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Designing our lives
By Ranjita Biswas
What price looks? Well, despite all the talk about ‘looks don’t matter, talent does’, seems just that-talks, in the world we live in today. One has to look smart, polished, marketable, an ad company’s dream if he or she wants to be presented to an audience, never mind if talent is a little less.
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Nothing illustrates it better than the recent scandal over the “switching” of the girls at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. The world was bedazzled by the mesmerising show put up by China to showcase her economic might to the modern world.
Ironically, while showcasing the country’s heritage side by side with modern tech-savvy China, the organisers did not hesitate to play with the emotional trauma of little girls.
The ceremony over, while international spectators were still rubbing their eyes in disbelief at the display on the Friday night, it came to light that the little girl in the red dress, nine –year –old Lin Miaoke, who sang the patriotic song Hymn to the Motherland was lip-syncing for someone else. The real singer was Yang Peiyi, a talented seven year-old who had topped a nation-wide talent hunt. But she couldn’t be put up on the podium for the millions of eyes glued to the floor of the bird’s nest stadium or TV screens, could she? Because she had buck teeth, a common occurrence at this age when children loose their milk teeth. But for the politburo members who attended the rehearsal, Peiyi was no go.
So the role was changed in the last minute with Miaoke, already featuring in many TV ads, replacing her. But no, her voice was not ‘suitable’ being not as sweet as Yang Peiyi’s . So the culture czars found the perfect solution: one for the voice, one for the looks. No prizes for guessing who got the rave reviews and most interviews, who became the darling of the international media at one stroke.
One wonders, what price credibility, and sentiment, if there’s value to it-yet, has in this relentless race of putting up a cosmetic-enhanced face. Yang Peiyi is said to have reacted well to the disappointment. "I am proud to have been chosen to sing at all," she has apparently said. One wonders how much prompting has gone into the statement or how much pressure on her came from different sides to mask her disappointment, or call disillusionment, and at such a young age too. Apparently, another 10 year old who was also excellent was rejected early on because she was not "cute" enough. On more proof that China, once the workers’ champion, has fallen to merchandising US-style hook ,line and sinker.
The ceremony's musical designer, Chen Qigang, who revealed the switch over a radio interview, however, defended the decision, saying “… it is fair to both Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi - after all, we have a perfect voice, a perfect image and a perfect show, in our team's view, all together." No comment!
In another scandal involving the inaugural ceremony, it has been discovered that the pictures of giant firework footprints which marched across Beijing towards the stadium were prerecorded, digitally enhanced and inserted into footage beamed across the world to show off China’s expertise. People were again taken for ride because they believed that the country that gave fireworks and gunpowder to the world was capable of such a scintillating show. Thumbs down for Zhang Yimou, the renowned filmmaker whose earlier films of the individual’s struggle against the system have now given to spectacles. He was the artistic director of the opening ceremony. Chen said that Yimou had demanded a "very cute" child. Earlier, Steven Spielberg, who was originally supposed to conduct the ceremony, excused himself over China’s treatment of the Tibetan dissidents.
But it’s no use pointing fingers at China alone. The age of designer children, designer wife, designer house—in fact, everything designer-templated, is upon us in good measure. And perhaps we are all genuflecting before it.
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