Lydia,+Deedee,+Elaine+Propaganda+Project

=Propaganda Project =

Lydia, Elaine, Deedee
THE SONG media type="file" key="aasian studies -_-.mp3"

THE SONG WITH THE IMOVIE media type="file" key="mao.mov"

THE LYRICS

Did you hear? Hear what? Oh, I heard Heard what? A new hero's in town!

Long long ago before Mao was around the upper class ruled the town No equality! How could this be? Mao Zedong came to town

Ohhhh, he said yours is mine and mine is yours He brought us unity

Mao Mao Mao our honorable leader be a Little Red Book reader His words bring us together as one say yes to communism, that's done!

It was 1966 when it first started The four reforms all departed "Oh let's throw away Confucian" So what was the solution? Mao Zedong came to town

Communism is good, Communism is great, Communism is the way to success This is the way to show some progress Mao Zedong came to town

"But why was Mao so famous?" "Oh that's simple!" Everyone glorified our Great Mao Pictures, newspapers, diazbou lets bow

Mao Mao Mao our honorable leader be a Little Red Book reader His words bring us together as one say yes to communism thats done

The Cult of Personality is here! Our great leader let's cheer!

Lydia's Reflection (Explanation and Evaluation) Our group decided to create a propaganda piece through a song and an imovie to accompany it in order to show and tell our opinions on how the cult of personality was portrayed. As for the imovie with our feet marching, it portrays a visual aspect of how the citizens "marched" and looked up towards Mao, the great leader. The lyrics show how efficient of a leader he was, spreading his ideaologies, and had short talking moments in order to add more fun and explain what was actually happening more clearly. We decided to make our song country style, in order to promote Mao's idea of equality: peasants would obtain equal rights too. I believe that the citizens would be extremely convinced at Mao's great cult of personality. We even included how he became famous, and what happened before the revolution. The subtitles in the movie help you understand what we are saying, because sometimes it is difficult to follow along when one is singing so quickly.

In the beginning, when we are talking about what we heard, we use the word "hero" in order to show Mao's cult of personality and how he can be seen as a father figure. We then explain before Mao was around, the proletariets ruled and that there were class divisions. Then, we become shocked at the fact that there is not equality amongst the society. We use "Mao Ze Dong came to town" as our main quote in order to emphasize what he did for the country. When we state "he said yours is mine and mine is yours," we are explaining cultivation and how Mao divided up land equally for everybody, thus he brought unity throughout the country. In the chorus, we state how he is a honorable leader, and that the Little Red Book is the book that everyone should read. After, we state the importance of Communism and how one should accept Communism. Later, we get into the little details (the date when it started) and how Mao got rid of the four reforms. We then explained how we should glorify our great Mao and the ways how. At the end, we finish it off quickly and simply with "Let's cheer (YA'LL) to get the message across to cheer for Mao, the cult of personality. The last acqepella piece was a small experiment we tried with our other fellow students that wanted to join in and help afterschool, so we would like to give credits to Chris Nam, Kristie Lee, and Jenny Lee for helping us there. This exemplifies and glorifies all parts of Mao and even his idealogies. It shows how great of a leader he is, and we only included that seem appealing to the citizens.

Overall, we worked well with each other. We stayed afterschool on Tuesday and worked during lunch times and during our free class times. Although sometimes we had disputes with HOW to sing the song (yes, we are not the best singers), it turned out great in the end. It was also difficult singing the song with the music, since country songs are difficult to sing. Everyone shared tasks equally; we each wrote one part of the script, recorded the song, and made a imovie with subtitles equally. It was a hard task to fit in all the subtitles, sing altogether at once in tune, and put it all together as one. However, in the end, I believe our job was accomplished, and one can observe how Mao, through propaganda, appealed to the citizens and how he is represented as the cult of personality.

Dee Dee's Reflection

Our propaganda was based on how normal citizens of China contributed to Mao's cult of personality as well as their involvement in the Cultural Revolution through singing a song. This song was to express their revolutionary spirit as well as devotion to the Communist Party of China and Mao. It is from the perspective of communists who are passionate about the Cultural Revolution. In the lyrics, the Chinese citizens worship and glorify Mao, praising him with compliments for transforming the old hierarchical society into a classless society bringing everyone with equality. We wrote specifically "his words bring us together as one" because the citizens viewed that Mao was able to unify them by eliminating capitalism and the so-called "enemies" of the revolution. It also emphasizes the importance of reading the Little Red Book because it was a symbol of having faith in Mao and the transformed China by reading Mao's quotes. The song also portrays how propaganda had a significant role in spreading Mao's ideologies and beliefs such as newspapers, dizabous and pictures. Our song is dedicated to mainly workers, farmers and peasants for it is a country song to sing it freely while working. This shows the value of equality whether you are wealthy or poor, which satisfied them.

The reason why we made our imovie of us marching from the front side to the back is because we wanted to show how the Cultural Revolution triggered many students and workers to be unified as one and synchronizing together in each step. The synchronized steps that we took were to symbolize each event or revolutionaries that the communists went through together by believing in Mao's ideologies and faith. Whether it reinforcing everyone to read the Little Red Book or capturing teachers or anyone who looked suspicious against the CCP, Mao's people did everything togehter. It is interesting that because the citizens had a narrow view point and could only see the innocent and honest side of Mao, the cult of personality of Mao was more expressed when the government provided profiles of Mao everywhere on the street for people to praise him as a Father/ God like figure.

Elaine's Reflection

The type of propaganda our group used to portray the Cultural Revolution was a nationalistic song. The lyrics to this song simply states how Mao attempted to establish a "New China" and how the citizens admired Mao. In the beginning of the song, we sing "long long ago before Mao came around, the upper class ruled the town" to simply state that it was a capitalist society where there was social hierarchy. "No equality, how could this be" shows that the lower class felt as if it was unfair, which eventually leads to their support for communism. Another part where we sing "yours is mine and mine is yours" is basically referring to collectivization. The reason why we keep mentioning "Mao Zedong came to town" is to 1. emphasize the citizens admiration towards Mao, 2. to emphasize how society changed and developed after Mao Zedong was in charge. The "chorus" expresses the citizens admiration and devotion for Mao. Here, the listeners can tell Mao was the Cult of Personality. Lyrics that state "How did he become so famous" tells us Mao manipulated a lot of people. This song would probably be often sung by a peasant or worker who desires equal rights and no class in the society. The part where it states that the old ideologies departed tells us the radicals succeeded in destroying the old ideologies. In this propaganda, we mention how there are images and daizabous all over the place, which once again expresses China's dedication toward Mao. Also through this song, we expresses our opinion on how Mao and the revolutionists wanted unity, as well as equality.

The purpose of the imovie was not only to make the song more interesting and engaging, but to show the unity of the citizens, when they wanted to vigorously overthrow the upper class. Not only did the syncronized motion show unity, but it also refers to the devotion towards Mao. Walking forward means 1. China walked towards Mao in his lead, and 2. it looks as if they were marching towards a bright future. The main significant message our group attempted to portray, in our song, was how the Cult of Personality made China think Mao was a hero or a father.

Each group member will write a two to three paragraph explanation of your piece and how it relates to the themes of the cultural revolution on the wiki.