Once again, life imitates "The Simpsons."
It turns out that the cute kid who sang at the Olympics Opening Ceremonies last week was lip synching. The kid that actually sang was deemed to be not cute enough to appear in the show. Holy Milli Vanilli, Batman (with a bit o' Simon Cowell thrown in).
In an interview with Beijing Radio, Chen Qigang, the ceremony's chief music director, admitted that the pig-tailed, nine-year-old girl in a red dress shown singing was actually lip-synching Ode to the Motherland to audio of another girl, deemed not as pretty but with a lovelier voice.
"After several tests, we decided to put Lin Miaoke on the live picture, while using [seven-year-old] Yang Peiyi's voice," Chen told the radio station.
"The reason for this is that we must put our country's interest first," he added. "We had to make that choice. It was fair both for Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi … We combined the perfect voice and the perfect performance."
This reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Lisa participated in the National Spelling Bee, and was told to throw the competition so that a cuter kid could win. (Lisa ended up misspelling the word fair and square, if I recall correctly.) Actually, this incident could probably make a really good Simpsons episode. Even better than the one where Homer becomes a figure skating judge (oh, nuts, that hasn't happened yet).
In an interview with Beijing Radio, Chen Qigang, the ceremony's chief music director, admitted that the pig-tailed, nine-year-old girl in a red dress shown singing was actually lip-synching Ode to the Motherland to audio of another girl, deemed not as pretty but with a lovelier voice.
"After several tests, we decided to put Lin Miaoke on the live picture, while using [seven-year-old] Yang Peiyi's voice," Chen told the radio station.
"The reason for this is that we must put our country's interest first," he added. "We had to make that choice. It was fair both for Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi … We combined the perfect voice and the perfect performance."
This reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Lisa participated in the National Spelling Bee, and was told to throw the competition so that a cuter kid could win. (Lisa ended up misspelling the word fair and square, if I recall correctly.) Actually, this incident could probably make a really good Simpsons episode. Even better than the one where Homer becomes a figure skating judge (oh, nuts, that hasn't happened yet).