Car Crash: 'The Bull is Coming' - Xi's Praise for Jiang Faces Nationwide Criticism Carnival

‘Niu Lai’has taken the world by storm.

[People News] On August 17, the Chinese Communist Party held a grand meeting to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jiang Zemin's birth, with Xi Jinping personally attending and delivering a speech. Xi Jinping praised Jiang Zemin extensively and prominently, highlighting his role in maintaining stability in Shanghai in 1989, the later 'Three Represents', and his status as the 'Chief Architect of Reform and Opening Up', thereby assigning him a very high historical significance.

However, concurrently, another sensational news story was trending everywhere: a grassroots animated film titled 'The Bull is Coming', which has been described as 'extremely crude', unexpectedly saw a surge in box office after receiving the Dragon Seal, leading to a collective outburst of criticism. This anti-culture, anti-mainstream, anti-refinement, and anti-film carnival surged like a chaotic torrent, directly colliding with the official solemn memorial ceremony.

This is not merely a coincidence. It represents a direct confrontation between power calculations and grassroots deconstruction.

The Political Ledger Behind Xi Jinping's Praise for Jiang

Xi Jinping's high-profile commemoration of Jiang Zemin at this moment is not simply an act of nostalgia; the political calculations are very real. The 21st National Congress of the Communist Party is approaching, and the sharp blades of power calculations, the overt and covert struggles for factional balance, and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of elder politics are all intertwined, focusing on the grand ambition of securing a fourth term for the current party leader, Xi Jinping. His praise for Jiang Zemin, while ostensibly expressing gratitude for Jiang's support, is fundamentally a means to promote himself, strengthen his political stronghold, and safeguard his power.

This type of political collusion is not a new phenomenon. The commemorative events organized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) serve not only to evoke emotions related to deceased political figures and their families, as well as the remaining factions, but also act as a public rehearsal for the redistribution and reshuffling of power. Xi Jinping has redefined the 'stability' of 1989 as a 'major test', effectively reaffirming in the official narrative that suppression is entirely justified and that maintaining stability is a requirement of the Party. This reinforcement of the narrative sends a strong signal to political adversaries regarding their political alignment; any force that attempts to challenge the existing order will be ruthlessly eliminated.

However, what Xi Jinping did not foresee is that the tighter the official narrative becomes, the more the public's space for interpretation will expand in response. When the political mainstream defined by the CCP is pushed to its limits and occupies a dominant position, everything outside of this mainstream becomes a rare commodity, automatically gaining public interest and support.

'Bull Coming': The Sharpest Absurdity, The Most Lethal Roughness

If we assess 'Bull Coming' solely based on its quality, calling it garbage might be an exaggeration, while labeling it as substandard could be an overestimation. Its style is juvenile, its narrative absurd, its character designs grotesque, and its dialogue crude and simplistic, making it almost inherently at odds with all aesthetic standards of 'refinement', 'correctness', and 'positive energy'.

It refuses to create heroes, fails to provide inspirational messages, and does not shout slogans, even going so far as to abandon basic cinematic language and intentionally disrupt the logic of its shots. By conventional standards, such an extremely poorly made film should have been easily rejected during the initial stages of censorship; even if it were fortunate enough to be released, it would likely sink quickly during the early phase of its theatrical run.

However, it pulled off a historic and milestone joke on everyone in the animation industry, unexpectedly receiving the Dragon Mark and becoming a blockbuster.

As is widely known, the censorship system of the Chinese Communist Party scrutinizes every frame, every second, and the political content of visuals, sound, and dialogue in films, but it does not evaluate the artistic quality or priority of the work. This reveals a significant flaw in the censorship system: while it can pre-screen the political attributes of a work, it cannot assess the audience's aesthetic reactions afterwards.

Initially, the authorities may have viewed it as a harmless entertainment animation. Despite the censors suggesting that the author and her daughter avoid going online to prevent poor box office results, the author's determination and the theater's strict adherence to regulations led to a dramatic turnaround. Countless viewers discovered metaphors, irony, and collective catharsis within the film. Each failure of a grotesque character, every nonsensical line, and every truly subpar scene successfully stimulated and awakened the aesthetic sensibilities of numerous viewers. 'Niu Lai' managed to achieve a box office of tens of millions with almost no investment from the film industry, embracing absurdity, ugliness, nonsensical elements, and anti-aestheticism.

