Stuart Wolfendale

It really is unfair to ask a man in Jackie Chan’s position any question, which would look overweight in a fan magazine.  To ask him for his view on the levels and relative values of artistic and political freedom in China as compared to elsewhere is cruel. To stick him on the stage of the Bao Forum and then ask it is pure sadism. That he was up there at all just goes to show how far the business of asking actors what they think has gone from the days of getting their publicity assistant to answer schoolgirls’ questions in the fan magazine for them .

 

Up to the early twentieth century, actors and singers were regarded as morally degenerate and were only tolerated because they were irresistibly entertaining. Their value was in belting out other people’s lines and you would barely ask them for the time of day yet alone a point of view . The American cult of celebrity, born out of the Hollywood studio system, rapidly brought the private and puddle thoughts of performers from the bar after the show to prime time television and the councils of the United Nations.

 

Often, mercifully, these thoughts are as  banal and balmy as most other people’s , just going to show that performers are created to work within other people’s lines or a melody. Unhappily though, celebrity, empty honours and inflated seating arrangements sometimes ratchet up the adrenalin. So it appears to have been with Jackie Chan.

 

He makes his living as an acrobat with a script, punching the daylights out of characters with his feet, usually for laughs. You might expect his views on human liberty to be less lengthy than John Locke’s and vaguer than Voltaire’s. You might not expect him to fire on all pistons over the matter in front of Asia’s cameras but Jackie, it seems, has  passions and a mouth to go with them and he did just that. We were left with the spectacle of celebrity run amok.

 

The Mainland has it right. We Chinese need controlling. There is chaos in Hong Kong and Macau. It went on, compoundingly. The poor lamb cried ‘out of context’ as they all do. The only thing Jackie had been taken out of on that Bao platform was his depth.

 

Corny, self serving promoters- including government propagandists who dole out toy town titles like ‘ambassador’ to people more comfy representing fizzy drinks - should take warning from raising talented mummers so high the poor souls no longer know whether they are in or out of costume. But they won’t and it will all stay Jackie’s fault.

Posted in All, Performance, Television and wireless