Teresa Carpio temporarily leaves The Voice 2 - AsianFanatics Forum
Below are some additional comments that I posted in AF's news thread today:
I've been following some of the comments on the TVB.com forum since the beginning of the 2nd season and seeing the mindset of these people is truly disappointing as well as disturbing. If this is what is being taught to the younger generation (which it obviously is, since they had to have gotten the mentality from somewhere), then it will truly be a sad case 10, 20 years from now when the middle / older generation will no longer be in the picture and the younger generation will "rule". If the HK entertainment industry has been going downhill the past 10 years (which it definitely has, maybe for even longer depending on who you ask), it will be much worse years from now, to the point where the industry may even become extinct (sad sight indeed).
The direction of the show this year has definitely gotten off track in that it is no longer a singing competition, but rather a talent show. How else would you explain why TVB would even let some of the contestants (like Hardy and Emily) get into the semi-final round in the first place? I mean, if you have let's say 100 people audition and you had to pick 20 to be on the show, I am sure they would be able to find 2-3 people from that batch who sing better than Hardy and Emily -- so why did TVB let them advance this far? I definitely blame TVB for this as well because I also feel that part of this is being done for show.
For example, with Emily -- it was so obvious from the beginning that she was going to be eliminated -- I mean, she CAN'T EVEN SPEAK CHINESE!!!!! And she is trying to compete singing Chinese songs when she can't even pronounce majority of the words and people can't understand a single word she sings? Is it any surprise that she wasn't going to make it? And then to bash Teresa for being "harsh" or "blunt" in her comments toward Emily, causing her to get eliminated? Ridiculous!
Same with Hardy...his performance from the beginning was already bad -- he actually was supposed to be eliminated on the first episode, but the judges gave him a chance (so as far as I'm concerned, they were already 'lenient' toward him) -- and so when his performance continues to suck because he is just not ready to be in such an aggressive competition (and it's obvious to everyone, not just the judges), now Teresa is being made the 'scapegoat'? Why don't they question TVB on why they let him and Emily advance to this round in the first place when it was obvious that they weren't going to make it? Was it just so there would be some "controversy" so that they could get higher ratings?
More comments:
Exactly!!! And that's what the judges were trying to tell him! To be honest, none of the judges said that he sucked -- they basically told him that he is not ready yet, that he should concentrate on his studies and come back in a couple years to try again -- it's the truth, so what is wrong with that? Just because the comments were directed at a little boy who was too young to take any type of criticism -- and frankly, it doesn't matter whether the judges say something positive or negative because the boy was going to cry anyway (which was another thing that annoyed me -- he cried before his performance, after his performance, it seemed like all the time....that in itself already shows that he is not ready to be out in the "real world" competing like this)...
And Teresa's comments may be more blunt, but as you say, she definitely knows what she is talking about....plus the other thing that some people failed to realize is that Teresa didn't just criticize the boy -- she's very fair and defends when necessary. That's why Sammy (the host) got yelled at by her -- because he was laughing at the boy (sort of in a mocking way, though not purposefully) and she told him not to laugh and that it wasn't funny (basically reprimanding him for indirectly "making fun" of the boy) -- and she did praise the boy when she asked him why he wore that particular outfit (the one he wore when performing Jacky's song) and he gave a good answer. Unfortunately, those who keep saying that she was "too harsh" and "unfair" towards him are not looking at the whole picture....
LL's Musings 小賢角落
I was going to say that they were trying to draw in more ratings when letting those two continue on - BUT you beat me to it in the later part of your post, lol.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, some people are too sensitive. They shouldn't take it as 'bashing' or being 'too harsh' BUT should think of it as valuable feedback from the judges.
Talking about being fluent in the language, I think I remember this happening once too many times at this competition. It was a Vietnamese one I remember watching and this one guy couldn't even speak in Viet OR couldn't even sing it at all YET he still showed up OR tried to get in. It was ridiculous and he was eliminated during the auditions. (PHEW!) It's just sad that these younger generation aren't thinking of using these feedback for the better YET just disregard it and be bitter about the whole matter.
Thanks! Yea, I'm still quite ticked off seeing these people's snotty attitudes. I mean, if they don't want to accept the judges' feedback because they feel they are perfect and can do no wrong, then fine, but don't go bashing the judges just because they are trying to provide constructive criticism. It's these kinds of people who are going to fail in society and then still they will try to blame it on others -- so sad!!
