The Expediency of Hybridity: Beijing 2008

Abstract

In this article, we examine the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympiad as an opportunity for the Chinese government to “speak” using a highly expedient discourse of hybridity (Pieterse, 2004). Moreover, we ask how Beijing 2008 may be representative of a larger trend whereby Olympic events serve to chill free speech. We suggest that it is important to see how the apolitical discourse adopted by the International Olympic Committee and its corporate partners can serve to minimize conflicts for the sake of entertainment value. Building on previous work engaging the Chinese television show Super Girl (Peaslee, Berggreen, & Kwak, 2010), in which the authors suggested that the show's disruption of gender conservatism (hybridity) was “expedient,” we apply the same theoretical construct to the 2008 Opening Ceremonies, where overt political control and abnegation of personal and press freedoms are obscured by a celebration of Sino-Olympic diversity. Using discourse and textual analysis, we examine the discursive context within China prior to the Games, the artistic program, and the cultural-linguistic packaging of that program by the American broadcaster NBC. We suggest that engaging these texts in close proximity allows the clearest view of the problematic relationship between states, artists, and corporations that background any Olympiad.

Notes

¹Quite on the contrary, then U.S. president George W. Bush attended the opening ceremonies, making him, according to NBC commentator Bob Costas, the first sitting U.S. head of state to attend an Olympics outside the borders of his home country. He did so, according to the broadcast, in part “to show respect for China's accomplishments.” Coincidentally, perhaps, Bush also wore a red tie.

²Other aspects of this pre-Games positioning include the architectural reconfiguration of Beijing (Marvin, 2008) and a host of domestic and international promotional materials (Haugen, 2008).

³We are limited in our analysis to the broadcast of the Opening Ceremony as packaged and sold by NBC and the United States Olympic Committee in DVD form. This study leaves aside, thus, the CCTV broadcast of the Opening Ceremonies, an text equally worthy of investigation.

⁴See Kennett and de Morages (2008) for a more detailed analysis of the Athens closing ceremonies that pays explicit attention to the role of Western broadcasters.

⁵This translation is provided by one of the authors, a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese.

⁶This criterion is reminiscent of how Prince Charming found Cinderella: the shoe size was never specified, but the princess must be able to fit in the shoe provided. In the Olympics Misses’ recruitment process, ideal weight and measurements were not specified.

⁷The “great leap” comment, as a discursive maneuver, may also be read by American audiences ignorant of Chinese political history as an intertextual reference to the 1969 moon landing and Neil Armstrong's “small step, giant leap” quote. In the latter scenario, a past American supremacy in the space race is invoked even as a new Chinese ascendancy is displayed. Our thanks to our reviewers for pointing out this possibility.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Moses Peaslee

Robert Moses Peaslee (Ph.D., University of Colorado, 2007) is Assistant Professor in the College of Mass Communications at Texas Tech University. His research interests include international communication, media industry studies, media anthropology, and discourse analysis.

Shu-Ling Chen Berggreen

Shu-Ling Chen Berggreen (Ph.D., University of Tennessee, 1989) is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado. Her research areas include children and media, media and identity politics, media, culture and globalization, and media institutions and economics in Asia.