A stand-up comedian whose stage name is House and whose real name is Lee Haoshi publicly apologized.
It has been less than a year since Lee Haoshi last caused controversy, and the reason for this apology is that he used very inappropriate metaphors in the performance, causing bad feelings and associations to the audience.
At the same time, on May 15, 2023, Xiaoguo Culture, a leader in the domestic talk show industry, suddenly issued a statement, claiming that its artist Li Haoshi used inappropriate metaphors in his performance on May 13, causing controversy among the audience, so Xiaoguo Culture apologized to the public and indefinitely stopped all subsequent acting work of Li Haoshi.
Before the two apology letters, Li Haoshi's so-called inappropriate "metaphor" was exposed by netizens, in which he ridiculed the PLA's goal of strengthening the army, and used two wild dogs to describe the people's children and soldiers, causing dissatisfaction among the audience.
For this matter, the author believes that this is not just an "inappropriate analogy" that can be prevaricated, nor can one or two apologies be solved.
First, the nature is bad
A key question is whether Li Haoshi, an adult with a higher education, knows that the eight words "good work style and ability to win battles" are the key contents of the PLA's goal of strengthening the army in the new situation.
Obviously, he must know, and the audience in the audience also knows, if he does not know, he will not use these eight words to ridicule, in other words, he is intentional.
The word "deliberate" is enough to make Li Haoshi's so-called "inappropriate metaphor" and so-called apology pale.
There is also a key question, as Xiaoguo Culture Media, the management of stand-up comedian Li Haoshi, do they know that there is a serious problem with Li Haoshi's talk show lines?
Obviously, Xiaoguo Culture also knows, because even the audience knows, as a management party will not be unaware, so why did the performance on May 13 not issue an apology letter and make a punishment decision for Li Haoshi until May 15 after it was exposed by netizens.
Then there is only one possibility, Xiaoguo Culture did not think that there was a problem with Li Haoshi's lines at the beginning, or they wanted to pretend that they did not know to fool around.
It is worth noting that the audience is strictly prohibited from recording videos during the performance of Xiaoguo cultural talk show, in addition to protecting copyright and keeping the program fresh, is there also an idea to cover up.
On the whole, Li Haoshi is knowingly guilty, and Xiaoguo culture is connivance and cover-up, then the nature of this matter is quite bad, in the words of netizens, Li Haoshi and Xiaoguo culture are a big death this time.
Therefore, it is also reasonable for the Beijing Municipal Cultural Law Enforcement Corps to file an investigation into Xiaoguo Culture.
Second, the pale scrubbing of the floor
After the Li Haoshi East Window incident, some netizens appeared on the Internet who defended him and even washed the floor, among which there are two representative views.
One view is that there is no size on stage, and rules are set offstage. The implication is that the talk show of Xiaoguo culture is like the crosstalk of Deyun Society, which can be said casually on stage, that it is all performances that are not true, and the relevant departments cannot be held accountable.
This view is obviously biased by Deyun Society, the so-called "no size offstage, offstage rules" generally refers to the actor's role play during the performance, aimed at the two actors on the stage, not at the third person.
For example, Guo Degang ridiculed Yu Qian, as long as Yu Qian is not anxious, the content is not excessive, and generally no one cares. But if Guo Degang and Yu Qian use excessive content to ridicule the third person, it will not be suitable for this so-called "no size on stage, rules off stage".
In the same way, if Li Haoshi ridicules himself, even if he scolds himself with the most vicious words, the audience will think that this person has no level at most. But now Li Haoshi maliciously ridiculed the most lovely people's soldiers, which is a mistake that cannot be tolerated.
There is also a view that "this (too broadly) is why talk shows are difficult to develop in China."
This view is very confusing, because in many foreign talk shows, the audience sees that they can ridicule special people such as the president, and immediately feel that people are loosely controlled and domestic control is too strict.
In fact, due to different national conditions, each country, region and nation has different taboos, such as in the United States, who dares to ridicule black people with so many stand-up comedians? Who dares to ridicule the Jews? Who dares to ridicule LGBT? Aren't the lessons of Kanye, Rowling and others profound enough?
Therefore, this view of complaining that domestic talk shows are "too broad" is actually an obviously extreme, one-sided and even deliberately confused concept of egoistic thinking.
