Dear Gossips,

Still a couple of weeks to go until The Avengers but they’re preparing Iron Man 3 already for a May 2013 release. And guess what? It’ll be shot and co-produced in China (source). Never mind that they still find ways to creatively oppress their citizens. After all, Steven Spielberg has nothing to do with this movie and besides, a free market China is the great economic dream, haven’t you heard? It’s also been called a “fatal attraction” (source), for years luring many Western corporations towards its billion population jackpot only to shut it down arbitrarily for any number or real or imagined violations that threaten the CPC control. Could it be Disney that finally breaks through?

Well, why not? China’s millionaire and billionaire population is exploding. And they all want things. They want sparkly things. Chan Koonchung keeps saying, while promoting his book The Fat Years, that the Chinese are being systematically encouraged to forget the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 which is true to a point but perhaps also incomplete. There’s more than one way to manipulate your people. Distraction works too. The Chinese are distracted. By plastic surgery and Louis Vuitton. The conditions are perfect for a Hollywood takeover.

As for Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr - again I remind you, this is an actor who now fronts two major franchises for two major, major studios (Walt Disney and Warner Bros), married to an influential producer in her own right, and you still don’t think he’s part of The Establishment? You think he would f-ck around with all that, as he earns as many $20 million paycheques as he can before he turns 50, in the noble pursuit of righting old celebrity wrongs? Come on now, where are we living?

Yours in gossip,

Lainey