IT WAS by some distance the year-to-date’s biggest television event. Some 690m people in China are estimated to have watched (or snoozed through) the four-and-a-half-hour extravaganza screened nationwide on state television on February 7th, the eve of the Chinese new year. It was a stultifying procession of patriotic songs (“Forge ahead, beautiful China”; “Iron and blood loyalty”), insipid skits and bald propaganda. “Without the Communist Party, there would be no new China” is a jolly enough tune, but hardly festive fare. The gala even included a parade of soldiers strutting about the stage in combat fatigues.
On the same day, 112m Americans tuned in to the Super Bowl, a big American football game with more than its share of flag-waving, too. But at least that event was bone-crunchingly exciting, and its half-time show intriguingly subversive (Beyoncé appeared in a Black Panther outfit). By contrast, the live broadcast in China was politically correct to a mind-numbing extreme. The year of the monkey was ushered in by a show that many citizens decried as a turkey. Moaning about the chunwan, as...Continue reading
Source: China http://ift.tt/1otUAhM
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