When undergraduate students call you an “imperialist”, you know you must be doing something right.
The below is excerpted from the blog of Charlie Beckett, the director of the public media forum at the London School of Economics:
Sexy Beijing: What’s in a name?
In the latest of our guest blogs by students, Kaberi Chowdhury reflects on ‘Sexy Beijing’, a series of films made by some Americans living in China which seeks to explore the strange and sometimes groovy side of life in the world’s newest superpower. But is this global communication or cultural imperialism?
Sexy Beijing is a show made in China by a group of Americans who speak Mandarin and have been living in Beijing for over a decade. The show currently caters to the local Chinese and the Chinese diaspora and US TV networks have expressed keen interest in airing the show. This clip, ‘Lost in Translation’ was recently featured in a panel discussion on media imperialism at the LSE, as an example of ‘counter flows’ of media today. A heated debate ensued. In agreement with a Chinese student in my department, Leung, I would say that Sexy Beijing is, contrary to what it claims, a blatant display of media imperialism…
The offending video is below:
UPDATE: The Useless Tree defends Su Fei: Su Fei is Not an Imperialist