ReplyDeleteYou know, I totally agree with you about the The Voice judges not really voicing their true opinions and being too PC about things. Some of the contestants are not particularly good at receiving feedback openly either. But actually, I think this extends over to some other singing competitions, including the somewhat recent 2010 TVB New Talent Singing Awards (NTSA), which I found quite insulting to the past contestants of the 80's and 90's (I've actually explained my hatred towards the formats of singing competitions like The Voice and NTSA and why I prefer other singing competitions in my post 'TVB New Talent Singing Awards?'). It's like the standards for contestants have dropped, with a whole influx of solely Mandarin-speaking folk. I mean it's a singing competition in Hong Kong where the official 'dialect' is Cantonese. Come on. And they don't even have any future intention of learning the dialect.
ReplyDeleteThis line about Emily: "SHE CAN'T EVEN SPEAK CHINESE!!!" made me laugh, because it is so true. I have no idea why you would go to a singing contest in HK without being able to speak some kind of Chinese. I also do think that some of the contestants on The Voice 2 were blinded by their arrogance when they came to receiving comments. An exception I suppose, like you said was Sheldon Lo (although he was certainly not one of my favorites because I really don't believe that the HK music industry has a place for someone like him - too many English-only songs, probably due to his lack of fluency in Cantonese. In other words, he's really too hard to market to the general HK audience, even though English pop songs were quite the rage in the 70's). They come onto the stage to sing and learn, don't they? It's not like the judges swear at them, call them rude names or even throw a shoe at them, so I don't know what they were fussing about.
Kids these days. Yes, I'm talking about Hardy. He definitely butchered one of my favorite Jacky songs too by not only trying to sound like a man but also screeching like a drunk fangirl at the end. It made the whole show seem like a cheap, amateur school talent quest. But I mean, he's 12, young and has plenty of future opportunity so I'm not saying he should never sing again or anything, I'm just saying he should really go get some more training then maybe try again when he's older. But to me, it seems like his parents wanted him to be in the spotlight, not so much him.
@The Archival Queen:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments!
First of all, I totally agree with you regarding the Mandarin dialect thing. I mean, most of the songs that the contestants chose to sing at both competitions were Mandarin songs and I barely recognized any of them. I would think that if you are going to compete in a HK singing competition, you should ateast pick a Cantonese song to sing --and with all the Cantopop hits available in the past 20-30 years, there should be plenty of songs available....yet most of them choose to sing obsure songs that are not necessarily suited to them.
Yup, that whole thing with Emily really bothered me because it was just plain ridiculous...I think it's pretty obvious that TVB allowed her to 'pass' the initial audition purely because they wanted to 'stir up' controversy and increase the ratings (as the saying goes, being in the news for something negative or controversial is better than not being in the news at all!).
And even though I actually liked Sheldon in the competition, I also knew that whether he won or not would not matter, since his range is way too limited. But at least he had quite a few strong performances throughout the competition and he really did do quite well in the finale -- unlike Mag, who was just consistently horrible in my opinion.
Regarding Hardy -- well, I don't want to get started on him all over again because it will just get me worked up again....but thanks for mentioning his parents because it reminds me of something else that annoyed me (that I may have mentioned, but can't remember if it was this post) -- some of Teresa's comments during the show were actually directed toward Hardy's parents because she actually blamed them for putting Hardy through this...BUT those comments were 'conveniently' edited out by TVB when the actual show aired....
@ llwy12 You're welcome - like I said, I usually always have something to say.
ReplyDeleteI mean I'm not saying that Mandopop is bad - it's just that they pick ones that no one in their right minds would ever choose. Like you said, I only knew very few of those Mandarin songs that featured and it's not like I don't listen to Mandopop at all. I watch singing competitions based in Taiwan and the contestants usually choose songs that I know and even perform them better than those on The Voice 2. Same goes for the obscurity with those Cantopop songs - I mean, what the heck? Participants in the 80's NTSA had a smaller range of songs to pick from and they still rocked it with their song choices and performances.
This whole any publicity is good publicity thing is just really getting out of hand. It just shows how they don't really take the competition as a serious matter anymore. Editing out comments like that tells us how credible the show is, as well - which is not very much at all, in my opinion.