jackie chan

Jackie Chan – friend or foe? or dumbass?

Saturday, April 25th, 2009 | posts | 5 Comments

Last weekend, movie star Jackie Chan said something really stupid.

“I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled,” he said. “If we are not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.”

Chan made the dumbass comments during the Boao Forum, an annual economic conference held on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The meeting is a non-governmental, not-for-profit international organization modelled after the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

His comments raised hell across the Chinese diaspora. Chan managed to offend Chinese people in at least 3 places: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even mainland China.

In Hong Kong and Taiwan, newspapers and politicians blasted the kung fu action star calling him “idiotic” and “ignorant.” One HK legislator said Chan was “racist, adding “People around the world are running their own countries. Why can’t Chinese do the same?”

He may also start losing large endorsements contracts. The mayor of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, dropped Chan as an ambassador for the 2009 Summer Deaflympics – World Games for the Deaf (I had no idea what this was, had to google this!) And remember those cardboard cutouts of Jackie flashing the peace sign for The Hong Kong Tourism Board? Perhaps they will be no more… According to the NYTimes, the board said it will “reconsider his role as its most high-profile spokesman.”

On Facebook, nearly 11,000 people have joined a group calling for Chan to be shipped to North Korea, famous “for being the least free country in the world, as he “aspires” to be chained and to live in a place lack of freedom!” …according to the group’s description.

And even in mainland China, The People’s Daily (the Chinese government’s propaganda machine) didn’t think Chan’s comments were cool: “I guess Jackie Chan has never experienced the lack of freedom, and has not been cruelly controlled,” said one editorial.

That seems to be the theory a lot of people are going on. That Chan, having lived most of his life in easy breezy Hong Kong, has no idea what it’s like to be lose one’s freedoms. Over the years, Jackie has definitely played suck up to the Chinese government, attending, participating and endorsing official events and celebrations. It’s been a smart move to increase his stardom – in a country of more than 1 billion people, well that’s 1 billion potential fans. No “star” wants to be boycotted by the Chinese.

So what do y’all think? Was Jackie just speaking his mind? Were they calculated comments, with a political nature? Or was he simply speaking off the cuff? Were his words possibly taken out of context? Is he a spoiled HK movie star who doesn’t know how hard people fight, in China, for basic human rights like freedom of speech and assembly? Or, is he just being a dumbass?

Tags: , ,