Minority entertainment

On Friday night, I had the good fortune of staying at an expensive hotel and enjoying satellite television.  One of my observations was that CCTV’s Spanish and French channel is much better than its English one.  The Spanish and French channel has had the good sense to show some mainstream Chinese television shows and provide French or Spanish subtitles.  Not only do TV shows provide entertainment, but you can also learn about Chinese pop culture.  These are two things that the English channel is severely lacking.  A Chinese minority group dresses up in traditional costume (source) I also watched the first hour of the film Money Train before check-out time on Saturday morning.  This is a film that was often on Australian TV, but I never bothered to watch it.  However, my recollection of the film having a young and sexy Jennifer Lopez was a good motivation to watch it, especially when considering how famous J Lo is now.  The film is actually pretty good.  It is about three ethnically-diverse cops patrolling New York’s subway.  Wesley Snipes plays the black bloke, Woody Harrelson plays a crazy white guy and Lopez plays an up and coming Latina.  There is some really funny dialogue between Snipes and Harrelson.  The different ethnicities of the main characters made me think about Chinese minority groups.  I have often been critical of the way minority groups are handled in China.  The way that minority groups are required to sing and dance on television and in parks smacks of tokenism and condescension.   It seems that the role of minority groups in China is to provide entertainment to the masses without playing a meaningful role.  This definitely includes foreigners in China as well.  However, I also wonder whether this phenomenon is any different from overseas.  Aren’t the minority groups in the US providing plenty of entertainment as well?  Black and Hispanic music are both marketable commodities.  In Australia, Aboriginal culture is only appreciated when providing entertainment on the football field.  Why should China be any different when it comes to handling its minority groups?

Posted: 11:28 AM, 8/7/2007 in China Share on Facebook

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