We’re now living in a new Asia. One where an East meet West mentality is already fairly prevalent. Western culture has engrained itself in many aspects of Asian life.
It’s very common to hear terms like Eurasian, expat, western educated local and third culture kid. People in Asia that straddle both sides of Eastern and Western culture.
Yet for entertainment in Asia, it all seems to still be very insular and localised. Singapore, India, Hong Kong, Philippines – they all have their own cultural zeitgeist, celebrities, and musicians that are heavily covered by their respective local medias.
But there’s still a detachment there for some.
Language is an obvious barrier. It’s hard for English speakers in Asia to tap into a local entertainment culture if they can’t understand it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7SS19cBs5I
Despite living in Hong Kong for half my life, I can name very few of the local Cantonese personalities who I see on the TV and magazines everyday.
They’re just not relevant to me.
Switch over to pan Asian cable channels which cater to English speaking audiences and you come across shows produced in the US, UK and Australia. Sure that’s fine, but it’s not entertainment that Asia can call its own.
In big markets like the US, UK and Australia, their entertainment helps define their culture. They are creators. Creators of works that reflect the sensibilities of the people who enjoy it.
In this part of the world, pan Asian TV companies are mainly purveyors, broadcasting offerings from other countries. That can make for good entertainment, but it does little for creating a vibrant entertainment culture for this pan Asian English speaking audience to have a vested interest in.
So what’s the middle ground? I’m Asian. So where’s the new globalised Asia that I want to tap into? Why isn’t it represented through the pan Asian television channels?
It brings into question if Asia can even have a shared entertainment culture. A pan Asian zeitgeist. One that we as English speakers throughout Asia could all call our own and find relevant to us.
Some would say that there’s an inherent racism when it comes to the entertainment we choose. Somebody from Malaysia wouldn’t care about an actor from Hong Kong. Somebody from India wouldn’t have interest in a musician from Singapore.
But why? How can it be so easy for us to accept entertainment from the US? We’re not from there. If the quality of the entertainment were to be as good, why should it be harder for us to accept it just because it’s from another Asian country?
It’s not to say that there aren’t any television shows produced for a pan Asian audience. Many documentaries, cooking shows and travel shows that are on TV are produced in Asia.
But we need to think of the bigger picture.
What’s stopping them from emulating the Hollywood and producing original dramas, sitcoms and other kinds of television content with Asian faces?
It’s the reason John Niermann’s talk show Asia Uncut couldn’t have worked from the get go.
There currently isn’t a common pool of celebrities and talent that all Asians should recognize. So why would people care?
AXN seems to have cornered reality TV with Asian versions of The Amazing Race and The Contender with relative success. But this is just typical TV fodder.
More ambitious was their development of an actual series, The Kitchen Musical. Not exactly my cup of tea, but it’s still promising that someone’s thinking out of the box and actually airing an Asian produced series that’s broadcasted around the region.
It’s the kind of thinking we need to that can lead to a shared Asian celebrity culture that is recognised by Asia as a whole. Content that’s for Asia, by Asia.
When it comes to music channels, Asian content is mainly reserved for K-pop and J-pop. Is that the end all and be all of what Asia contributes to the music industry? Hell no.
And I’m not talking about groups like Blush who wear the term pan Asian on its sleeve like a marketing gimmick.
I’m talking about the slew of Asian music talent who are rarely heard of outside of their respective countries because there are few outlets offering exposure to the rest of the region.
It’s high time we stop being just consumers of foreign entertainment culture and create and promote our own.
One that even foreign markets can look to and see that our contributions to entertainment go beyond playing Asian stereotypes.
We have the talent. We have the means. Let’s utilise them.
Now all we need are the trailblazers in television who can think big, bankroll this and put it into action.