Perched precariously between "awww..." and LOOOOOOOOOOL

We had to do it," he said. "We'd been through several inspections. They're all very strict. When we rehearsed at the spot, there were several spectators from various divisions, especially leaders from the Politburo, who gave the opinion it must change."

"The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression. ... Lin Miaoke is excellent in those aspects but she cain't sing fo' shit."

Another said, "If foreigners found out, they'd think we can't even find a girl who is good at both."

the singing child is not good at being cute

maybe this is on the olympics threads, but i read that the opening ceremonies were video-shopped?? like, there weren't actually that many fireworks, or something.

maybe i'm just playing to stereotypes here but i think the chinese can handle a million fireworks -- but whatever, that's some gonzo conspiracy paranoia there

i read that the opening ceremonies were video-shopped??

The 'footprints' section was, yes.

i think it's awesome that there's some little girl somewhere in china who will grow up knowing she is government certified fugly.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2534499/Beijing-Olympic-2008-opening-ceremony-giant-firework-footprints-faked.html

hmmmmmmm

btw the girl in that picture is basically the embodiment of ^_^

I'm just imagining the horrible adolescence the singing girl is going to have in light of this story (to build on ck's "government-certified fugly" point).

maybe this is on the olympics threads, but i read that the opening ceremonies were video-shopped?? like, there weren't actually that many fireworks, or something.

-- goole, Tuesday, August 12, 2008 7:30 PM (51 minutes ago)

http://i36.tinypic.com/n21zbs.jpg

If there's any justice in the world, the "ugly" girl (who is totally normal-looking, not ugly at all) will grow up to be crazy beautiful, and their creepy pin-up girl will grow up to be a Chinese version of Kimmie from Full House.

no need to wish ill fortune upon the innocent lip-syncher

Plus I'm sure the Politburo already looks like the Chinese version of Kimmie from Full House.

when is Yao's little buddy going to be outed as a coward who stole the actual 9 year old hero's identity when he watched him die that day in chengdu??

Yao's little buddy

Bad images.

If there's any justice in the world, the "ugly" girl (who is totally normal-looking, not ugly at all) will grow up to be crazy beautiful,

that would be nice but i think no matter what she looks like the odds are she'll always see herself as government-certified fugly. which is a shame.

And unfortunately also very funny.

bad shit can happen to young kids and they still recover and arent continuously shamed by the events of their past

LOL JK im still bitching about the time i was mistaken for a girl

and that only happened in front of 40 or 50 people

Politburo members?

You are a certified GURL

Sorry, government-certified GURL

But can you sing, max?

Of course he can't. Crooked teeth.

You mean of course he CAN; it has been proven by the Politburo that people who can sing are bonobo-butt ugly.

wait that came out wrong, I don't mean to say Max looks like a monkey's ass

What, then, that he sings like one?

ding ding ding

lolz I dunno, I got swept up in riffing

Pretty devastating when combined with the well-documented abandonment of female children under the "one-child" policy.

yeah, bet fugly girl's parents wish they'd had a boy now

Yeah felicity, I agree that this really, really sucks... and yet the mean part of me is still laughing at the wtfness of the government taking time out to rate the cuteness of the girl singing at the opening ceremonies.

agree that this really, really sucks... and yet the mean part of me is still laughing at the wtfness of the government taking time out to rate the cuteness of the girl singing at the opening ceremonies.

troof.

The mind-blowing moment of the story was the Chinese blogger who was outraged, not about the effect on the self-esteem of young girls, but that "If foreigners found out, they'd think we can't even find a girl who is good at both."

Like it's some kind of biathalon?

Yeah, I boggled at that, too.

pimping out child performers is the mark of a superpower, i guess

they're looking to close the HANNAH MONTANA GAP perhaps

Alright, nobody's perfect. But let's keep this just between the five billion of us, ok?

I mean ONE billion.

actually I found the Chinese blogger reaction kind of OTM. not that I, as a foreigner, actually think that, but I mean... in a country so many people, they had to orchestrate this?

Its interesting, on the other hand, how much western media focus is on every little mistake and video-fakery and "coverup" and etc etc the Chinese have done in this Olympics to look good or save face or whatever. The focus on this is relentless, which I find a little sad - I am quite sure every other host nation has had its share of lip synchers and photoshopping and whatever else to look better than they were but I dont recall anyone bitching them out for it. I mean, not that I'm an apologist but sometimes it's no wonder the Chinese populace gets the shits at the West for this kind of thing.

Nikki Webster to thread - Sydney 2000 Olympics cutie-pie who now partakes in sizzling photoshoots for the likes of Ralph, Zoo etc

And I think she even sang herself

She was and is an irritating git.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/09/29/nikkiwebster_wideweb__470x311,0.jpg

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, Trayce."

lol at the hannah montana gap

^^^

I'm just imagining the dress rehearsal where that poor little girl is singing and adults are cringing in the audience shrieking "NOOOO! TOO UGLY! AIIIIIIIIE!"

i'm sure there is a special tonality reserved for quiet disapproval

Let's look on the bright side . . . At least it puts the lie to "All Look Same."

wow nabisco, http://www.mylovehewitt.com/mylovenews/mlhnewsimages/davis.jpg

she turned out pretty cute too. she's no maureen flannigan, but still...

If it makes you feel any better, this was essentially what happened across the run of the television series Charles in Charge.

In the first split-second when I first read this, I thought it said something like "this was essentially what happened across the sea, in the Chinese version of Charles in Charge."

the Chosen Girl has the unusually adult-shaped face

That's also what makes me think the Chosen Girl might be kinda freaky-looking when she grows up. Maybe not, though.

