Top Gun: Maverick is everything the CCP hates and exactly what America needs

Top Gun: Maverick deserves its nomination for best picture at the
Oscars
— not just because it’s one of the best movies of the last decade, but because it is good for the country. Our nation is suffering from a debilitating dearth of patriotism, and the sequel to Top Gun is the dose of healthy national pride our country needs. Just as important, the film also sends a sharp message to the
Chinese Communist Party
that America is not a nation to be pushed around on the international or Oscars stage.

Paramount, the producer of Top Gun: Maverick, stood up to Beijing in a subtle but important way. In the first film, the title character’s now famous bomber jacket had a patch with a Taiwanese and Japanese flag. Initially, the producers of Top Gun: Maverick removed this patch to appease China. I
wrote
at the time that this was a tremendous mistake.

In the interest of profits, Hollywood has kowtowed to China for years. China is extremely strict about what can and cannot be shown on its movie screens. For example, China
refused
to show Spider-Man: No Way Home to its audiences because the studio wouldn’t take out a scene with the Statue of Liberty.

With a population of 1.4 billion, losing China’s audience and revenue can represent a large financial cost for studios. For this reason, many Hollywood studios censor themselves to stay on the right side of Beijing. For Paramount, this meant censoring Maverick’s iconic jacket.

But that didn’t go over well with American audiences, especially those whose lives were affected by the first movie and had been anticipating the sequel for 40 years. And it was a slap in the face to those who were inspired by the original film to join our armed forces as Navy and
Air Force
pilots.

To Paramount’s credit, it reversed course and included the original patch on Maverick’s jacket in the final cut of the film. In turn, the film grossed $1.4 billion at the box office, became Paramount’s top-grossing film of all time, and has now been nominated for best picture at the Oscars.

Even if Top Gun: Maverick hadn’t been a financial success for Paramount, studios must still put patriotism above profits. Carrying water for the CCP is un-American in every way. The U.S. does not bow to genocidal communist dictatorships — that’s the real “danger zone.” If studios want to kowtow to China’s regime, that is their prerogative, but they should not be funded by American tax dollars or aided by our State Department.

That’s why I reintroduced the Stopping Communist Regimes from Engaging in Edits Now Act, or the SCREEN Act. This legislation would prevent the State Department from assisting production companies that allow the CCP to dictate the content of their films or are coproduced by a CCP-controlled production company.

Many studios rely on U.S. production assistance or assets for filming, whether for fighter jet footage, the use of a military base or battleship, or technical assistance from government agencies. This will no longer be an option for studios willing to let Communist China take a red pen to their scripts.

Critics might say that studios should be free to work with Chinese film companies without restriction, but it’s important to remember that under a communist system there is no true division between businesses and government. American studios that choose to make films with Chinese companies will likely be working closer than they think with the Chinese government, and that represents a threat to our security.

This legislation won’t stop
Hollywood
from getting in bed with Beijing, but it will ensure taxpayers aren’t paying for the hotel room. We must protect the integrity of American films, safeguard American values, and refuse to allow Hollywood to become a propaganda arm of the CCP. Hollywood doesn’t just document American culture, it creates it. Hollywood also engenders patriotism and pride in America’s continual fight for freedom at home and abroad, inspiring future generations to wear the uniform.

My legislation empowers Hollywood to hark back to the golden age of film and to create content that honors the American spirit and its values. Rather than laying out a welcome mat for foreign interference in our films, let’s kick the CCP off the red carpet altogether.

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Mark Green is a U.S. representative for Tennessee and a former physician and combat veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, where he served three tours of duty. He is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.