How did Tom Cruise's jacket in "Top Gun: Maverick" spark a global controversy over Taiwan?

The News Lens
Date: 2019/12/26
By: Ross Feingold and Zoy Ku 

Op-Ed

Following the release of the second trailer of Top Gun: Maverick, the controversy over Tom Cruise’s

jacket might resurface. Cruise’s character, Captain Maverick, had four patches on the back of his jacket, including the Republic of China (ROC) flag and the Japanese flag in the original film. But fans noticed the patches were replaced in the new trailer.

Twitter users and international media reports said the flags were likely removed because of the investment made by China’s Tencent. The disappearance of the two flags was seen as an act of censorship to avoid offending the Chinese audience. This theory can certainly be true. But the ROC flag could also have been removed simply because it is a flag that older Americans might recognize from World War II or Cold War events, but not the current audiences.

Discussions of the Top Gun controversy also spread to media stories that incorrectly referred to the ROC flag as the “Taiwanese flag.” On the Top Gun: Maverick Wikipedia page, the section about the censorship controversy has undergone multiple revisions, implying that its neutrality is disputed.
[FULL  STORY]