Netflix and the Nanny State
Released nearly a decade ago, a critically acclaimed film about the youth-led protest movement in Hong Kong has been quietly available on the subscription-based streaming service Netflix for years. But in the latest media-fueled fit over national security in the territory, the film has come under attack this week by pro-Beijing media.
Newly at issue is the film Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower (黃之鋒: 熱血青年 vs. 超級強權), by American filmmaker Joe Piscatella, which premiered in 2017 at the Sundance Film Festival. The 79-minute film traces key figures in the anti-national-education protests of 2012 through to the 2014 Umbrella Movement. Among those featured in the film is Joshua Wong (黃之鋒), who cut his teeth in public activism as a secondary student in 2011, founding the group Scholarism along with classmate Ivan Lam Long-yin (林朗彥) to oppose the implementation of a pro-China moral and national education (MNE) curriculum in the city.
Joshua Wong’s pivotal role in the film’s plot also explains why the Netflix documentary has recently become the center of the latest media drama in Hong Kong. On September 2, Wong, who is already serving a sentence for subversion in a separate national security case, again appeared before Hong Kong’s High Court and pleaded guilty to colluding with foreign forces under the National Security Law imposed by China’s central government in 2020. He awaits sentencing in that case, which could decide if he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
This week, the Wen Wei Po (文匯報) newspaper, which is run by the Liaison Office of China’s central government in the city, “discovered” that the trailer for the documentary, which it said is “chockful of inciting [content]” (充斥著煽動性), can be freely viewed in Hong Kong. The newspaper proceeded to report its discovery to the Security Bureau (公安部). Further reports said the Security Bureau was taking follow-up action and stressed that all films must abide by Hong Kong law, including the National Security Law.
In a chain of events that has become increasingly common under Hong Kong’s national security regime, the initial media report set off a domino effect of recrimination. Legislator Duncan Chan (鄧家彪) told the paper that “[since] Netflix operates a Hong Kong channel, it must comply with Hong Kong law… the government must require Netflix to take the film down.” Meanwhile, legislator Bill Tang (李梓敬) suggested the film could constitute incitement to secession or collusion with foreign forces, and that as the distributor, Netflix “should bear corresponding legal responsibility.”
Netflix hasn’t yet responded to the criticisms, but its co-CEO Ted Sarandos said last year that after years of attempts to enter the Chinese market, “not a single episode of a Netflix show” cleared censorship review, boasting that Netflix is “one of the rare companies in the U.S.” without exposure to China and its censorship. A source told the Hong Kong Free Press after the passage of the National Security Law in 2020 that it would only consider removal of specific films under a formal government request. As mounting securitization in the city continues to extend deep into the entertainment industry, the company may soon find itself reassessing its relationship with Hong Kong.