con·tain·ment
 noun \kən-ˈtān-mənt\

:  the policy, process, or result of preventing the expansion of a hostile power or ideology

Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee experienced the corporate mediation of their image. Kung Fu films and Hendrix’s music have revolutionary potential that was “contained” by Hollywood’s repackaging and production. The rebelliousness inherent to youth culture was endorsed only on a symbolic level within a contained framework.  Similarly, the idealogical threat of Third World resistance present in Kung Fu films was contained by processing the films with Hollywood Orientalism, essentially producing a simulacrum of actual liberatory media.

The “containment” model that Kato references is not limited to the sphere of Hollywood.  ”Containment” is also the term used to describe the strategic foreign policy the United States adopted during the 1950s-60s to stop the perceived spread of communism. The communist threat of USSR was to be contained and isolated, lest it spread to neighboring nations. The containment policy eventually lead to the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The foreign policy version of containment sounds eerily similar to Kato’s model presented in From Kung Fu To Hip Hop.