Judd Apatow Calls Out ‘Chilling’ Hollywood Censorship: ‘China Has Bought Our Silence’

Director Judd Apatow spoke to MSNBC’s Ari Melber about an alarming kind of Hollywood censorship concerning human rights abuses in nations like China and Saudi Arabia.

In a preview for an upcoming episode of “Mavericks with Ari Melber,” Apatow said that what concerns him is “a corporate type of censorship that people don’t really notice, which is a lot of these giant corporate entities have business with countries around the world, Saudi Arabia or China, and they’re just not going to criticize them, and they’re not going to let their shows criticize them, or they’re not going to air documentaries that go deep into truthful areas because they just make so much money.”

Compared to discussions of “can we say this joke or not say that joke?”, Apatow said, what’s “much scarier” is how “they have just completely shut down critical content about human rights abuses in China.”

For example, he said no one would buy a pitch where someone walks in and says, “Hey, I want to write a movie about the concentration camps in China and Muslims in concentration camps. I want to write a movie about someone who escapes.”

“No one would buy the pitch,” he said. “Instead of us doing business with China and that leading to China becoming more free, what has happened is a place like China has bought our silence with their money.”

Apatow recently called out US companies, including Disney over the growing Mulan controversy, for not using their massive platforms to “SPEAK UP & try to help a million people who were abducted and put in CONCENTRATION CAMPS”:

It is shameful that no US companies and very few politicians speak up about concentration camps in China. The United States has abandoned the world when it comes to human rights. https://t.co/h3yspyv2vg

— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) September 7, 2020

They are not ‘detained’ they are being held in CONCENTRATION CAMPS. Apple uses that word because they don’t want to anger China. Maybe Disney and Apple should SPEAK UP & try to help a million people who were abducted and put in CONCENTRATION CAMPS. https://t.co/vxXSmo2Dwr

— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) September 9, 2020

You can watch the clip above, via MSNBC.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com