{"id":1031,"date":"2020-07-15T09:58:01","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T09:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2020-07-15T09:58:01","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T09:58:01","slug":"celebrity-politics-in-covid-19-china-celebrities-cant-save-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/celebrity-politics-in-covid-19-china-celebrities-cant-save-the-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity Politics in Covid-19 China: \u201cCelebrities Can\u2019t Save the Country\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Share<\/a><\/p>\n

Written by Jian Xu and Elaine Jeffreys<\/span><\/p>\n

The Covid-19 pandemic provides a remarkable context and compelling case for thinking about celebrity politics in China. International celebrities have played an important role in poverty alleviation and disaster-relief efforts historically. Yet celebrity humanitarianism is often criticised as a \u201cself-serving<\/a>\u201d personal branding exercise that promotes \u201cneoliberal capitalism<\/a>\u201d and perpetuates \u201cglobal inequality<\/a>\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Celebrity humanitarianism has attracted major media and public attention in the context of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The most notable instance is perhaps the all-star \u201cOne World: Together at Home<\/a>\u201d virtual concert organised by popstar Lady Gaga in April 2020. The concert raised US$127 million for the World Health Organisation and its coronavirus response efforts. Around the same time, Madonna attracted negative publicity for describing the pandemic as a \u201cgreat equalizer<\/a>\u201d, while sitting in a bathtub filled with rose petals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Celebrity responses to Covid-19 in the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC) have attracted a wave of public support and a tsunami of criticism on social media. Singer Han Hong<\/a>, founder of the Han Hong Love Charity Foundation, became a national heroine for raising over US$19 million in donations from hundreds of celebrities to support healthcare efforts in Wuhan \u2013 the original epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. However, many other celebrities have been accused of lacking patriotism and social responsibility, as we explain below.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Han Hong philanthropy. Image source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

What do online discussions of PRC celebrities in the Covid-19 context reveal about celebrity-government-public relations and celebrity politics in China?<\/span><\/p>\n

Disgruntled netizens immediately started questioning the patriotism of celebrities as national public figures because some celebrities had left or allegedly \u201cdeserted\u201d China at the start of the coronavirus outbreak. In late January 2020, the PRC government called on Chinese citizens to quarantine themselves or self-isolate at home during the lunar New Year holidays. Yet many celebrities had travelled overseas with families or friends around the same time, and were accused of trying to escape the virus. Some celebrities, including actors Lu Yi and Xiang Zuo and singer Yang Chaoyue, posted their vacation photographs while expressing support for people living in Wuhan on their Twitter-like Weibo accounts. Their actions sparked an online outcry<\/a> from fans and other interested audiences quarantined in China.<\/span><\/p>\n

The online criticisms increased in scale when netizens started posting photographs taken at airports of alleged \u201ccelebrity deserters\u201d returning to China<\/a> as the pandemic escalated overseas and the domestic situation improved. Such celebrities, including singers Cai Xukun, Han Geng and Wu Yifan, were negatively contrasted with Han Hong, who had stayed at home and raised money to assist the medical workers who were saving people\u2019s lives at the risk of losing their own. Netizens condemned the celebrities who had left and then returned to China as \u201crenegades\u201d and \u201ctraitors\u201d, whereas Han was upheld as a patriot and good social role model, and called for a ban on the public dissemination of products and performances associated with the so-called traitors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Online outcry subsequently centred on the question of whether celebrities\u2019 donations to the Covid-19 response matched their sky-high salaries. Netizens compiled a list of celebrity donors<\/a>, ranking them according to the extent of their donations. The Weibo accounts of celebrities who were identified as not donating, or not donating enough, were then bombarded with posts accusing them of \u201cdonation stinginess\u201d. Such criticisms replicated public complaints about the perceived limited nature of celebrity donations when compared to their astronomical salaries following the2008 Sichuan Earthquake<\/a>. They also reiterated public criticisms of high celebrity salaries when compared to the salaries of ordinary Chinese workers surrounding the 2018 Fan Bingbing<\/a> tax evasion scandal. Celebrity salaries became a renewed hot topic in the coronavirus context as netizens rebuked super-rich stars for failing to support China and the Chinese people through publicised donations in a time of national crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Online calls for cuts to celebrity salaries, and higher salaries and public esteem for professionals in medicine and the sciences, coalesced around the slogan \u201cCelebrities can\u2019t save the country\u201d. Professor Li Lanjuan<\/a>, a Chinese epidemiologist who is regarded as a Covid-19 heroine, coined this slogan during a press interview. She said, \u201cI hope that after the pandemic, the government will give high salaries to frontline scientists \u2026 Celebrities can\u2019t make our country stronger \u2026 The prosperity of [China] doesn\u2019t depend on celebrities, but rather on the talented people in science, education and medicine\u201d. In other words, celebrities are overvalued; their failure to \u201cstep up\u201d at a time of national crisis shows they do not deserve the income derived from public acclaim.<\/span><\/p>\n

