I'm sure you don't say that lightly. Would you like to elaborate? I said, well, I want to be clear. Not all of Hollywood is evil, but a significant part of Hollywood. And to elaborate on that, we have to bring up, unfortunately, the biggest entertainment company in the history of man, the biggest entertainment company in the world. So goes Disney. So goes Hollywood. And Disney was, past tense, not only an incredible brand, but an incredible business. Christian referred to that business with an asterisk. Bob Iger, who's now running Disney, the poor guy, he is responsible for some of the greatest business decisions in any business. He amassed the greatest catalog of entertainment properties ever. And thanks to the woke mind virus and this pandering to basically, you know, it is the left wing and it's the globalist mindset. We've seen Disney destroy its brand and see it kind of systematically take down all these brands that Bob Iger put together. They were talking about the Star Wars brand, Marvel brand, Pixar brand. And when I say evil, I think the quintessential example of evil is that Disney would be involved with distributing product meant for kids, young children, that have content that is either inappropriate in a sexual way, but also inappropriate with having, for example, having Satan as the main character and having Satan have a romance with the teenager. That's a recent idea. But that's what I mean by evil. I see. All right. Reactions from our other panelists, Nina, Christian. I was going to say that, ironically, with Disney being the topic here, Disney was the inspiration for me to make films the way I do. I'm a producer, writer, director, and every aspect of the trip along the way to get from point A to point B has always been, is it healthy? Is it good? Is it entertaining? Can the whole family watch it together? And that, I think, was the touchstone of Disney is that even if it was a cartoon, if they did it in such a way that the adults taking their children to see the cartoon would enjoy it as well. It was very entertaining, very well done, just very, very creative on so many levels. So that inspired me. And I'm so saddened to see what has happened with Disney. And there are very few producers that are saying, let's go back to that model where the whole family can watch it. You don't need the F-bomb, every other word. You don't need the gratuitous sex scenes or the violence and the just debauchery. And you do need to see something that you can spend with your family. And so that's been our motto. The interesting thing is the romantic comedy that we did, First Lady, was in the Cannes Film Festival, which is unheard of to have a romantic comedy with not a single F-bomb, going back to maybe the way movies were made in the 50s. But the reason it got in the Cannes Film Festival is there are cultures around the world that are turning off the funnel of Hollywood movies because they're saying, whoa, we can't show that in our country. We can't have that. We have our standards. And so when they looked at our little movie, First Lady, they said, this works. I mean, it doesn't have a Disney title to it. It's not a major production. It was SAG, but it was not big budget or anything. And it made it to the big leagues because of the content. The content was very acceptable on a global basis. And to me, that's success right there. Christian? One thing that was mentioned just a few minutes ago was the comedy perspective. And I've been following this pretty relentlessly in the last few years. If you're a comedy writer, if you're a stand-up comedian, if this is what you do for a living, there are so many unofficial guardrails on what you can say, what you can joke about, the targets of your humor. Are you punching up? Are you punching down? And all of that has a really negative effect on the creative flow. I mean, you want to be able to tell your stories your way, tell your jokes your way. And sometimes the most uncomfortable jokes are the ones that make us see things in a profound new way. And I think the satirists over the years, over the decades have proven that. And I think that we're living in this time now where the mainstream of Hollywood just doesn't go there, for lack of a better phrase. And what you're seeing is a lot of comedians on the periphery, outside of Hollywood, working on, could be Rumble, it could be YouTube, it could be their Patreon accounts to keep themselves afloat. But they're telling the difficult jokes, the controversial jokes, the funny jokes. And I wrote a whole book about woke Hollywood. That's one of the more negative effects is that when you can't say what you want to say, when you can't think what you want to think, and when you have to lie instead of telling the truth, then I think the product suffers. And Christian, I'm sensing a general theme here, and that is ethics within Hollywood. But another factor that plays into all this is money. If a movie does not make money being good, then it won't get made. Your comments on that. Well, it's really interesting. Listen, every Hollywood studio, every director, they want to make a good movie. Ultimately, they are trying. Even the worst movies, the worst directors, I give them credit. They're trying their best. But it is interesting that I think that Hollywood, sometimes the profit model isn't number one. They want to get certain stories out into the public. Before we were talking officially on air, someone mentioned the movie God and Country. It's a documentary from Rob Reiner. And it's all about attacking Christian nationalists, so-called Christian nationalists. And I think the people behind