Value of Authenticity

An interesting debate has been going on in the international media scene on Authenticity after the Beijing Olympics. After the inaugural ceremony of the olympics, it was announced that the televised TV footage of the fireworks had been pre-recorded and digitally created for maximum effect. These included the 55-second sequence of fireworks called "footprints" exploding in consecutive ripples along a south-north axis across Beijing from Tiananmen Square to the Bird's Nest.


What people around the world saw was "mostly an animated three-dimensional video that was made over a year. It was not actually live footage except the final stage". Even though the fireworks in question was actually going on over the Beijing skies in the same fashion, what people around the world saw in their Television was not the one that appeared on August 8th, 2008 ! This was done for maximum effect, we were told.

Similarly, there was an issue with the beautiful little girl Lin Miaoke who was reported to have captured the heart of the nation with her singing. It seems, she was just miming to the voice of another young seven year old kid called Yang Peiye. Yang's voice was terrific, but she had a buck teeth. Hence, they matched the beautiful face of Lin with the wonderful voice of Yang, and presented to the world. The world's heart got captured ! For maximum effect.

Purists are making a noise about this 'cheating', but the argument I liked the best was about the issue of authenticity. As long as we are not sitting in the stadium and watching things, whatever we receive in the television cannot be called authentic. There is some level of digital interference by the time we see it in our television. So, how does it matter if the fireworks were pre-recorded and shown ? After all, the intention was to impress everyone with the beauty of coordination.

Pallavi Aiyar wrote this in Hindu :

"... [this accusation about cheating] has to do with the assumed intrinsic value we seem to ascribe to authenticity. But, is the authentic always 'better' than a replica ? If the pleasure derived from viewing a fake is as much or perhaps even greater than that drawn from the original, is the authentic still of more value ?

Objectively speaking, "authenticity" is ethically ambiguous or neutral. It has no superior moral value in itself. Indian visitors to China are often horrified to discover "authentic" Chinese food and experience far greater pleasure from gobhi manchurian than bona fide chicken feet !"

Tamil culture is one excellent example of our desire to just preserve the cliches (or our notion of ancient culture) rather than the authentic facts. We have all been brain-washed so much by the power of mass-communication during the last hundred years that we Tamilians do not have the courage to look for authenticity in anything in life. We are happy with the portrayed images and are content with the 'feel good' factor. In that sense, we are more English than the English themselves; more american than the americans and (when it comes to noodles) more chinese than the chinese ! Who wants authenticity; we just want to be happy ...

PS : In Trichy, we have a small 'burma bazaar', where you get all kinds of things. Our favourite is a watch shop, where they can assemble all the parts of a clock and give you a Citizen or Titan or a Omega or any international brand. All for a mere Rs.100 ( about $ 2.5 !)