The crux of the matter is that audience reactions to films are increasingly disconnected from the works themselves and are instead closely tied to whether emotional release has found a proper outlet. The public's bizarre enthusiasm for 'Niu Lai' is marked by a fascination with its ugliness and absurdity; the more outrageous it is, the more they are drawn to it. You ask me to believe in beauty, yet all I see is deception; you find it hideously ugly, but it is, in fact, genuine and unvarnished. The audience's review experience reveals a stark contrast and reversal between propaganda and reality, as well as between official narratives and grassroots perceptions. This phenomenon arises from a backlash against a poorly produced film, which has rapidly transformed into a symbol of rebellion against the current mainstream legalistic era of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

This form of symbolic resistance does not explicitly voice political slogans; it may even lack clear political intentions or demands. Nevertheless, it rejects the CCP's official definitions of 'beauty' and 'correctness.' In a broader sense, it is asserting its own refusal to be politicized. 

French sociologist Jean Baudrillard noted that in modern society, what people resist is not necessarily power itself, but the symbolic systems that power creates. When the definitions of 'what is beautiful' and 'what is worth watching' are tightly controlled, embracing ugliness, absurdity, and failure becomes a vital and liberating way to assert one's right to interpretation. 

The irony of the Dragon Seal and the self-destructive cultural awakening 

The granting of the Dragon Seal to 'Niu Lai' serves as a profound satire of the CCP's censorship system. Originally intended as an official stamp for 'public screening qualification,' the Dragon Seal has now morphed into a darkly humorous commentary on the absurdity of the situation, suggesting that 'even this kind of film can get approved.'

Guo Degang remarked, "The sun in the west is about to set, and the Forbidden City is quiet," which prompted a swift response from the authorities, showcasing their finely tuned political sensitivity. Under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and during Xi Jinping's era, anything can be deemed a crime. Feng Xiaogang's film 'Catching Spies' illustrates how the public is encouraged to report on each other. There is no space for independent thought in crosstalk, stand-up comedy, film and literature, Weibo, or Douyin; legal boundaries are nonexistent, and the only demands are loyalty and obedience.

What is even more alarming is the aftermath. When the authorities discover that "how the audience interprets" is more difficult to control than "what the work itself conveys," censorship becomes increasingly harsh. Anything that is non-mainstream is considered anti-mainstream; anything unofficial is viewed as anti-official; anything that deviates from grand narratives is seen as anti-grand narrative.

Beauty is not permitted to exist; the tragedy that remains after beauty is destroyed is equally forbidden. Once aesthetics are prohibited, people begin to embrace a grotesque form of beauty in order to adapt to extreme survival and prevent their souls from being completely stifled. However, this grotesque aesthetic can be swiftly suppressed and banned at any moment.

The phrase "self-harming cultural awakening" may sound jarring, but it is accurate. In an environment long dominated by the CCP's grand narratives and strong nationalism, reverse aesthetics have emerged as the last line of defense. When the public generally distrusts the narratives produced by the authorities, refinement is perceived as falsehood, heroes are revealed to be fabrications, idealized figures are merely propaganda, and grand narratives are irrelevant to ordinary people. Consequently, ugliness, absurdity, meaninglessness, low cost, and black humor create a sense of "authenticity." A common saying among young people is: "Since the world has left me in despair, I will first turn myself into a joke."

The economic downturn and the rise of grotesque aesthetics resonate in unison.

During times of economic growth and prosperity, society tends to emphasize struggle, upward mobility, and dreams, while mainstream culture celebrates heroes and success stories. However, with the onset of the Xi Jinping era, this landscape has become a thing of the past. Xi's political approach prioritizes political security, a national system, and competition for hegemony. In the context of economic decline, unemployed youth and middle-class individuals slipping back into poverty experience a stark disconnect between their realities and the grand narratives presented to them. As a result, embracing a counter-culture that rejects traditional motivational narratives becomes a natural response: concepts like 'lying flat,' giving up, absurdist literature, loss culture, ugly cute culture, and decadent literature emerge. These movements are not merely expressions of negativity; they serve as a means to alleviate pressure through absurdity and seek an escape.

The "Niu Lai" phenomenon is not just an isolated animated event; it represents a collective spiritual outlet born from social pressures. What "Niu Lai" truly addresses is not simply the contrast between "mainstream and non-mainstream" narratives, but the profound conflict between the official, exclusionary political system and the diverse cultural landscape of society. When normal forms of expression are pushed to their limits, individuals find themselves compelled to validate their existence through the embrace of the absurd, the ugly, and the failures.

Xi Jinping's ritual honoring Jiang seeks to reinforce the narrative of power through an officially sanctioned memorial ceremony. In contrast, the celebration of ugliness in "Niu Lai" delivers a harsh critique of these official rituals: no matter how beautifully the power dynamics are packaged as just and noble, they cannot hide the underlying ugliness and dirtiness of political compliance and power maneuvering.

As the official narrative elevates "beauty" to its zenith, the public responds with a counter-narrative of "ugliness." "Niu Lai" may just be the beginning of a movement aimed at ending an absurd era that should never have existed.

(First published by the People News) △