China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

[Adamaja456]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

You know, China isn't the only country in the world who has "better looking" people lip sing a song for a better appearance.

Shame on the people who think that China is the only country in the world who does this type of thing. The only reason why anyone in this thread would see it as important was because they read this article and it had the label "China" on it. I'm not one to embrace China and its ways because I too believe that some of their actions are simply not right, an issue like this is not exclusive to China. Too many of you are focused on making China seem evil than the actual issue at hand.

~Tsugomaru

yes, we all know it happens everywhere else. but the olympics are kind of a big deal at the moment. im not sure if you know that. and lip syncing with over 1 billion viewers during the opening ceremony is kind of a big deal. Yes it happens all the time, but during this specific time, its a bigger deal to people cause its the olympics, not just "China"

[tsugomaru]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

It's done by alot of people, yes. However that does not make it right.

It doesn't make it right. But calling out China as a bad country because of it isn't right either. Which is what a couple people in this thread have been doing.

EDIT: Also, how does the size of the event make something like this more important than even child soldiers? The degree of "bad" is not determined by the number of people who knows about it.

~Tsugomaru

[championanwar]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

China has a really bad reputation, for the way the country is run, (e.g. human rights, pollution, government corruption....) This is just adding more to the critics, and people who didnt want the olympics to even be in china.
edit. Where did I say china was a bad country? My focus is on the olympics.

[Shashakiro]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

wow neither of those things seem that bad to me at all

Complaining about the fact that they didn't want to use the "uglier" girl on the stage is like complaining about an action movie that uses an unattractive stunt double for some of the action scenes to replace the more attractive actor IMO. People judge performers--especially females--by their attractiveness all over the world, and I'm sure the Chinese organizers knew this as well as anyone.

As others have said...happens all the time. Whatever. I'm actually glad that they still kept the girl because her voice was great instead of just immediately rejecting her based on her looks.

As for the fireworks thing...I read the article, which clearly stated that there were in fact fireworks, but it was just impossible to film them at a decent angle. It would be one thing if there weren't any fireworks and it was just completely fake, but it seems to me that they were just trying to let the TV-audience get a similar experience to what the live audience did without logistics getting in the way. Nothing wrong with that at all IMO.

[championanwar]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

I'm not totally disagreeing with you on that, however - If you were that girl who had the crooked teeth, how would you feel?

[wickedawesomeful]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

There's nothing wrong with rejecting someone based on their looks and it's completely within their rights to do so. You can even do that in America. Looks is NOT one of the things protected from discrimination under the Constitution. I don't understand why everyone's worked up.

[championanwar]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

The only reason I think this is unfair, is that the girl who actually did sing, will get no recigition for what she did, and therefore will lose out.

[wickedawesomeful]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

The only reason I think this is unfair, is that the girl who actually did sing, will get no recigition for what she did, and therefore will lose out.

I hate to break it to you, but honestly, that's just too bad. Life is hard. Probably 80% of the music you listen to is written by songwriters, not the artist who performed it. Most of the time, they don't get any credit either. The girl obviously agreed to the arrangement. Nobody forced her to sing.

[tsugomaru]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

championanwar, did I ever accuse you of saying that China was a bad country? In fact, I tried to make sure I didn't accuse you of it because I know you didn't say it. I did however, want to make my statement without calling out names.

~Tsugomaru

[MrRubix]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

Look, even the actual singer herself has been quoted to say that she's okay with it -- she's at least happy that they kept her voice. If you want the source, I'll get it -- too lazy right now. EDIT: Ah hell with it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008...ics2008.china1

I mean, part of me is upset through empathy. If I were that girl, I'd be upset if someone else was chosen because they were better looking than me, and yet they have the advantage of showing their face to the world while utilizing my talents. Even though the real singer is the real talent of that performance, the "cuter" girl is still going to have a huge step-up in recognition and career just because she's "the girl who sang at the Olympics" despite the fact that all she had to do is look pretty. It just hits a raw nerve with me when image becomes so much of a priority.

Not saying it's right or wrong, but it's just interesting because I totally knew Beijing was going to pull things like this.

[Shashakiro]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

I'm not totally disagreeing with you on that, however - If you were that girl who had the crooked teeth, how would you feel?

If I was recognized as having a singing voice so beautiful that I could represent the youth of my country with it, I'd be downright ecstatic, even if I wound up getting lip-synced for.

But this is mostly because I don't care almost at all about my own attractiveness, which I'm sure is partly because I'm male. Obviously I have no idea how the girl actually felt.

[championanwar]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

I hate to break it to you, but honestly, that's just too bad. Life is hard. Probably 80% of the music you listen to is written by songwriters, not the artist who performed it. Most of the time, they don't get any credit either. The girl obviously agreed to the arrangement. Nobody forced her to sing.

Look, even the actual singer herself has been quoted to say that she's okay with it -- she's at least happy that they kept her voice. If you want the source, I'll get it -- too lazy right now.

I mean, part of me is upset through empathy. If I were that girl, I'd be upset if someone else was chosen because they were better looking than me, and yet they have the advantage of showing their face to the world while utilizing my talents. Even though the real singer is the real talent of that performance, the "cuter" girl is still going to have a huge step-up in recognition and career just because she's "the girl who sang at the Olympics" despite the fact that all she had to do is look pretty. It just hits a raw nerve with me when image becomes so much of a priority.

Not saying it's right or wrong, but it's just interesting because I totally knew Beijing was going to pull things like this.

If I was recognized as having a singing voice so beautiful that I could represent the youth of my country with it, I'd be downright ecstatic, even if I wound up lip-syncing for someone.

But this is mostly because I don't care almost at all about my own attractiveness, which I'm sure is partly because I'm male. Obviously I have no idea how the girl actually felt.

From these posts, my opinion has changed.

[Shashakiro]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

also, I do agree with rubix that it's quite unfortunate that the "pretty" girl gets public credit as a singer too...but not much can be done about that. As wicked said...that's how the world works, and it's not about to change.

[Netjet!]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

Request to move this to Critical Thinking :P

[MrRubix]

Re: China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony

In China, being an attractive female is a major step up. I have countless, countless, countless examples to prove this. It's just this sort of reinforcement, in my eyes, of how image-driven China is. I see it all the time in business, in sports, in media, etc, and it's done to a much greater extent in China than almost any other country I've looked into.

My own girlfriend is a very attractive and well-known Chinese female in the modeling business, and it's crazy how easy things come to her sometimes just because of her looks. Not that I blame such people for it, but I just have a gripe with the whole "getting ahead because of looks" concept. I should add that she's indeed talented and brilliant -- but I've seen plenty of people with skills in the same arena who will never get the same kind of recognition or accolades.