the scenes, the people who made that movie, I don't think they're thinking about profit. I don't think they're suggesting this is going to make a lot of money. They want to put it into the marketplace. They want to see magazines and news outlets cover it and expand on the topic and magnify it. So that even if it is a flop, and it is, it's impacting the culture in some way. So I think some storytellers today aren't as interested in a hit as impacting the culture, getting their message out, knowing that that movie in a year or so, maybe less, will be on different streaming platforms, and it'll be seen, and it may change some hearts and minds. And I think that is sometimes more important for Hollywood right now than it is telling stories that make a profit and make people happy. Okay, Nina, maybe- If I could add something about the money. You know, I just think, and Christian's absolutely right. But when we look at the money issue in Hollywood, I mean, the key, in the back rooms of the boardrooms, they talk about profit margins. And faith-based movies have one of the highest profit margins. They've proven profitable. You look at Angel Studios, and you look at what's happened with the success of The Chosen, the success of Sound of Freedom. They have a new movie, Cabrini, coming out. And their wide releases and their margins are just fantastic. Now, some segments of Hollywood, their heads have turned. And they've said, wait a minute, and they've set up faith-based divisions, and they're hoarding some of these movies. This is a bright spot in Hollywood, because there is some creativity that goes against the grain. But it does also support Mischief's theory, which is a fact. All we have to do is look at a relative of Hollywood, which is MSNBC theater and CNN theater. And we look at those, they don't make money. They're not money-making operations. Something other than the profit motive is going on in our media and in Hollywood. And a big part of it is, in fact, inserting agenda-driven content into a product. And sometimes that agenda-driven content ends up bombing. Like the film that we just met, Rob Reiner's film, which did $38,000 in its opening weekend. And it's laughable. And obviously, it's an election year. Rob Reiner got that made. There are people that all of a sudden were talking about the subject of Christian nationalism, which is, by the way, almost non-existent, what Rob Reiner describes in his movie. That movie actually is a fraud and a slander. But it was punched, it was financed. It's not cheap even to make that kind of documentary. We just have to take a very short break here, James. But when we return, we'll continue our conversation with a deep dive into the influence of Hollywood. Okay, welcome back to our panel on the influence of Hollywood today with our guests James Hurston, Naina May, and Christian Toto. So this segment, I want to focus on the Chinese Communist Party's influence on Hollywood. And Naina, let me start with you. Do you have a particular angle on this? What are your thoughts? Well, I never really thought about the influence that China had on anything in Hollywood until years ago when Red Dawn was remade. And I love Red Dawn, I love the original Red Dawn. And they had the Chinese being the baddies. And apparently, someone had enough power, enough pull, enough influence to force the production company that did Red Dawn to turn it from the Chinese to North Koreans at a big expense. And my question when that happened was, who are these people? Why do they care? I mean, it's Hollywood. It's a made-up story. I mean, the Chinese obviously did not fly helicopters in or jump from planes and stuff and destroy the country. It's a story. It's an entertainment. But for some group to be so intimidated by that kind of pressure made me think there's something else going on behind the scenes that we're not familiar with, we're not aware of. And it was kind of the beginning of us getting down that slippery slope of turning every single movie into an infomercial, basically, for whatever that ideology is or that philosophical event. And that's when it stopped being entertaining. And that's when you started asking people before you'd spend your money to go to the movie, well, is it worth it? What are they pushing? What's their agenda? What's their underlying message? And then that's when you started seeing it reflected in the box office, too, because people said, I'm not going to spend two hours of my time and my money to be indoctrinated into a belief system that I don't believe in or to watch something that's been so dumbed down that it's not even entertaining anymore. It reminded me of the old Soviet Union. You know, remember when you were stuck in the in-tourist hotel and you had the guides, so to speak? It would only allow you to go into a certain area. And they were so proud of their entertainment. But their entertainment was so vanilla. There was nothing there. You weren't allowed to say this. You weren't allowed to do that. You weren't allowed to laugh at something that could possibly insult someone at the Politburo or whatever. And you left feeling a nervous wreck. You were not entertained at all. It's like, oh, my gosh, get me out of here. And that's where I see us going in America, where people are being told, this is funny and you will laugh. This is not funny and you will not laugh. There will be consequences to your actions. And you go, OK, great. I think I'll just go putt putt tonight. I'm not going to go to the movies. And that's that's where people are today, I think, in that that nexus of, you know, do we make the change? Do we stay