“Talk Show Actor Suspended: Controversy Over Inappropriate Metaphor”

[Voice of Hope, May 16, 2023](comprehensive report by our reporter Li Hui) Talk show actor HOUSE (Li Haoshi) under Xiaoguo Culture Company (nearly known as Xiaoguo) in mainland China said during the performance that the scene of two wild dogs chasing squirrels he adopted reminded him of “a good style can win battles” 8 words . After the joke was exposed by a viewer on Weibo, Li Haoshi and his Xiaoguo immediately issued a statement of apology. Li Haoshi was suspended from all acting work indefinitely, but Xiaoguo was still investigated.

On Monday (May 15th), Xiaoguo Culture Company issued an apology statement on Weibo, saying, “On May 13th, talk show actor HOUSE (Li Haoshi) made inappropriate metaphors in the performance, which caused controversy among the audience. Here , we would like to express our sincere apologies to the public. After the performance that day, we immediately severely criticized HOUSE, asked him to reflect, and suspended all his subsequent performing arts work indefinitely.”

Li Haoshi himself also apologized on Weibo, saying that he used a very inappropriate metaphor in the performance, which caused bad feelings and associations to the audience, “I will take responsibility for this, stop all performing arts, reflect deeply, and re-learn “. Currently, HOUSE (Li Haoshi) Weibo account has been banned.

Although Xiaoguo said that the controversial content was not included in the pre-reviewed text, but was temporarily added by the actor himself, the incident is far from over. “Beijing Evening News” reported that “the Beijing Cultural Law Enforcement Corps stated that it was informed of the matter through Internet inspections on the morning of May 15, and has opened a case for investigation against the relevant company.” However, it did not disclose what charges were filed.

Topics related to this incident occupied many Weibo hot searches today, and the CCP’s major official media also conducted critical reports on this incident.

The phrase Li Haoshi used to describe dogs, “good style, able to win battles” comes from Xi Jinping’s speech.

In 2013, after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping, who was elected as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and took over as Chairman of the Military Commission, said in a speech at the plenary meeting of the military delegation at the First Session of the 12th National People’s Congress of the Communist Party of China, “Building an army that obeys the command of the Party A people’s army that can win battles and have a good style of work is the party’s goal of strengthening the army under the new situation.” Since then, “a people’s army with a good style of work that can win battles” has become the slogan of the CCP’s army.

The CCP’s official media, People’s Daily, commented on the incident, pointing out that the use of the word to describe dogs is “offensive to the soldiers of the people,” and warned, “Don’t go off the rails when you talk, and you must have a degree when you play tricks. One-sided pursuit of laughter and no hesitation If you step on the line, you will fall into a misunderstanding.”

Some netizens were dissatisfied with this, and posted a message on Weibo asking: “Which law has been violated?”

Some people also said, “But the problem is that they also know that if they don’t talk about these things, no one will listen.” “There are really more and more enemies now”, “What is the appropriate metaphor? Tell me Listen.”

A netizen who called himself a “retired soldier” wrote: “Personally, I don’t think it’s very inappropriate. Why are we always so sensitive? Dogs in the bark team can be secret agents, and dogs in cats and dogs can be intelligence officers.” You can have a character image of a dog chef, a dog scientist, etc. But the dog can’t have the character of being able to win battles and have a good style?”

Talk show moves overseas

In recent years, talk shows have risen in China, and online programs such as “Tucao Conference” and “Talk Show Conference” have gained popularity. However, due to the increasingly stringent CCP’s speech censorship system, talk shows may violate the red line of censorship when laughing and cursing. Someone once commented that Chinese talk show actors are “dancing in shackles”. Therefore, starting from the beginning of this year, some Chinese talk show actors including Chizi, Huang Xi and Xiaoguo Culture began touring in North America. When they left the CCP’s censorship system, they also began to try to talk about sensitive topics that were banned before.

In February of this year, because the content of Chizi’s performance in the United States touched sensitive topics of the CCP, the CCP authorities banned him before the performance was over, and all his social accounts in China were closed.

Dr. Zhang Tianliang, a historian and professor of Feitian University, said on his self-media channel “Daybreak”: Many talk show actors have good personalities, and they have a kind of social concern. Whether they are treating the disadvantaged groups, whether people are being kidnapped by machines and computers, whether they are satirizing some rich and arrogant people in society, or whether they are customers or uncles, they Many of the jokes are pretty clever. But because of their influence, the more famous you are, the more worried the CCP will be that you will suddenly lose control one day and say something, which means that the influence will become very bad. So for these people, the CCP will definitely stare at them. So I think that if a truly talented person wants to truly display their talents, they can only display them overseas.

Editor in charge: Lin Li