Guo Degang on film
Guo Degang (郭德纲), one of China’s most popular performers of xiangsheng (相声), a form of stand-up comedy also known as crosstalk, is no longer welcome in the capital, as a scuffle between one of his students and a TV reporter has swept him up in a newly-launched anti-vulgarity campaign.
Guo’s troubles began when he was accused of expanding his personal property onto public land. On August 1, one of his students, Li Hebiao, physically attacked a Beijing TV reporter, Zhou Guangfu, who had come to Guo’s house seeking an interview.
Guo, who was not home at the time, defended Li by pointing out that Zhou had entered without invitation, had repeatedly claimed not to be filming, and had selectively edited the video for broadcast. Zhou’s paparazzi-style interview tactics notwithstanding, Li eventually was compelled to apologize and is currently spending a week in jail.
Guo’s mocking attack on BTV was not welcomed by official media. On August 5, CCTV’s Live News broadcast condemned Guo (without mentioning him by name) in a segment titled “Public Individuals Must Assume More Social Responsibility”:
Between the gold and the dross in this industry, he leaves behind only dross. Between the righteous and the outlaws, he has chosen the way of the outlaw. Given the choice between a personal grudge and the responsibility of a public individual, he has habitually fallen on the side of personal grudge…how ugly is the low, vulgar, and pandering behavior of this individual!
A national anti-vulgarity campaign was launched in late July to clean up aspects of the entertainment industry deemed “low, vulgar, and pandering” (庸俗、低俗、媚俗 often abbreviated to 三俗, ‘the three vulgarities’), so Guo’s work, which previously aired without incident on national TV stations and sold in bookstores across the country without controversy, now seems to be on the list of items targeted for clean-up.
The Mirror, the Beijing Youth Daily Group’s evening paper, reported late last week that Guo’s works have been taken off shelves in the city:
This morning, this reporter contacted the Zhongguancun Book Building, the Wangfujing Bookstore, and the Beijing Book Building and confirmed with staff that Guo Degang’s Just Kidding (逗你玩) and Speaking of Beijing (话说北京) had been taken off shelves the day before. Guo Degang’s xiangsheng recordings have also been locked up.
An employee in charge of the Beijing Book Building’s A/V department said that they had received a notice yesterday and had already taken Guo’s recordings and placed them into temporary storage.
This reporter called up the Wangfujing Bookstore’s hotline for individual and group purchasing this morning and learned from the sales clerk that Guo’s books and A/V material had been taken down. None of Old Guo’s books were available at any of these stores.
And starting today, two of Guo’s De Yun She (德云社) comedy clubs have temporarily shut down for retooling. Although The Beijing News reports that employees have denied received a shut-down order, rumors are currently circulating online that tax and culture authorities have suspended the clubs’ performance license.*
But so far it’s just Beijing. In Tianjin, Guo’s hometown, his books are still on shelves and his performances are still airing in TV. In a microblog update, Cao Lin, an opinion writer, suggests one possible progression for the ban:
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