CPPCC: Exterminate the Super Girls

Alongside the movement for a “civilized” Internet, the anti-Super Girls campaign seems to be picking up steam as well. China Times published an interview yesterday with Liu Zhongde, one of the most outspoken critics of the Super Girls phenomenon.

Liu Zhongde is a CPPCC delegate and director of the Science, Education, Culture, Health, and Sport Commission of the CPPCC. He talked to China Times about the great silent majority of people who agree with him that the Super Girls phenomenon is a threat China’s art and culture and a source of harm to its young people. In some of the strongest statements against the program to date, Liu argues that “Super Girls is certainly the choice of the market, but we can’t have working people reveling all day in low culture.”

Accompanying the Liu Zhongde interview is an editorial that sums up the problem in this way: “Culture truly needs to hold fast, especially at times when a powerful culture invades. Blindly indulging in the market’s decision will only lead to the soul of a people getting lost.” We’re not quite back at 1983-level “Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign” rhetoric, but the elements are all there: cultural invasion, suspicion of market forces, spiritual health, preservation of national culture, and allegations of popular entertainment spreading corruption among the youth, all facing off against a new concept of socialist morality.

China Times: Many people think that you are “China’s loudest voice criticising Super Girls.” Perhaps there are many people who are angry at the Super Girls program but don’t dare speak out. What are your views on this phenomenon?

Liu Zhongde: This is understandable. There are many reasons; some people just want to keep things simple, others don’t want to poke at this particular hornets’ nest, and still others, out of a desire to protect their own petty or important osition, are afraid of offending anyone, and lack a sense of responsibility toward their own country, ethnicity, and the culture of their ethnicity. Some people have tiring lives – it’s just that simple. They may have their own difficulties, we must understand, so I am not asking them all to be like me and bring up their opinions directly. It’s not that I want to stifle popular art, but rather than I want to elevate the level of popular art. Popular art is an inevitable product of particular laws and social development and has a use that cannot be replaced. At the same time, there are issues with direction. With high art, there is the question of national support.

CT: Super Girls started to get hot last year. When did you first start to be aware of it?

Liu: Super Girls exploded on the scene last year. At first I wasn’t aware, and only later realized. My views on Super Girls are not some blind spouting off; I have a theoretical basis. Cultural products are special commodities. The majority of cultural products possess a commercial side, they are well suited to enter the market and are subject to the influence of the market’s rules that regulate production of artworks.

But cultural products have another side, distinct from material goods. So the market cannot completely decide the success and failure of cultural products. Some organizations have a system where the lowest are cut, which sounds like a good idea, but upon careful consideration it doesn’t stand up to examination.

Cultural products cannot rely entirely on the market’s choices and selections. What the market chooses are not necessarily good things. Super Girls is certainly the choice of the market, but we can’t have working people reveling all day in low culture. We need to let the public continually interact with high art, to elevate their aesthetic sensibility. This is the responsibility of cultural workers.

CT: Many people find watching Super Girls to be very enjoyable. What’s your take?

Liu: The audience watches this program with a distorted mentality, and this presents a dire picture to a nation and a nationality. The audience watches the program under a distorted mentality and in an unhealthy condition. Open the doors and windows to let in fresh air, and flies and mosquitos are bound to come in too. This is nothing to be surprised at; it is completely understandable. The problem lies in how we face these mosquitos and flies. We cannot let our youth be contaminated in the midst of entertainment and laughter.

CT: What lies hidden behind the Super Girls phenomenon?

Liu: Behind the Super Girls entertainment lies poison for the youth. Take a look at the youth who are following the Super Girls now. See what state of mind they are in, what direction they are headed. Take a look at how the audiences are watching this program, and you’ll find that amid unthinking laughter people have been corrupted. The cultural departments have a responsibility to prevent this corruption; they must strengthen their administration of this sort of program.

CT: What specific views and actions do you have concerning Super Girls?

Liu: In the case of government departments that oversee culture and art, they should not permit something like Super Girls to exist. This is because there is a guidance problem with entertainment programs. For other departments, they should not permit this phenomenon to exist. Entertainment programs present a problem of guidance to the future of our nationality and country. Look at the youth all over the country who have been hurt. Those participating in Super Girls have been hurt, those watching the program have been hurt. This is my view.

CT: Will a program like Super Girls be canceled in the future?

Liu: SARFT has a document, so this kind of activity already should not be continuing. Key here is persistence of administrative documents – what they say doesn’t count, and Super Girls keeps on messing around. It’s just like the document prohibiting TV stations from inserting their own ads – TV stations still insert them just like they used to.