Chinese Showbiz 1997: The Public Opinion Crusher

Public intellectuals are still rampant, only more covert now, as evidenced by the suppression of many such books.

The protagonist portrays himself as patriotic, establishing a noble and virtuous persona. He absolutely mustn't cheat on his wife, because if he does, the media will seize on it, leading to a media war and his persona will crumble.

The reason why people are more patriotic now is actually because living standards have improved and the country has become stronger. Otherwise, no matter how you argue, you wouldn't be able to win the argument and no one would believe you.

The protagonist is fine as a troublemaker, but why does he become more and more isolated as the story progresses?! He was talking about making lots of friends, but then he started picking fights with everyone he could, and many of them turned into direct conflicts. He became an enemy in just a few sentences, which is a bit irrational!

Many people are blinded by a single leaf, assuming that everyone on Chinese websites is Chinese. IP addresses can be changed. You treat them as your own people, but they are actually your enemies. Please remember, the world is a global village. Websites are so prevalent now. What kind of pipe dream do you have of the Japanese pirates loving China?

You want to be a public intellectual, but you also want to win awards at the top three European journals. Don't you see that as contradictory? If you simply go to win an award, you've been tamed by three things (narrative, aesthetics, and the power of discourse). You then have no grounds to criticize public intellectuals.

The main problem is that many official media outlets, especially in the south, have always been biased. If they didn't have the support or tacit approval of powerful figures behind them, how could these public intellectuals have gotten so popular?

Once you enter the VIP storyline, it has almost nothing to do with the "Public Intellectual Destroyer" concept; it's no different from a regular rebirth movie.

The director may not be patriotic, but surely the censors are? So the question is, how do those biased movies get released?

The comments section is quite interesting. 🙂 On one hand, there's the demand that patriots must possess saintly virtues. On one hand, there is the patriotism of ordinary people.