Zhao Benshan's Spring Festival MDMA

Jingjiang Evening News
March 17, 2009

The controversy surrounding "Not Short of Cash," (不差钱), Zhao Benshan's skit at the 2009 Spring Festival Gala, shows no signs of abating.

The skit, set at a Scotland-themed restaurant, involved Zhao's efforts to convince a TV host to use his granddaughter in a variety show, and was the Gala debut of Xiao Shenyang, an errenzhuan actor who played an effeminate waiter bribed into helping Zhao keep the cost of the banquet to an absolute minimum. Xiao Shenyang was a hit, but the skit was criticized by Zhao's fans for relegating him to a supporting role.

Perhaps because of Xiao Shenyang's visibility in the weeks following the Gala, the skit soon came under fire for a variety of other offenses:

• Vulgarity: Was Xiao Shenyang's performance indecent? And if so, did the program really belong on the airwaves? In a web chat, SARFT head Liu Binjie informed netizens that while Xiao Shenyang's act may be "popular" (通俗), it did not descend to a "vulgar" (低俗) level.
• Bigotry: Zhao's character refers to Xiao Shenyang's effeminate waiter as a "butt demon" (屁精). Was this just a play on "ass-kisser" (马屁精), or was it an anti-gay slur, as Li Yinhe and others suggested? Should Zhao have known about various regional uses of 屁精? Was Li too wrapped up in her crusade for political correctness to appreciate the value of a good joke?
• Moral bankruptcy: Asked to comment on the skit, dramatist Wei Minglun (魏明伦) called it "Not short of cash, but short of morals."

Today's Jingjiang Evening News reports that Wei elaborated on his evaluation in a lecture at Sichuan University, where he has just accepted a part-time position in the College of Literature and Journalism. "Artistic ecstasy" is his new assessment of the skit:

Zhao quickly responded to Wei criticism of the moral deficiencies in "Not Short of Cash" by calling it "none of his business." He said, "you need to have the spirit of entertainment to deal with entertainment." However, this year's legislative sessions brought a gradual expansion of criticism targeting "Not Short of Cash." NPC member and Huangmei Opera performer Han Zaifen said, "We do not demand that entertainment shoulder too many educational burdens, but there's a bottom line. You can't find amusement in pointlessness, much less turn swindlers' techniques into the elements of entertainment. Scheming should not be flaunted as wisdom." CPPCC member and Nanjing University physics professor Xing Dingyu criticized Zhao's skit for spreading chicanery and leading integrity education astray.

Wei Minglun said that as a vice-president of the China Theater Association, he had the responsibility to express his opinions of skits, so he was not getting involved where he didn't belong. He said that he has always considered Zhao Benshan an outstanding artist and bears him no ill will; his disagreement is with the skit "Not Short of Cash" itself.

Wei took issue with Zhao's "entertainment theory," saying that the major problem with "Not Short of Cash" was its lowbrow tone: "Entertainment ought to contain meaning. You can't simply glorify fraud, ugliness, and evil. So skits cannot be merely for fun. Some people think looking at sexy pictures is fun, some people think taking ecstasy is fun. Are we going to let our own works become 'artistic ecstasy'?"