where we are or just I mean, we've made the change. We're not we're not playing anymore with the Hollywood stuff. We don't do SAG anymore. We don't work with any actors that are SAG. Most of them are gone by core anyway. So SAG is like the dying breed as far as I'm concerned. So Christian, how prevalent is Chinese influence in Hollywood and your reactions? Well, I think in the last few years, we've seen many different examples where Hollywood films are tweaked, edited, content is added to appease the Chinese marketplace because the studios want those films to get into China and all the theaters there and the huge population. So on a strictly capitalistic point of view, it does make some sense. But of course, you have all these artists in Hollywood who will, you know, rail against censorship and say, we have to tell our stories our way. And yet when it comes to getting their movie in China, they'll snip here, they'll snip there. They'll add this, they'll add that. And it's a complicated issue. And it's ironic because China, the Chinese government wants to make movies that are very propagandistic, that extol the values of China and the culture. And then back in America, it's the opposite. I mean, filmmakers are almost afraid to say, yeah, this is a pretty good country. Maybe we should amplify the reasons why. And so there's an interesting dance going on there. And James, what are your thoughts? Well, I say, you know, people that run tyrannies have always been enamored with Hollywood. You know, Hitler made propaganda films. Stalin put a hit out on John Wayne. This thing with China has been going on for a long time. I think it's if we focus on a name from the past, there was a top box office actor, hottest actor in Hollywood. I'll tell you his name. You'll remember Richard Gere. Richard Gere disappeared. Why is it that Richard Gere all of a sudden didn't get roles? It's because he championed Tibet. And Tibetan Buddhism is held in low esteem by the CCP. Tibetans are persecuted. And Richard Gere championed the Dalai Lama. And so Richard Gere disappeared. He didn't disappear because he was a bad actor. He was a great actor. He disappeared because the CCP wanted him to. And similar to what that Red Dawn example, which is amazing because the part of that story was that they had finished the film. The film was written. The film is edited. I mean, the script was edited. They did the principal photography. They were they were ready to do the final edit. Your favorite parts have to go. But they were all ready. And then all of a sudden, the word came down that the Chinese market wanted the bad guy to change. They had to use CGI, they had to reshoot scenes, cost a lot of money. And that's an example. And as, of course, the Chinese film market has grown, it recently became the largest market in the world. It surpassed the United States. Of course, their clout increased. But Xi Jinping is very astute and he realizes the power of the entertainment business. And so he is very active in this country. As we know, and so the CCP, which really is Xi Jinping, is going to pressure as much as they can and influence as much as they can and then lobby for those kinds of entertainment product, especially when it comes to Japan or even here, that helps their cause. And we see that happen. So it's a it's a very powerful influence. And it's not just, of course, in the business of Hollywood. It's in businesses across the country. Right, right, right. But it's sort of, I was going to say it begs the question, though, what's the quid pro quo? What is Hollywood getting in return for doing something like that, which costs millions of dollars to change the one army to the other army? What did they get in return? Is it that they're being funded? Is it they have bought property and they're saying, well, we'll sell this property unless you do what we say? It seems like there's some kind of a blackmail relationship. Well, ostensibly, ostensibly, it's access to the market. But but but again, there's there's other elements of this that don't quite make sense. It's a good point. And it goes back to what Christian brought up with the asterisk when we talk about Hollywood as a business. We really don't know the answer. But at least on the surface, it appears to be economics. But apparently they will insert themselves in a movie that will not even be shown in China. They will censor a movie and say, you must cut this. You must cut that. And powers that be go, well, but it's not going to be shown in China. We don't care. We have the power over you. Again, what's that power is my question. Christian? Well, as you said, I think Don references, you know, it costs a lot to make a movie. And there's all they're always seeking fresh cash, fresh money, fresh financing from all over the world. And one of those sources is they want to keep that that door open. And that's the facade of China. We have multiple companies, some of which are traded on the side of the ship. But they're all owned by the CCP. They're all run by the CCP. We just have a bit of more. We just have a bit of time before we have to wrap up here. Christian, any final thoughts? Yeah, listen, if there's two things going on, one is if you get if you get your movie into Chinese theaters, the potential for a box office success expands exponentially. But in recent years, Chinese filmmakers, the homegrown filmmakers there have upped their game, have gotten more sophisticated, can make blockbuster like movies that are very similar to what Hollywood makes. So what happened is after Hollywood is essentially sold or sold to China and the government, all of a