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The Salon of Love: Making Out on National Television in the People’s Republic of China
Michael Keane, Centre for Media Policy and Practice, QUT
| [ Go to this paper in the timetable ] |
In the People’s Republic of China with a population of over a billion, a holiday at the beach is something most people just dream of, along with the chance to appear on national television, and find a perfect mate with whom to consummate a lifelong relationship and procreate the allocated one child. There now exists the opportunity for all three dreams to be fulfilled. The vehicle is the television dating show – a format appropriated from Taiwan via Japan – in which up to twenty participants compete to win the prize, maybe someone’s hand in marriage, maybe a dinner at a restaurant, or if they’re really luck, a trip to the beach. Or more likely mass embarrassment on national television. Needless to say, the contemporary version of the traditional matchmaker relies less on the psychic skill of the go-between and the trading of parental desires for good connections, and more on the individualised desires of nubile participants. In comparison with the Western dating formats that trade on bedroom fantasies, however, Chinese dating shows are more like counselling clinics for good morals. What is especially interesting about this highly sublimated form of televised desire is that relatives and audience are allowed to barrack and intercede on behalf of their loved ones.
This paper looks at the phenomenon of Chinese-style televisual dating in the context of the international trade in television formats.