Third, accidents are frequent
This is not the first time that Li Haoshi has apologized, nor is this the first time that Xiaoguo culture has apologized, in fact, whether it is Xiaoguo culture or the entire talk show industry, it can be said that there have been frequent performance accidents in the process of development in recent years.
Xiaoguo Culture first appeared on the controversial hot search because of the topic of "gender opposition" provoked by its actor Yang Li, and the one-sided views she hyped were used on the Internet for a long time to hype gender antagonism, bringing a very bad trend.
In addition to gender antagonism, Xiaoguo Culture also invited stars such as Fan Zhiyi to participate in the "Spit Conference", and used the script written by Xiaoguo Culture itself to hype the confrontation between basketball and football through the performances of Fan Zhiyi and others, which brought a very bad impact to the sports world.
Li Haoshi, a stand-up comedian, also publicly disclosed the stock code in the show in disregard of relevant regulations, which had a certain impact on the financial order, and Xinhua News Agency, CCTV and the Shanghai Stock Exchange have criticized him, which is also the first time Li Haoshi has caused controversy.
I thought that Li Haoshi could take it as a warning, but I didn't expect that he would not look back on the road to death but become more serious, which shows that he has not learned the lesson of the last time, and the so-called management of Xiaoguo culture is even more false.
In addition to Xiaoguo culture, there are also many performance accidents caused by other stand-up comedians, some openly provoking women's appearance on stage, some making actors and audiences fight and hype traffic according to the script, and of course, there are many meat jokes that appear from time to time.
To paraphrase a blogger's satirical talk show line, you (part of the talk show) are pulling down the comedy market.
If the talk show is just playing on the content of the performance, it seems that the problem is not big, but with the popularity of the talk show, the public's tolerance for talk shows is getting higher and higher, and their bottom line is getting lower and lower.
4. Inclusion in the Ququ Association
It is worth noting that in December 2022, Xiaoguo Culture led 13 domestic talk show companies to jointly release the "Proposal for Promoting the Standardized Development of the Talk Show Market", which is considered to be the beginning of the formalization of the talk show industry.
However, in just a few months, there has been a serious performance accident in Xiaoguo Culture, which has to make people wonder whether this self-regulatory initiative of the talk show industry is really useful or a good product.
The author believes that although the name of the talk show is an imported product, its performance form and content have a fairly high degree of similarity with domestic stand-up comedy, and the actors on both sides can even jump seamlessly.
For example, the origins of the predecessor of Xiaoguo culture can be traced back to Wang Zijian, and Wang Zijian is a comedian, his master is Ma Sanli, the master is Chang Baohua, and the master is Hou Yaohua.
So, at a time when there are many serious performance accidents in the talk show industry, can we consider bringing the domestic talk show industry under the management of the China Ququ Association?
Qu art includes language art and rap art, strictly speaking, talk shows that are highly similar to stand-up comedy can be directly integrated into the big family of the music association.
The Ququ Association can not only play a gatekeeping role for the development of stand-up comedy, but also play a training and supervision role for stand-up comedians, and at the same time provide a safety cushion for the healthy development of stand-up comedy enterprises and actors.
Some people may question that the Ququ Association will not "control the talk show to death"?
In fact, you don't have to worry. Take Jia Xuming and Jin Fei Chen Xi as an example, the three of them are both phase stars who came out of the crosstalk small theater, and they had more or less unobstructed stages in the stage of reckless development, and they later entered the group within the Qu Association and the system, not only were they not killed, but their creative performance level was thriving.
At the intangible cultural heritage crosstalk conference, the two crosstalk of Jin Fei Chen Xi and Jia Xuming Zheng Jian were praised as gods by many netizens, which can be called the best works born in the crosstalk industry in the past two years, and Jin Fei won the Peony Award of the China Music Association.
It can be seen that for actors with good qualifications and a positive attitude, under the management of the Ququ Association, not only will they not be killed, but they will be like a tiger, and they can get more and bigger stages and better display opportunities.
What are you afraid of for those actors who refuse to join the Qu Association or even use the Qu Association as their imaginary enemy? Are you afraid that the Qu Association will not let you talk about meat? Or are you afraid that the Qu Association will not let you maliciously ridicule the people's soldiers? If you don't have a ghost in your heart, what are you worried about?
Since the talk show industry can't manage itself, you might as well let others manage it. For the emerging industry that has grown wildly, such as talk shows, there are only two roads ahead, either falling in disorderly competition or growing in orderly development.
How to go on the road, pick it yourself.