"Lin Miaoke, left, is shown during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games on Friday. An official ordered her to lip-synch 'Ode to the Motherland' because seven-year-old singer Yang Peiyi, right, wasn't deemed cute enough."
Read the AP story here.
Aren't we (the US aka "pot") calling the kettle black? I am surprised the US media is going to make a big deal out of this. We currently have a crop of "performers" who look like the current hip standard but lip-synch to studio-corrected recordings when performing "live". Britney Spears, that Simpson girl, just about any boy band. Remember Milli Vanilli?
ReplyDeleteTrue...
ReplyDeleteBut in your great American examples it is our media or Hollywood doing most of that, not the heavy hand of government.
I suspect that someone in the Chinese government was the final approval authority in most everything dealing with issues dealing with how things make China look.
Good point nonetheless...
Good point. For the Chinese, their government is their media. Ours is a separate animal (although with the Murdock empire, sometimes I wonder).
ReplyDeleteTo support your second point, there is an article in today's WaPo about how the Chinese schools and government treat the history of Tienanmen Square. They basically leave out the atrocities. Here's a link for those who are curious.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102280.html?hpid=topnews
hi lenny, i painted about little Lin Miaoke today....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.danaellyn.com/8_08/mime.jpg
This painting will be hanging in my show that opens this Saturday at Long View Gallery here in DC. It's the opening of "Made in China"....an exhibit of all the work Matt Sesow and I created during our 3 week trip to China last month - along with a few larger canvas inspired by the trip that we've both created since returning home. Hope to see you there if you're in town!
more info on the show here:
http://www.danaellyn.com/press/china/china.html
very kewl!
ReplyDeleteLenny,
ReplyDeleteI've struggled a lot with watching/not watching. I love the variety of competitions and seeing the athleticism of all those men and women. A friend of mine came up with a great solution - she is inviting people to make a charitable contribution for watching the Olympic games with organizations that are making a difference in China. One option is to sponsor her Olympic game watching - she pledges to make a donation for each hour she watches and she is tracking it all online. Go here to learn more:http://olympicoffsets.wordpress.com/why-im-watching/
Even if people are not comfortable sponsoring someone they don't know, I think making some sort of donation is a great solution to a problematic situation. (She has a list of good charities).
Yang Peiyi is much cuter and in addition she has a voice. It´s a pitty what the chinese have done and especially what turned out afterwards. Of course they wanted to have a clean image, but that´s not the way to solve problems. China wanted to demonstrate how modern and progressive it is but has shown the opposite.
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