Salacious sensationalism, vanity, stupidity – even promiscuity in the entertainment circle – these are conclusions that I can draw fom the scandal, but what the BIG DEAL about taking explicit photos like that? Unknown tertiary school students do it, teenage pop idols do it, politicians do it. They store intimate or even compromising photos on any random recording device which includes handphone, ipods, laptops, cameras, and the photos are usually leaked into the public when the devices are lost – to their general embarrassment.
I don’t understand the big hoohaa over Edison Chen’s scandal. I’m willing to bet my money that other artistes such as Jolin Tsai and Jay Chou or Vic Zhou and Barbie Hsu have taken a few between themselves. Remember that unfortunate photo of model Lin Chiling with Jerry Yan in bathrobes? The big sex tape scandal over Taiwanese female politician a few years ago? The recent spate of scandals amongst Malaysian politicians? Why is the Hong Kong public out for the blood of their favorite artistes? Isn’t the entertainment industry a smokescreen industry anyway?
Why the exaggerrated sympathy for Gillian Chung and Cecilia Cheung? or Bobo Chan, Rachel Ngan or Christy Chung for thet matter? Those photographs made it explicitly clear (no pun intended) that actresses have been concious and willing participants. Intimate photos were not taken in secret. How can any of them claim to have been lied to or cheated on? Why do the public turn upon apologetic artistes like Gillian Chung while heaping praises on Cecilia Cheung for “speaking out” and pushing the blame to others? The public is behaving in an unspeakably hypocritical way. As for a public, grovelling apology anticipated from Edison Chen – I think it is unlikely to happen. I think he would very much prefer to tide it out in his own way.
The “crowd” is behaving like the excitable rabble in Shakespere’s Julius Casesar. They only have themselves to blame for buying into all that squeaky clean image carefully constructed by talent agencies THEN converting their hard earned cash into idol products. If the whole world is filled with dour people like myself, the entertainment industry would have collasped long ago. I never believed for one minute that these idol groups – Farenheit, SHE, Twins, 5566, Lollipop, Korean/ Japanese Juniors have a single ounce of unique “talent”. Their singing and dancing ability, like their “good looks” are more or less a product of meticulous crafting and lots of investment from talent agencies. When you put that much time and effort into making a pop star, you’ll get one. It’s a self-fufilling prohecy of “If you try hard enough, you’ll get what you want (or need)”. I pity these girls only for the increased catcalls and lewd attention they will inevitably attract after this incident. But perhaps, it is no more than they deserve.
