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sevenhelz at 05:25pm on 23/09/2008
sevenhelz at 05:25pm on 23/09/2008I've seen a few posts lately talking about the little girl "not pretty enough to represent China" - the one whose voice was used.
I've only seen one person mention this: What about the little girl not talented enough to sing for China? Is it just assumed that she'll be okay? Knowing that she can make a career out of miming until someone puts on the wrong tape?
...how can we condone this in our own "stars", justify our shameless worship of the image over talent by saying that it's difficult to sing and dance at the same time... but find it the most "telling" sign of problems in China? We've known there's no freedom/democracy/choice there for years. We know that the Chinese government disappear dissenters, such as practicers of Falun Gong... (yeah, I'm a student, I hear news from other students). Huddersfield itself is using, to rejuvenate the square outside the train station, stone mined by Chinese prisoners... and our problem with them is that they give two children a chance to perform instead of one?
Are the human rights violations over there just so big a problem that we can't look directly at them?
I've only seen one person mention this: What about the little girl not talented enough to sing for China? Is it just assumed that she'll be okay? Knowing that she can make a career out of miming until someone puts on the wrong tape?
...how can we condone this in our own "stars", justify our shameless worship of the image over talent by saying that it's difficult to sing and dance at the same time... but find it the most "telling" sign of problems in China? We've known there's no freedom/democracy/choice there for years. We know that the Chinese government disappear dissenters, such as practicers of Falun Gong... (yeah, I'm a student, I hear news from other students). Huddersfield itself is using, to rejuvenate the square outside the train station, stone mined by Chinese prisoners... and our problem with them is that they give two children a chance to perform instead of one?
Are the human rights violations over there just so big a problem that we can't look directly at them?
can has cookie?
Mostly yes, I suspect.
This is a nice, easily-digestible, sound-bite example. I think it also calls up the sort of Potemkin-village approach that is easily criticized.
can has cookie?
can has cookie?
I remember learning that one in history class. (I learned the now largely discredited version that it was all completely fake by the general, and he was having the peasants whipped so they would dance for the Empress, etc. etc.)