Xinhua has released a new animated music video fusing Beethoven with hip-hop in attempt to promote the “Four Comprehensives,” the blueprint President Xi Jinping laid out in late 2014 to achieve his “Chinese Dream.” The New York Times’ Vanessa Piao and Patrick Boehler report:
China’s Communist Party propagandists turned to rap and Beethoven this week in their quest to reach a target audience often rendered indifferent to dull party slogans by lifelong consumption.
“It is everyone’s dream, to build a moderately prosperous society comprehensively,” goes the song in a cartoon video released by Xinhua, the state news agency. […]
[…] “There will be no panic in our hearts, as long as food is not a concern and our hands are full of money,” the main singer enthuses in a heavy Beijing accent. As a song that will “both enrich your knowledge and help you achieve physical fitness,” as Xinhua puts it, it could well become a favorite of China’s famous, or infamous, dancing grannies.
The tune turns to the swelling strains of the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, as the cartoon figures sing that, “with the Four Comprehensives, the China Dream will not be far away.” […] [Source]
This newest piece of musical state propaganda follows CCTV’s release of an animated anti-corruption rap video featuring Xi Jinping last December, and an earlier psychedelic English-language cartoon on the 13th five-year plan from Xinhua. The recent music videos reflect an updated Party approach to guiding public opinion in the new media landscape.
Many netizens were not particularly roused by the new video. CDT has translated a selection of unimpressed Weibo comments:
Liangchuzhenmingxiasini (@亮出真名吓死你): Fuck me
Woqin’aidexiaoLia (@我亲爱的小Lia): So awkward.
Zhonghuaquanjinhuihuizhang (@中华劝进会会长): In the final scene of the music video, six people have black-framed glasses. Doesn’t that imply the Elder will go on for six more seconds?
Xiankeneng (@限可能): They can only make a cartoon to trick little kids.
Weijialong (@魏嘉珑): How can North Korean music videos be so wretched…
PoshandeAxi (@坡上的阿西): The Four Annihilations: ruin rap, crapify cartoons, excise in-video comments, rape the “Voice of China.”
Mshenyuanshangdehuo (@M深渊上的火): I read these comments before I listened. Now I know not listening was the right choice. [Chinese]
Translation by Anne Henochowicz.
