Adorno and Horkheimer’s prescient 1945 article (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1945) predicts the almost complete takeover by the culture industry of life as we know it. Whilst recent democratic participation in culture should have given us more agency over our narratives, supercharged hyper-capitalism has left us in thrall to the mechanistic cultural hegemonies (Impiglia, 2020) of the big tech and entertainment conglomerates. The movements to create change in our world are being deadened by this deception.
What, if anything, lies beyond the culture industry as Adorno and Horkheimer have conceived it?
Hong Kong pop music artist and film actor Charmaine Fong (方皓玟) has had a lucrative cross-border career, for over 15 years. In December 2019, she released a song called ‘Human Words (人話)’. The song is an electro-pop song with a driving beat and lyrics sung in Cantonese and English. The music video uses a colourful ‘line-edging’ effect which outlines camera footage and references anime and neon (L.White, 2021). All the aesthetic and aural elements are designed to thrive on the platform of YouTube where it was released. (Fong, 2019b)
Several elements set ‘Human Words (人話)’ apart from other videos on the platform. The imagery used in the music video depicts police brutality against pro-democracy protestors during the 2019 Hong Kong protests. This footage is intercut with press conferences given by HK Government officials over the same period. The first line of the chorus “Tell me what 7 you say” uses the Cantonese word for 7 which is a homophone for a curse word, so those that are bilingual would understand the lyric as “Tell me what the fuck you say”. Although Hong Kong Cantonese commonly uses these sorts of linguistic puns it is unheard of for a Cantopop star to swear in a song made for general release. The juxtaposition of these two situations reinforces the exasperation of the general population about the lack of empathy from those in government. (Fong, 2019a)
The activity of writing and releasing this track has had very large implications for Fong’s career. It has doomed her music and acting career in the PRC where she was a big star. She has been banned from playback on local Hong Kong radio stations (Chow, 2022). Her social media has filled up with ‘little pinks (小粉红)’ and ‘wumao (五毛党)’ keyboard warriors raining hateful comments on her social media. In addition, Fong could now be charged under the 2020 National Security Law which bans talk (or art) that advocates for the pro-democracy movement (People’s Republic of China, 2020).
Charmaine Fong’s motivations to release ‘Human Words (人話)’ go beyond the ‘cyclically recurrent and rigidly invariable’ (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1945, p. 3) cultural products described by Adorno and Horkheimer. Her music tapped into deep emotional frustration with the situation in Hong Kong and Fong used her platform to speak against the government narrative in what Manuel Castells describes as ‘counterpower’ - the attempt ’to reprogram the polity, the economy, the culture…’ (Castells, 2015, p. 17).
Adorno and Horkheimer leave little room for cultural activity beyond their conception of ‘The Culture Industry’. The example of Charmaine Fong’s ‘Human Words (人話)’ shows there is a possibility for an exception.
Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (1945). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In Dialectic of Enlightenment. Los Angeles.
Castells, M. (2015). Networks of Outrage and Hope, Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Chow, V. (2022). Hong Kong’s RTHK Blacklists Pro-Democracy Musicians. Variety. Retrieved from https://variety.com/2022/music/asia/hong-kong-rthk-blacklists-musicians-1235164826/
Fong, C. 方. (2019a). Human Words 人話. YouTube: Strawberry Fields.
Fong, C. 方. (2019b). Human Words (人話). In Human Words - Police in Train Station 2019 (Ed.), (Vol. 1439 x 780). YouTube: Strawberry Fields.
Impiglia, C. (2020). Cultural Hegemony in the Age of Trump: Adorno, Horkheimer, and Gramsci. EuropeNow. Retrieved from https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/04/27/cultural-hegemony-in-the-age-of-trump-adorno-horkheimer-and-gramsci/
L.White, C. (2021). Pixels, Police, and Batons: Hong Kong Cinema, Digital Media, the 2019 Protests, and Beyond. Film Quarterly, 74(3). Retrieved from https://filmquarterly.org/2021/03/17/pixels-police-and-batons-hong-kong-cinema-digital-media-the-2019-protests-and-beyond/
People’s Republic of China. (2020). Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Hong Kong Retrieved from https://www.gld.gov.hk/egazette/pdf/20202444e/es220202444136.pdf