sudden those movies aren't even our movies. They aren't making a lot of money. And the locally made Chinese films are the blockbusters are at the top of the charts. So whereas a superhero movie made by Disney might have made two, three, four hundred million there, it'll make a fraction of that now. And I bet you that number is going to keep coming down and down where local Chinese movie I'd prefer to see Chinese actors in movies that speak to my culture that are that are made here as opposed to imports. And I think that's that's the irony of what's happening in Hollywood right now. And that concludes our discussion today on NTD's International Reporters Roundtable. Thank you very much to all of our guests, James Herzen, Nina May and Christian Total. All right. We just have to take a very short break. Welcome back to NTD's International Reporters Roundtable. For our last segment today, we are welcoming Tiffany Meyer, NTD Evening News anchor and producer and host of the new NTD film, Hollywood Takeover. She's here to give us the insight into the making of this film. And Tiffany, let me just ask you the very first question I'm very curious about is what what came to the concept for this film? Why is it so important to make? Thanks for having me. I think first off, often people talk about infiltration into the government and education and all that, but it all starts with what's called soft power or culture. And Hollywood is a huge piece of that. And so the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated Hollywood because movies are very expensive and the China market is very big. So many studios are like, oh, if I can go get a joint venture with China, I can maybe get my film into China. It'll be fantastic. I can make a profit. In that process, they started censoring to the point that they sacrificed everything that America stands for. And what that does is people go to the films to be entertained and you don't have your guard up, right? You're just there to be entertained. So whatever message comes across, you start seeing that as what a different country is. So like we think of Russians, we think of, say, the Cold War, the Soviet Union. China has been portrayed as the hero in most films. And since 2012, no major studio has produced a film with China as the villain. So now we see that that's seeping into politics to the point that you have young people especially saying that socialism is so great or life in China is so good because you don't see what's actually happening inside China, because even Hollywood is now complicit in basically whitewashing the Chinese Communist Party and the horrendous acts that happened in that country. And Tiffany, I understand you just had a red carpet event for this film. So maybe share with us your experience there in Hollywood. What did you uncover? What did people share with you? Yes, so we did have a red carpet premiere in Hollywood. Some said that was kind of risky, but maybe because of the rain, no one came to protest. So that was good. But I think one of the most fascinating parts I found was in the process of trying to do this film, I was reaching out to all sorts of people. And one person told me, no one in the industry is gonna speak to you. Because if they're seen associated remotely with NTD, not even my show China in Focus, just NTD in general, they'll be blacklisted from working in the industry. And I didn't realize NTD had such power. So that was pretty interesting. So basically, the people we did talk to were willing to speak to us and had already experienced being blacklisted in the Hollywood industry, but still wanted to tell the stories that they wanted to tell. Like the Sorbo's, Kevin and Sam Sorbo of Hercules fame, they started their own studios, Sorbo Studios. And people like that who really want to stick to what Hollywood started out as. Hollywood honestly invented America to the world. When people think of America, they think of those films of, say, the underdog becoming the hero at the end of the day. You don't see that anymore. Why? Because studios needed money. They started censoring and kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party in that process. And it's really reshaped the whole fabric of the world and the way we perceive the world. And as well, what did you hear from being rejected? What people would not say? So some people were supportive of our project, but didn't want to be a part of it. As the same point, they wanted to keep working in the industry. And a lot of people just didn't respond at all. And so that took a while to get people willing to speak to us. And I feel what's kind of funny is now that I've been doing interviews about this documentary and stuff, suddenly there's a lot of people reaching out and being like, oh my gosh, if you ever need more, I can talk to you for 17 hours about all the dirt I saw in the industry for 20 years. So who knows? If there's a part two, we might get some bigger fish in there. And I'm just curious, at the red carpet event, what were people's reactions after seeing the film? So we did have a panelist of seven people who were in the film, and they all overwhelmingly supported the project and really thanked us for getting that story out there among the audience. It was also very positive testimonials that we received. Many people were likening it to, say, Hitler in World War II. He was controlling the film industry as well and trying to promote a different type of propaganda and relating to what we're seeing now with the Chinese Communist Party doing that with all of Hollywood, basically, and changing everything. So there's a lot of people