The Year of the Mouse
by Norman Spinrad
“Mess not with the Mouse.”
“Mess not with the Mouse? We fly you to California business class and install you in a luxurious hotel in Anaheim and when you are summoned to give an account of the situation, you spout degenerate Taoist crypticisms?”
Xian Bai managed to resist the impulse to tug at the tight collar of his dress shirt, so uncomfortable after two weeks in Southern California, where even high level executives felt free to attend meetings in casual attire.
“This is not a Taoist epigram,” he explained. “It is a precept common in high American corporate circles, where it is thought highly unwise to arouse the ire of the Disney Corporation.”
Had the Deputy Minister for Overseas Cultural Relations been a Long Nose, his pale white skin would no doubt have turned crimson with rage. Despite the handicap of the lack of this Caucasian ability, he managed to make his displeasure clear enough by banging his hand on the desk with sufficient force to rattle the tea service.
“And what is the People’s Republic of China, some Banana Republic owned by the United Fruit Corporation?” the Deputy Minister shouted.
“We are a billion and a quarter people! We are the largest and fastest growing market in the world! We have the world’s largest army! We have nuclear missiles! How dare the Mouse presume so outrageously to mess with us!”
He calmed himself with a sip of tea and regarded Xian Bai with a colder species of outrage. “You did make this clear with sufficient force?”
“Indeed I did!” Xian Bai was constrained to reply firmly.
But he was dissembling. Two weeks in Anaheim to obtain a meeting with a Vice President in charge of overseas marketing and the results of that conversation had been enough to convince him that such force did not exist.
“Get real, Xian,” that individual had advised him. “The idea that the Yellow Peril was gonna storm the beaches at Orlando went out with Ronald Reagan. What are you gonna do, nuke Pirates of the Caribbean?”
“But China is the largest consumer market in the world—”
“And you guys have been screwing us out of it since that Dalai Lama film dust-up that cost Ovitz his job and us a bundle for the golden parachute! You guys made a real bad career move.”
The Disney Vice President glanced heavenward.
“You pissed Michael off.”
“And this film is your vengeance?”
The Disney Vice President grinned like the Lion King.
“The bottom line,” he said, “is always the best revenge.”
The minions of the Mouse had not been reticent in allowing Xian Bai to attend a preview screening of THE LONG MARCH, though at the reception afterward—white wine, simple dim sum, lo mein noodles, barbecued spare ribs—a disgruntled American reporter had complained that this was the “B-list” screening, those privileged to enjoy “A-list” prerogatives being treated to lobster, caviar, and champagne.
This mattered not to Xian Bai, since the film itself had quite destroyed his appetite—being an animated cartoon version of the heroic Long March of the Chinese Revolution, dripping with syrupy music, festooned with Busby Berkley choreography, and featuring Chou En Lai as a fox, Chiang Kai Shek as a mongoose, the People’s Army as happy ants, and starring Chairman Mao himself as a grinning and rather overweight panda.
“You do realize that the premiere of this atrocity in the United States will result in the immediate and permanent closure of the Chinese market to all your enterprises,” Xian Bai informed the Disney Vice President as he was instructed to do.
“No problem, guy, you want us to premiere THE LONG MARCH in China, you’ve got it.”
“You cannot seriously expect to ever release this film in China!”
“Better inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in, in the immortal words of Lyndon Johnson.”
“This means what…?”
“It means that one way or the other, we will crack open the Chinese market, but we don’t need it to make the numbers golden. THE LONG MARCH cost less than fifty million to make, negative and promo costs still keep the total under a hundred, and we’ve already layed off twice that on the merchandising rights! So the film’s in the money before we even release it. We figure Mao the stuffed Panda alone will gross enough this Christmas to cover the whole production budget!”
“You…you plan to market Chairman Mao as stuffed panda?” Xian Bai considered himself an apolitical modern Chinese pragmatist, but this was too much even for him.
“The kids we ran the marketing tests on loved it. Mao Tze Tung’s gonna be ten times more popular as a panda doll than he ever was in the flesh.”
The Disney Vice President leaned closer. “If I let you in on something really hot, can you keep a secret?” he said conspiratorially.
“I can make no such commitment….”
The Disney Vice President shrugged. “Well, what the hell, it’s a fait accompli anyway. We’ve decided to stop renting out our characters to front other people’s fast food franchises, and get into the business ourselves. Mickey and Donald and the old gang are tied up in long term contracts, but Mao the Panda—”
“You cannot be serious!”
“I know what you’re thinking, dumb move, the market’s oversaturated with hamburger and pizza and taco and fried chicken chains already. But…nobody’s doing Chinese! Panda Pagodas in every shopping mall in the world! Fronted by Mao the Panda himself! We’ll hang poor Ronald McDonald from his own Golden Arches!”
Even the edited and explicated version of this conversation was difficult for the Deputy Minister for Overseas Cultural Relations to comprehend.
“How can they expect to get away with this affront to the Middle Kingdom?” he demanded. “How can the American government permit this?
You did make it clear that we may retaliate against other American corporations as well?”
Xian Bai nodded miserably.
“And?” demanded the Deputy Minister.
Xian Bai took a deep breath, fixed his gaze upon the desktop.
“They…they issued their own ultimatum.”
“An ultimatum?” whispered the Deputy Minister, clearly dumbfounded.
“The People’s Republic of China must allow THE LONG MARCH to open simultaneously in no less than one thousand theaters nationwide with Disney to retain sixty percent of the gross, must cede the necessary real estate for the establishment of no less than one thousand Panda Pagodas, plus Disneyworlds in Shanghai, Peking, and Hong Kong, and grant a one hundred percent tax abatement for a period of fifty years on these properties, or…”
“Or?”
“Or, I was told, the Mouse shall roar, Uncle Scrooge will dip into his money bin, Dumbo will fly, and the Big Bad Wolf will huff and puff and blow our house down!”
At first, it appeared that vast black storm-fronts were approaching China from several directions, then trepidation turned to bemused delight as the black clouds resolved into thousands upon untold thousands of kites.
Black kites. All identical.
All in the form of the happily grinning face of the world-famous Mouse.
No, not kites—
“Balloons!” shouted the Deputy Minister For Overseas Cultural Affairs. “Millions upon millions of them floating gently down from the skies all over China!”
“Amusing,” said Xian Bai, “but I don’t—”
“Amusing! screamed the Deputy Minister, reaching into a pocket and extracting a deflated version of the apparently offending item.
“They deflate in a moment to the size of a poor man’s wallet! They reinflate with a few puffs of air!”
This ability he then proceeded to demonstrate, producing an example of the head of the famous Mouse somewhat larger than a soccer ball.