Illustration: Sun Ying
I spent a lot of time watching TV to improve my English when I first arrived in the US. "Whatever you watch, don't watch Jerry Springer," an American friend warned me when I told her of my new habit. "That reflects the worst of the US."
Of course, such a warning is more than likely to be deliberately disobeyed thanks to the inquisitive nature of an international traveler. I ended up watching a lot of the Jerry Springer Show, a show in which farmers, retired policemen, housewives, office workers and other normal looking people shared their deepest, darkest secrets.
And all this while their supposedly unsuspecting family members or friends were in the studio. It often involved a fight between the parties after the story is told and a handsome onstage security guard had to separate the furious guests.
When I watched the show for the first time my jaw actually dropped. That was 11 years ago, when ordinary people were rarely seen on TV in China, let alone discussing racy personal issues like these.
Things have changed dramatically since then. Almost all reality shows in the US have their copycats in China. Ordinary Chinese people have quickly picked up the Western ability to expose to the world their singing, dancing, and romancing abilities, regardless of talent or lack thereof.
Still, the Jerry Springer type of family confrontation shows seemed hardest to be transplanted to China. This is, after all, a country where the proverb "keep family issues in the family" has been passed down for generations.
Nevertheless, such shows have become a popular trend in China in the past few years. TV stations, big or small, vie to launch their own versions. Topics in the Chinese shows are much milder than their US counterparts, mainly arguments about the ownership of family property, suspicion about extramarital relationships or the disputes between in-laws. It is only occasionally that you'll see a surprising episode such as the one featuring a midget, his wife (of average height), and an affair with his secretary.
Still, I found myself admiring the producers when I watched these shows online and wondering how they persuaded everyone involved to come to the studio.
That is until the news leaked out little by little that some of the guests might be paid actors and actresses rather than family members and friends.
The best-known cases include an episode from Jiangsu Satellite TV that featured Internet celebrity Luo Yufeng (aka Sister Feng) sharing her unrealistic criteria for selecting boyfriends. The show helped Luo become a sensation but she later confessed that the two boyfriends that showed up with her in the show were actors hired by the station.
In another case, a show on the Shijiazhuang TV station featured a story in which the son forced his father to sell the old man's kidney to make money. The episode caught the attention of the authorities because of the cruelty of the senior abuse involved and was found later to be based on a script and played by actors.
When asked by reporters about these incidents, some producers even said these are not news programs, so they don't have to be completely real.
It is not unprecedented for producers to hire actors to play ordinary people. Acclaimed Chinese director Jia Zhangke often uses this tactic to give his movies a realistic tone. Still, he makes it clear to the audience that these are features, not documentaries. The US media will sometimes publish articles written in the news format by paid advertisers. But these articles are marked with the word "advertisement."
To blur the line between fiction and non-fiction without an explicit label does not produce an innovative genre but a lie. A reality show without the guarantee of complete authenticity is such a deception.
This may be a part of the broader problem of cheating and forgery in China today. In many cases, it is an effective short cut to instant profits. But the media should be the last one jumping into these murky waters. Once the audience loses their trust, the media will lose its credibility.
The author is a New York-based journalist. rong_xiaoqing@hotmail.com