really supportive of us getting the word out and how this really fits into what we're seeing everywhere, whether that's the Fentanyl, the Chinese nationals crossing the border, TikTok, all these different aspects. They're just really thankful that we brought awareness to them on this topic. And you mentioned there were seven people on the panel. Maybe you can introduce us to perhaps a couple of them. Yeah, so we had Chris Fenton. He's the film executive. He's featured predominantly in the documentary because he was the one that really opened the door between Hollywood and China. Back then, it was through aspirations of making China more liberal, more democratic, really engaging. And then at the same time, he really thought that every dollar made there was helping American GDP. But then throughout the years, eventually, so actually, he got Looper and Iron Man 3 into China, which both made fortunes there. And then throughout the years, eventually, he was punched in the nose metaphorically and realized that he didn't want his children to grow up in a Cold War and realized that this engaging with China wasn't actually helping America or the world. It was hurting the free world. So he was one of the panelists. We had Kevin and Sam Sorbo of Hercules fame. Those have their own studios. Kevin was also in Soul Surfer. That's very famous. And he says he gets stopped in the street for that film, not the Hercules franchise that lasted over a decade. We also had Casey Fleming. He's the CEO of Black Ops Partners, an intelligence cybersecurity firm. Steve Yates, he is a former national security advisor to the White House. He was also part of Radio Free Asia, and he now is part of the America First Policy Institute. We also had Jason Jones, who is a film producer and tells the stories that he really wants to. He knows like everyone around the world and just really spends time producing the films he wants to, and especially shining a light on what's happening inside China or highlighting the voices who aren't heard normally. And we also had Christian Toto, who's a film critic for over 20 years. He is a Hollywood in Toto dot com. It's his site. It's a very fun site. He was also there and had some very good insights on what happened to Hollywood through all these years and how it became less and less American. So you mentioned Chris Fenton was able to get Iron Man 3 and Looper into China. So I'm wondering, is there more loyalty to China than the US when it comes to Hollywood? You could say that Chris Fenton didn't think that in the beginning. He really felt that this was helping the two countries come, you know, the two superpowers come closer together. And with the engagement that it would become more liberal and all of that for communist China. But with, say, Looper and Iron Man 3, just to get past the Chinese censors, they had to change a lot of the story. So Looper, originally the script, it involves time travel, which is a subject that's banned in China because the Chinese Communist Party likes to control everything, including the past and the future and the present. And so originally in the script, Gordon Levitt's character wants to go to France. That's his utopia. That's his dream. The final version is not that. The utopia is China. So that was a major change. And that had the audience clapping, that had the Chinese Communist censors clapping when they got to that part of the film. So that was a huge change. But think about what that does to you psychologically. You're like, wow, China's the future, China's the place everyone wants to go. It has an impact on the way you view the world. And then with Iron Man 3, they inserted a Chinese doctor, Dr. Wu, to save the life of Tony Stark. So think about that. It's like the Chinese Communist Party's skills, which they probably stole, which is not shown in the film. But their skills is what's saving this hero, Tony Stark, right? So that was another huge change. And then eventually, one day, Chris Fenton was arguing on the phone with Marvel, trying to get this massive change in the script. And afterwards, his wife was like, whose side are you on? And he was like, America, of course. You know, every dollar made there is helping America, all these jobs, like all these different things. And she was like, you know, it just really sounds like you're feeding the beast. You're just, you know, enabling the Chinese regime. And eventually, he realized that's what was happening. But many people didn't realize that. And, you know, they just want to get their bottom lines. And China has a massive market. For instance, back in the day, Pacific Rim, it had a budget of $190 million. It only made a little over $100 million in the US box office. But that film did get into China. And it made $111 million in the China box office alone. So just by getting that film into China, it doubled its box office profits. So many studios are just like, if I can get a film into China, I'll make a profit. And in the process, you know, these studios gave up human rights, democracy, everything that America stands for. You know, Tiff, I have to say that the movie I've seen as well myself, and it is a very good movie. It's going to be on Epoch TV. And I think all of our viewers should have a look if they're interested on this topic. But thank you so much for your time today, Tiffany. It was a pleasure speaking with you. Great being with you. Finally, to all you brave journalists out there honoring our journalistic golden rule, seek the truth and report it. I'm Don Ma. And thank you very much for joining us here on NTD's International Reporters Roundtable. Until next time.