Sat, May 12, 2007 page8

• Johnny Neihu's NewsWatch: S.H.E looks like The Man to me

  That's the thing about a girl band that moonlights as an advertising firm: When you hold it artistically accountable, the record company bans you from promotional events. After that, there's no one left to turn to but the sullen convenience store clerk who ignores company policy on indigestible music.

  • By Johnny Neihu
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  There I was in a 7-Eleven a week or two ago, buying some shrimp chips and minding my own business. I try to make convenience store ventures brief, as a few minutes of exposure to the pop music they play gradually saps my will to live. But the woman in front of me had a year's worth of unpaid utilities. So I waited.

  And thus came about my first full-length encounter with the girl band S.H.E. The song I was subjected to, Chinese Language, has stirred up a bit of controversy of late. It's been accused of brown-nosing Chinese consumers with lyrics like:

  How smart are the Chinese people

  How beautiful is the Chinese language

  and

  As kids we practiced English pronunciation and grammar

  Now it's their turn to curl their tongues and learn Chinese language.

  ("Curl their tongues"? To emit that enchanting Beijing rrrrhhh noise, presumably.)

  As the "melody" hammered my skull, I managed to drag myself out the door with my last ounce of strength. I awoke some hours later being licked by a stray dog. My chips were gone.

  Reporting by the Liberty Times on S.H.E's little ditty was scathing enough to get it barred from S.H.E promotional events, a drastic step for a music industry whose survival depends on whoring artists out for every last scrap of media coverage and endorsing anything from plasma TVs to hemorrhoid cream.

  Indeed, at the peak of their marketability, S.H.E had their good girl schtick plastered across everything except ordnance catalogs. According to Wikipedia, S.H.E has endorsed or been spokespeople for 74 products and events. Seventy-four. They have acted in seven TV dramas and hosted two TV shows. Even model Lin Chi-ling (林志玲), whose job is to be a sellout, would be hard-pressed to compromise her integrity at such a speed.

  I'm not so concerned about the political implications. The Chicoms will think S.H.E is just more double agent propaganda. I think everyone is losing sight of the bigger issue.

  And that is that, despite the gloss and marketing prowess, S.H.E sucks. I mean, really, really, really sucks. Really. And that means something when you're in the same pot as the likes of Rainie Yang (楊丞琳) and F4.

  In an industry that bases value almost entirely on looks, S.H.E is sub-par. Two of them, Selina and Hebe, are moderately attractive in that "I'm a pasty white, ditzy, anorexic xiaojie who has never worked a day in my life" kind of way, while the purpose of the third, Ella, is to be a goofy backdrop endearing the other two to confused straight boys while giving a dykey frisson to girls who haven't quite surrendered to their heterosexual doom.

  Then there's the music. Oh dear. Although many artists cover songs these days, S.H.E concentrates on covering washed-up bands from a couple of years ago, notably the Backstreet Boys, Destiny's Child and Britney Spears. I'm still waiting breathlessly for them to do the Spice Girls' Wannabe.

  But there is another misconception. Some criticize S.H.E for selling their souls for red yuan. Ah, how naive to believe that they ever had souls to sell.

  When the latest controversy broke, S.H.E seemed genuinely surprised that they had been personally attacked. The music was a corporate decision by the record company, they said, and not their responsibility. While most entertainers, no matter how vapid, would have at least been ashamed to admit that they had no artistic integrity and were merely mindless tools of their employer, S.H.E seems not to understand that the concept of artistic integrity exists at all.

  But S.H.E isn't the only band to bow to corporate demands and kiss China's pinky ring. Jay Chou's (周杰倫) newer song Listen to Your Mother seems tailor-made for neo-Confucian obedience. This little jingle features the refrain:

  Listen to your mother

  Don't ever hurt her

  Try to grow up quickly

  So that you can protect her.

  I worry, friends, I worry. But not just about the China hugging. No, I'm worried about a generation of youth raised on entertainers who tell them to listen to their parents. I'm concerned about a generation that doesn't know how to rock out and break the law. I fear for youths who don't know how to do something as fundamental as stick it to The Man.

  What is a rebellious teen supposed to do today with bands like these? Jay is the closest we have to a bad ass, and he's telling us to obey our elders. All the other pretenders blub on TV after getting caught out on drug tests.

  Is there no rebellious spirit? Are there no singers with the artistic integrity to tell their labels to shove it? Are they all too nice, too filial and too ke'ai (可愛) to fight The Man?

  Isn't there a critical mass of ke'ai at which all the artists and music are so drenched with manufactured cutsieness that the whole system implodes?

  There are some warning signs. For example, Rainie's ke'ai-ness has peaked. If she becomes any more ke'ai it will destroy her. Witness her latest TV ad in which she hawks some sort of Swiss hot chocolate. As she poses with the package at the end of the clip, she becomes so overcome by her own ke'ai-ness that she squints her eyes and starts puffing her cheeks in and out like a deranged squirrel on crack.

  "Hao ke'ai," trilled the xiaojie next to me as I dropped my beverage and recoiled from the screen in horror.

  How can Rainie possibly top that? Perhaps for her next endorsement, she will become so ke'ai that she will spontaneously combust. I will then immediately buy whatever product she was peddling.

  It would be one thing if China were bombarding us with music about how fantastic China is and how Taiwanese are bumpkins who should do as they're told. But it's depressing for us to willingly export such drivel. How are Taiwanese supposed to resist the Chicoms if they don't even know how to fight The Man right here?

  But perhaps all is not lost. That same 7-Eleven is staffed at night by a young man who turns up the Judas Priest and AC/DC during the night shift. I didn't know 7-Eleven muzak receivers could even pick up that channel, but he found it. And he plays it loud. It's against company policy, but he doesn't care.

  He'll be damned before he's their corporate tool. Instead of being cheerful, he looks indignant that he has to work this crummy job. He scans my items resentfully. Occasionally he mutters a "Thank you," but he never stoops to yelling "Huanying guanglin!!!" (歡迎光臨, "welcome") at customers.

  I smile thinking about how one day he will rip off his name tag, throw it at his manager and tell him precisely where he can stick his lousy job.

  Maybe some ass-kicking foreign bands could help. Maybe they could warn everyone about The Man.

  But the last major foreign imports that I recall were Olivia ("Stay strong, you can do it") Newton-John and Kenny ("...") G.

  Abandon all hope.

  Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.
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