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In a week filled with several noteworthy idiocies, finally, El American’s Idiot of the Week award goes to WWE pro wrestler, actor (ahem), and rapper (ahem, ahem) John Cena, for his video pleading for forgiveness from the Chinese Communist Party.
In a video posted on the Chinese social media Weibo last Monday, John Cena — speaking in Chinese, no less — did penance to the Chinese Communist Party for letting a little something slip during one of the promotional interviews for the Fast & Furious 9 film.
“Hello China, this is John Cena. There’s something I need to clarify. I’m in the middle of promoting Fast & Furious 9 and I’m doing a lot of interviews. I made a mistake in one of my interviews. Everyone asked me if I could use Chinese to explain it. The Fast & Furious team gave me a lot of information. There were a lot of interviews and a lot of information, but I made a mistake,” Cena sobbed.
“I have to say something very, very, very, very important. I love and respect China and the Chinese people. I am very, very, very sorry for my mistake. I apologize, I sincerely apologize, I’m very sorry. You must understand that I really love, I really respect China and the Chinese people. My apologies. Goodbye.”
John Cena’s pathetic act of contrition was due to the fact that in an interview he said that “Taiwan will be the first country in the world to see Fast & Furious 9.” While anyone’s first reaction would be to think he was apologizing for inflicting such punishment on the poor Taiwanese, he was actually apologizing to the Chinese Communist Party for saying Taiwan was a country.
We actually had to guess that he was referring to Taiwan, as John Cena couldn’t bring himself to utter the country’s name again, as if he were Voldemort – sorry, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – from Harry Potter himself.
What’s behind John Cena’s apology?
Since the victory of communism in the Chinese civil war in 1949, China has been divided into two states. The Communists led by Mao Zedong seized power in mainland China, while forces loyal to the old regime retreated to the island of Taiwan.
Since then, Taiwan — also known as the Republic of China — has been living in a kind of international legal limbo, since communist China does not recognize it as a country, but considers it just another province of its red empire.
As Ronald Reagan used to say, the difference between a republic and a people’s republic is the same as between a jacket and a straitjacket. So if anyone dares to recognize that Taiwan is a country, the Chinese Communist Party people get very mad, and they get mad very fast.
Knowing how the Chinese communist regime is, and constrained by the censorship imposed by the Chinese Communist Party when it comes to allowing American films to be released in their country, the producers of Fast & Furious 9 demanded John Cena to apologize, if possible in Chinese, and insisting that he is very, very, very, very, very, very, very sorry.
We suppose that among all the information given to him by the Fast & Furious team, they did not explain anything about history, nor about Mao’s bloody “Cultural Revolution”, nor about the current concentration camps, nor about the rest of the cruelties of the Chinese communist dictatorship.
We assume that Vin Diesel and company must have told him – in terms that John Cena could easily understand – something along the lines of “either you put on the brakes and apologize or we’re going to lose money quick.”
Perhaps what we should start putting the brakes on is Hollywood’s collaborationism with the Chinese dictatorship.
Hopefully, John Cena’s pathetic apology will only serve to earn him El American’s Idiot of the Week award, and finally, the Chinese dictatorship will be implacable and won’t allow Fast & Furious 9 to be released. Maybe then, we can add financial bankruptcy to the moral bankruptcy of the franchise, and we’ll be spared from reaching the tenth installment.
Ignacio Manuel García Medina, Business Management teacher. Artist and lecturer specialized in Popular Culture for various platforms. Presenter of the program "Pop Libertario" for the Juan de Mariana Institute. Lives in the Canary Islands, Spain // Ignacio M. García Medina es profesor de Gestión de Empresas. Es miembro del Instituto Juan de Mariana y conferenciante especializado en Cultura Popular e ideas de la Libertad.
Social Networks: @ignaciomgm