YEAH THAT BITCH DESERVES TO SUFFER FOR BEING SUCH A CUTE KID

wtf is with you ppl?

i mean, the chances are in her favor that she will remain attractive for the entirety of her life and all other suggestions otherwise are the product of ISSUES with ATTRACTIVE GIRLS

the advance of liberty requires this girl TO GROW UP UGLY

don't get me wrong, i feel bad for that the girl who sang was hidden away somewhere to prevent the world at large from realizing that hey, some chinese people aren't attractive! but it's not like the cute kid is at fault, ya know!

i mean, both kids were exploited / leveraged for their innate traits -- once the "cute" girl gains some self-awareness she'll have to come to terms in her own way with having been a human prop in a state-sponsored spectacle, so let's not condemn her to uglitude as well

"Tiny singer wins heart of nation"

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/08/wednesday_morning_olympics.php

yeah, she's already stuck w. living out the plot of singin' in the rain.

ts: lina lamont vs. kathy seldon

Yes, Elmo, because "it'd be pleasantly ironic if she grew up funny-looking" is the same as "SUFFER BITCH SUFFER", ffs.

I'm not saying anything bad about the cute kid! (They're freaking 7, they have nothing to do with anything.) Just saying that kids who are deemed "cute" in the TV-presentable way are often the ones with adult-cute faces, which is actually unusual and non-standard on little kids.

(I think Charlie might be referring to how that's often the reason TV-"cute" kids grow up to look odd? Because their looking adult-cute in childhood was actually an oddity to begin with.)

Nabisco...wait for it...OTM!

uh, yeah -- not what you said

If there's any justice in the world, the "ugly" girl ... will grow up to be crazy beautiful, and their creepy pin-up girl will grow up to be a Chinese version of Kimmie from Full House.

I CALL UPON THE SPIRIT OF JUSTICE TO MAKE PRETTY GIRLS INTO UGLY ONES AND VICE VERSA

Um, Kimmie from "Full House" isn't ugly. She's just kinda funny/quirky-looking.

are we all dancing around the word 'jewish' ?

You're all emphasizing the LOL-ridiculousness of this whole thing by saying the hidden girl isn't cute, right?

Like in Vacation where Beverly D'Angelo busts Chevy Chase for ogling Christie Brinkley and he says, "Honey, I could never be attracted to someone like that. She's ugly!"

the chinese girl was jewish?

FWIW the olsen twins were some ugly-ass babies and they still look "quirky"

I am using "cute" and "ugly" to designate which one was picked by the committee to be on stage and which one was behind the scenes singing. I don't think the "ugly" girl is particularly ugly, nor do I think the "cute" girl is particularly cute.

http://i35.tinypic.com/33osjys.jpg

^hideous gibler

Yeah, I mean, the "cute" girl looks more like a miniature adult, which I personally find a little creepy -- not so much that she looks the way, but the idea that people want that. Whereas the "ugly" girl looks like a normal, happy kid, albeit with slightly crooked teeth but she's probably still losing her baby teeth anyway, right?

They were ugly babies, but outside of their skankification, I thought the Olsen twins became quite pretty as teenagers. YMMV.

xpost Exactly! The point wasn't that adult Kimmie is ugly, the point is that she's funny-looking in the way that child actors often grow up to be. If you seek out kids with outsize, expressive features, they often grow up to look a little clowny. See also: Culkin, Macaulay; that dude who sees dead people.

I'm dying to know how bad "cute" girl's singing voice really is. If it's really awful it would mitigate a lot of the damage here.

she sounds like harvey firestein.

http://i35.tinypic.com/33osjys.jpg

Starbuck?

elmo, singled out and victimized for his handsomeness on wdyll threads, courageously stands up to the unjust persecutors of the attractive

O BEAUTY YOU ARE THE MOST VICIOUS CROSS TO BEAR

but yeah, singer has "talent" and cute girl is "just cute", so cute girl may have her own set of issues to work out in the future. nobody's a winner here.

it probably won't be a big deal to either one of them

haha Ed :P

felicity, the thing is, the singer kid had the gig first. The looker kid was put in for looker reasons, there wasn't any consideration if she could sing well enough.

But why bother having her lip sync? They couldn't just digitally alter the singer kid's face or the looker kid's voice for the televised overseas broadcasts?

This really gives me a low opinion of China's technological capabilities.

um, because it's easy and they both knew the song?

lol u got trolled

I am so glad these young ladies got to showcase their respective talents to the world! You go, girl(s)!

Ask how happy these people are before you comment any further:

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/6614/r6482141143095071nu1.jpg

..keeping in mind that one half of the Unreal Milli Vanilli is dead now

He died still struggling ... to find his voice

From the writers of Ray, the producers of Walk the Line, and Tyler Perry ... this summer, Rick Fox IS Rob Pilatus in ... Blame It on the Rain

omg

</surmounter>

The mind-blowing moment of the story was the Chinese blogger who was outraged, not about the effect on the self-esteem of young girls, but that "If foreigners found out, they'd think we can't even find a girl who is good at both."

Like it's some kind of biathalon?

-- felicity, Tuesday, August 12, 2008 5:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

FACE. IS. EVERYTHING.

http://chris-lambert.co.uk/Images/Photos/TheA-Team_Face01_Web.jpg

http://i33.tinypic.com/otp5ow.jpg

They look so embarrassed.

tell me they aren't conjoined

are they twins or do they just both look alike?