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‘Democratic entertainment’ commodity and unpaid labor of reality TV: a preliminary analysis of China's Supergirl

2009; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14649370903166382

1469-8447

Miaoju Jian, Chang‐de Liu,

Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology

Abstract Abstract China's Supergirl, a popular reality talent show, is fairly similar to American Idol in the sense that it created new forms of media commodities as well as new forms of labor. Because of this, the entertainment industry has been able to generate profits in China's growing broadcasting and, up to now underdeveloped, music markets. By analyzing both the production and consumption of Supergirl, this paper describes the economic development of reality TV in China. We also analyze how this talent show produced a flexible and localized commodity. This paper suggests that a different perspective is needed in order to understand the ways in which the organizers steer and manipulate the audience participation. Volunteer and unpaid labor is created by promoting the 'TV Cinderella myth'. Fans and participants are symbolically paid in a form of 'dream‐fulfillment'. People, otherwise accustomed to a Communist regime, are now charmed by a certain amount of apparent democracy that is displayed during the singing contests. This paper coins the above mentioned process as being a specific commodity of 'democratic entertainment' in China. Keywords: reality TVunpaid labordemocratic entertainment Supergirl Notes 1. From the Supergirl Official Website: http://mm.rednet.cn/. 2. The revenue from the sponsor, however, was estimated as being much higher in media reports. Some reported the amount as being as much as 28 million RMB (Bao 2005 Bao, Jian‐guang. 2005. 'Four hundred million fans devoted to the Supergirls'. Business Weekly, 929: 116–118. (in Chinese) [Google Scholar]; Wang X. 2005 Wang, Xing. 2005. 'Observing China'. The Industrial Daily, : B1 (in Chinese) [Google Scholar]). 3. The top two cities in China. 4. Taiwan has also seen a wave of reality talent shows as of 2007. The local reality pop program, One Million Star, broadcasted by CTS in January 2007, has created a phenomenon that can be described as the 'Stardom Fever' (Wang 2007 Wang, Yu‐qing. 2007. 'Competitive, touchable and dream fulfilling, the stardom syndrome has swept away the students and office workers'. China Times, : A3 [Google Scholar]). By the final episode of its first season in July, it had created ratings of about 7.1%. This surpassed the top 2 ratings of prime‐time dramas (Yu 2007 Yu, Li‐zi. 2007. 'The long tail of Runway to Stardom has generated hundreds million value, the miracle in Taiwan broadcasting business'. Economic Daily, : A9 [Google Scholar]). Meanwhile, the album released after the finals became the best selling album in the first half of 2007. Compact disc sales were estimated to be 120,000 units (Lai 2007 Lai, Yi‐ling. 2007. 'Less than a month, 120 thousand sales of the Runway to Stardom album, the no.1 in this first half year'. China Times, : D3 [Google Scholar]). With a similar business model, this program is praised as a creative collaboration of a trans‐media enterprise, a new phenomenon in Taiwan's TV history. Integrating the record company, the program production company and the conglomerate of broadcasting station, newspaper and cable channels, this program also represents a global reality pop trend that could be a 'super business' in a different local context (Jian 2007 Jian, Miao‐ju. 2007. 'One Million Star is a super good business'. China Times, : A15 (in Chinese) [Google Scholar]; Yu 2007 Yu, Li‐zi. 2007. 'The long tail of Runway to Stardom has generated hundreds million value, the miracle in Taiwan broadcasting business'. Economic Daily, : A9 [Google Scholar]). 5. For example, one week after the end of the 2005 final contest, an album released by the Hunan TV station had gained a huge response from its fans. Before the formal on‐sale time, the advanced Internet sales for this album were estimated to be an astounding 650,000 units (Bao 2005 Bao, Jian‐guang. 2005. 'Four hundred million fans devoted to the Supergirls'. Business Weekly, 929: 116–118. (in Chinese) [Google Scholar]). Minna, a fan of Li Yu‐chun said, 'If Li releases her album, even just an EP, I will buy the legal one. She is the first and only one whose legal EP I will buy' (Xing Ming Evening News 2005 2005. 'Typical attitude of non‐typical Supergirl fans'. Xing Ming Evening News, http://eladies.sina.com.cn/nx/2005/0819/1659183413.html, accessed 13 February 2007 (in Chinese) [Google Scholar]). In other words, Supergirl has successfully produced a customized music commodity, which, in return, has helped the sale of the record company's product.