Results tagged “realitybites”

The New York Times has posted a four-minute video entitled "What's on China's TV Tonight?" It's narrated by David Barboza, an NYT writer based in China, and focuses on Hunan province, which, thanks to mega-hit Super Voice Girls, is the epicenter of China's television boom. The video shows clips of SVG -- including eventual champion Li Yuchun's awful rendition of Bryan Adams' awful "Everything I Do" -- but it also mentions a couple new shows, like the Gong Show-esque Who's the Hero?, where one guy tried to undress women and serve tea to them using a forklift and another bloody-mouthed guy set some kind of record for opening bottles with his teeth, and another show that tries to find China's next young ping pong star.

Following the sensational success of Super Voice Girls (Chaoji Nu Sheng or 超级女声), Hunan Province Satellite Television Station planned to organize another American Idol-style TV program called -- surprise, surprise -- Super Voice Boys (Chaoji Nan Sheng or 超级男声), the TV station announced the news to media cheerfully in early September. However, Xinhua reports (in Chinese) the plan was called off by The Central Propaganda Department and The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. (Whew.) The official line is Super Voice Girls had a lot of "negative" inside stories involved with both the judges and the candidates when it started to become popular. Rumors of blackmail swirled while contestants were labeled concubines and, of course, lesbians (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Shanghaiist staff (all six officials ones plus numerous groupies) are unabashed devotees of the Super Voice Girls, so imagine our pleasure when we found out that Li Yuchun, the androgynous wonder from Sichuan and final winner of the contest that sent tingles and shivers down the spine of people throughout China, became a cover girl. Sort of -- she made the cover of a Special Issue of TIME magazine called "Asia's Heroes".