An anguished letter-writer to the South China Morning Post starts the week by needlessly complicating hostile foreign forces’ latest wanton attempt to undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s core leader and genius, Xi Jinping.
The juxtaposition of a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh – and Tigger, too – alongside a photo of similarly tubby, plodding Xi with the lean and sprightly Barack Obama famously overloaded China’s Internet-censorship systems. The letter-writer corrects a previous correspondent who attributed the character of the bear of little brain to Walt Disney, pointing out that it was AA Milne.
Milne’s creation has always had its detractors – such as Dorothy Parker, who ‘fwowed up’. But many of us who grew up with the soppy tales of Pooh, Eeyore and Piglet at least enjoyed the illustrations by EH Shepard. These pictures realistically portrayed Pooh as a teddy bear.
The Disneyfied Pooh is predictably a dumbed-down caricature and travesty of the original. But it is this version – not the (now unfamiliar) EH Shepard one – that looks startlingly similar to China’s visionary General Secretary and Chairman. Only the Disney Pooh works as a subversive parody of the originator of the Chinese Dream of a great rejuvenation of the nation.
This is news nostalgia. Months old but still rattling the blogs.
The Hong Kong Free Press must be doing an in-depth of the Bleedin’ Obvious on it too.
No work required. The clichés are all laid out and ready to go.
Tinctures, not Tiggers!
Pip, pip!
Even more made-for-caricature and mockery is today’s Skinhua pic of Tubby The Pooh in cammo PLA uniform (with hat!) to reinforce China’s peaceful, non domination projection while reviewing the goose steppers.
Think he’ll have to get a complete overhaul on the shoe polish/greasing to the hair and ditch the cap as unsalvageable?
The sad corrective letter would seem to indicate that at least some of the previously dignified and self-confident British people are joining their Canadian cousins in being hyper-sensitive about the Americans’ uncanny ability to embrace, improve upon and popularise items of their countrymen’s original invention, such as ice hockey and hydraulics.
Slightly off topic, but it seems Jake’s column in Tuesday’s scmp print edition has not been pub online. It takes the pish out of Dada Xi – far more than do Tigger and Winnie
@Boredcaster
The Self Censored Morning Post have put Jake’s Xi Dada column online. They’ve just conveniently “forgotten” to put it on the Jake’s View front page, to discourage people from reading it whilst maintaining plausible deniability about censoring it. All the spine of a jellyfish.