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Q: Are westerners "caricatured" on Chinese TV?
Last night I saw the first of many variety shows leading up to celebration of the Chinese New Year. The program featured many foreign guests, all of which were either rappin,' jivin', speaking Chinese, or shown performing other stylized "western" behavior. The serious routines were always given to Chinese. I don't watch Chinese TV that much, so I got to thinking, "is this the norm?"
12 years 14 weeks ago in Arts & Entertainment - China
On fictional shows they are either:
1) Clowns. Doing exagerated foreign things, making fools of themselves, being comic relief. Generally a minstrel show. Fond of giving two thumbs up, violently thrusting their hands forward and screaming "OH YAY!!!"
2) Evil villians who are evil only to be evil. They'll see the protagonist walking by, and be like, "Hey, there's a Chinese guy. I think I'll ruin his life for no obvious reason." Generally they are drunk.
3) Extremely silent, just saying "Hello". Usually an important businessman or something. Generally, there'll be some office drama that they have to keep under control while the foreigner is around.
4) Ultra-silent henchmen. Sometimes a influential character will just have a bunch of white folks around, watching his back, just bein' all white. It's never explained, we're just supposed to go, "Man, that dude's got a lot of white folks with him. He must be rich or powerful."
giadrosich:
"Sometimes a influential character will just have a bunch of white folks around, watching his back, just bein' all white."
See! I saw that last night. There was a female Chinese singer (doing a beautiful song, btw), and standing behind her, one to each side, were two western guys wearing sunglasses, looking kinda like "Men In Black." They NEVER did anything. Just stood there for the song. It was really weird...
The Canadian Guy Mark somthing can hold his own.
saw him in a couple of skits over the years
and he definetly dosn't play the fool
God I wish I could speak english as well as him little lone Chinese
kchur:
Da Shan is definitely the exception to the rule, but I don't know of anyone else foreign who's managed to carve their own persona like that. Even then, he's a bit over the hill I'm told, more of a nostalgia thing now.