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China\u2019s anti-coronavirus heroine, Li Lanjuan. Image source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The recent expansion of formal controls over the PRC\u2019s celebrity and entertainment industries, and the political importance of online public sentiment, adds weight to what might otherwise be viewed as simply \u201csour grape\u201d criticisms. In October 2014, President Xi Jinping delivered a speech stating that literature and arts should promote \u201ccore socialist values\u201d, be creative and people-orientated, and serve the political agenda of the Chinese Communist Party. Artists and cultural workers are expected to pursue \u201cprofessional excellence and moral integrity<\/a>\u201d (deyi shuangxin<\/em>), an ideal that the Communist Party has promoted since the Mao era. However, Xi\u2019s speech was followed by new regulatory initiatives designed to promote professional ethics and social responsibility in the entertainment industries. The PRC\u2019s first Film Industry Promotion Law<\/a> of 2017, for example, stipulates that actors, directors and other persons in film should uphold virtue and art, comply with laws and regulations, respect social morality, abide by professional ethics, adopt self-discipline measures, and establish a positive social image. Regulations issued in 2014 enjoined film, television and radio employees to disseminate \u201cpositive energy\u201d by providing excellent products and presenting a good public image, and banned the appearance on broadcasting platforms of \u201cmisdeed artists<\/a>\u201d, that is, actors, directors and screenwriters convicted by the public security forces for engaging in drug, prostitution or other offences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Government demands that celebrities display a positive social persona in exchange for a continuing career are reinforced by similar public expectations. The tax evasion scandal associated with Fan Bingbing, once China\u2019s highest-paid movie star, is a case in point. Online outcry over Fan\u2019s alleged use of \u201cyin-yang contracts\u201d to evade tax, and thus failure to meet her citizen obligations, prompted a government investigation and resulted in Fan being ordered to pay US$129 million<\/a> in late and evaded taxes. The National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) then issued a Notice<\/a> recommending major pay cuts for radio and television stars. The strength of public condemnation<\/a> has ensured that efforts by Fan to re-establish her online presence have not been received positively to date. Public anger over the perceived failure of high income-earners to \u201cgive back\u201d to society has been reignited in the Covid-19 context because many people have lost their jobs or had their salaries reduced.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fan Bingbing. Image source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The dual exercise of top-down government regulation and bottom-up online public supervision ensures that China\u2019s celebrities have inherent \u201cstar vulnerability<\/a>\u201d rather than \u201cstar power<\/a>\u201d. Scholars of celebrity politics in western societies have variously refuted the argument that celebrities are a \u201cpowerless elite<\/a>\u201d because they have limited access to real institutional and political power. Instead, they contend that contemporary celebrities have economic and social power that extends to the political realm because they can influence audiences and political agendas through media publicity, especially given the mediatisation of western democratic politics. In contrast, the PRC\u2019s legacy of state controls over mass media entertainment and promotion of socialist role models<\/a> has ensured that even contemporary celebrities are expected to promote government policy agendas. This expectation is being reinforced not only though regulatory frameworks, but also through the informal means provided by digitally equipped netizens \u2013 fans, anti-fans and other interested audiences \u2013 who are keen to supervise celebrity behaviours.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jian Xu<\/a> is a Lecturer in Communication in the School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University. He researches Chinese media and communication with a particular focus on Chinese social media, digital youth cultures and celebrities. He is the author of Media Events in Web 2.0 China: Interventions of Online Activism<\/a> and co-editor of Chinese Social Media: Social, Cultural and Political Implications<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Elaine Jeffreys<\/a> is Professor in International Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney. Recent publications include: Governing HIV in China<\/a>; New Mentalities of Government in China<\/a>; Sex in China<\/a>; and Celebrity Philanthropy<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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