VBS
To the few I’ve told repeatedly, I apologize, but here is yet another plug for Vice Magazine’s .tv station, VBS. It’s easy to watch the programming and think that it’s hipster bullshit (which much of it is), but there’s also an unpretentiousness to it, particularly in the “documentaries”.
A clear favorite is the Vice Guide to North Korea. Once you get beyond the initial few episodes, the series is like a 14-part trip to bizarro world. While the Vice crew is somewhat lacking for traditional journalistic integrity, Shane Smith’s guttural responses to the endless flow of oddity actually serves to humanize the situation. This is one of the finer things on VBS.
Less accessibly poignant is the new series, Shanghai Supergirl. When I initially began watching, I came away thinking that it was merely another cheap-shot at Chinese popular culture (or all Asian popular culture, for that matter). Though I refuse to get sanctimonious about it, there’s nothing novel about capitalizing on the alien, yet strangely parallel cultural trends that occur across the pacific. I have to say, though, that this series really does offer a lot more than mockery. Yang Lei, the “Shanghai Supergirl”, is the winner of a nationwide “idol” tv show. Her new-found stardom shines through in a sort of glowing optimistic materialism, but she also shares some interesting insights into the development of modern Chinese society from both a personal and historical perspective (she was a schoolteacher before winning the competition). While she’s not likely to win a Nobel Prize, her articulate perspective gives insight into the direction of China’s youth and how, even filtered through the mind of a superstar, there are more parallels with the West than not.
Equally intriguing about Shanghai Supergirl is how democratic ideas are slipping into Chinese popular culture in a significant way.
For something less thoughtful, but more artfully executed, check out the three part series on los Ranferis. No VBS reporter walks the tightrope of ridicule so well as the tux-clad Trace Crutchfield. Great stuff.
There is plenty of other content worth checking out on VBS, especially if, like me, you don’t have a television.
