Reason Number 17 - Faux Pop-Culture
Selasa, 12 Agustus 2008
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‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 33
“Mando-pop (Mandarin pop music) is characterized by softness. No hard edges are exposed where young people might cut themselves some independent thinking. No difficult subject matter interferes with the music from mesmerizing young minds.
The typical male mando-pop star is a designed metrosexual. Reasonably good looking, his hair, never long, is designed to gently fracture his face, the eyes possibly kohl shadowed. It is permissible to unbutton the shirt exposing an oiled, or sparkled hairless chest. Wiry thin, dressed in dark tones or blinding bright colors, the male mando-pop star whispers his song, never yelling, at least until the penultimate moment when all the girls will have their hearts stolen as the music in its crescendo closing requires our star to give it all he has.
In the audience hearts and glow sticks are all a flutter. One, possibly two well-mannered girls jump up on stage with bouquets of flowers. Our male star offers his cheek which the two girls shyly kiss, to the orgasmic cheer of the audience. Glow sticks flutter double time.
For the typical mando-pop female star, perfect in her makeup, dress and hair must be wistful, wishful and virginal. No sex allowed. That is reserved for Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese pop stars. If she can produce a tear, not during the song but when her adoring fans shriek her name through their glow sticks, a tear that she wipes away ever so gently with a single finger, then her concert will be considered a smash.
The songs are soft, breathy love ballads, almost spoken, and with the one essential quality that guarantees their success – they can be sung by anyone.
It is in the KTV parlors that a mando-pop’s star quality is manufactured. Hundreds of thousands of locations throughout China require the latest superstar efforts to be available for local singing fans, 15 to 25 years old, to duplicate the sounds of their favorites. If you can sell your songs to the KTV palaces, you are ensured stardom.
The kids can’t sing rock ‘n roll, so don’t bother making it. It’s just too Western for sensitive Chinese ears. And rock n’ roll just might tell the kids something they do not even want to hear.”
So already that spectacular Olympic opening show is unraveling. The ‘firework footprint’ was faked, a hash-up of computer graphics – though to be fair it was totally obvious it was computer generated when it was played, and I am surprised anyone thought it would pass for real.
But today it was revealed that the little girl who gave a solo song was faking it too. This girl, Lin Miaoke, was a last-minute replacement for Yang Peiyi. Yang, it was planned, would sing the song live; and indeed the song that the world heard was sung by Yang. But Yang did not make it to the stage because – get this – her teeth were too crooked. And those crooked teeth apparently were a threat to China’s national dignity.
According to Chen Qigang, who was the music designer for the show, Yang was chosen for her perfect voice. But then some cocksucker from the Poltiburo came down “who gave us his opinion: It must change.”
China has changed - that’s what I’m often told. I say bollocks to that. China’s change is only superficial. All the shit surrounding the Olympics – the waste of money, the press-ganged thousands of performers, the poor thrown out of their homes and the rural workers thrown out of the city – the chest-beating, the boasting, the sheer mendacity of it. It’s all straight out of the CPC fuck-humanity copy book.
After all, what is this episode of insufficiently cute Yang Peiyi but the same old shit as no-longer-liked leaders being airbrushed out of photos?
Yang is seven years old. Imagine what a lifelong memory appearing in the opening ceremony would have been for her. And imagine what a memory it will be for her now. Imagine how she’ll feel about it.
This is more than just a story of China faking it to live up to some fairytale image of itself, a past that has been mythologized beyond far beyond reality. In fact it’s fucking despicable – Yang Peiyi has, in effect, been told that she looks so unattractive that she’d bring shame to her whole nation.
When China’s leaders can do that kind of shit to China’s children, how much of a fuck do you think they give for the rest of China’s citizens?
‘Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 34
“While young Chinese people are fascinated with overseas culture, that culture is most often presented to them in a highly controlled fashion – Western Culture with Chinese Characteristics. It is a simplified, sanitized version of Western culture, with anything thought-provoking or challenging scrubbed out.
The huge success of the US TV show ‘American Idol’ led Chinese TV to invent its own version of the show, which it called ‘Super Girl’ (or, to give it its full name, ‘Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Super Girl Contest.’) Aired in 2005, this proved extremely popular, with more than 400 million people watching the final episode. The show, in all practical terms, copied the American production.
However, in 2007, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) issued ‘a list of rules to uphold high moral standards on a sequel.’ These rules said that the show ‘should include only “healthy and ethically inspiring” songs and try to avoid “gossip” about the contestants and scenes of fans screaming and wailing, or losing contestants in tears.’ In other words, less emotionally American.
The censors also ordered the title of the show to be changed, banning use of the word ‘super’ along with ‘girl’ (it became ‘Happy Boys’ Voice’ instead), restricted its running time to six weeks, and ‘decreed their hairstyles, clothes, fashion accessories, language and manners should be in line with the mainstream values.’ There was to be ‘No weirdness, no vulgarity, no low taste,’ and contestants from outside China were banned. Once again, Chinese culture was copying the West, yet Party bosses were dictating that culture should be a pale shadow of ‘Chinese characteristics.’
While Chinese people today are consumed by Western culture, the culture they actually receive is thus very carefully controlled. Chinese society appropriates Western culture without actually understanding what it means, sometimes producing a Western culture with Chinese characteristics / Chinese culture with Western characteristics hybrid.
Sadly, it is not only Chinese understanding of Western culture that is weak. It is now becoming true that Chinese people’s understanding of Chinese culture is also weakening. Young people tend to follow their peers in the chase to be popular. What is popular now in China has virtually nothing to do with Chinese history, traditions or culture. The result is a pseudo-culture environment leading eventually to a huge generation gap between children and their parents larger than anything that has ever existed in the West."
Remember that under all the fakery and manipulation that China has poured into the Olympics, its colonies still suffer. 'T' for Tibet and 'X' for Xinjiang.
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Judul: Reason Number 17 - Faux Pop-Culture
Ditulis oleh Unknown
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