So about 11 year ago, I wrote a research paper about Jay Chou 周杰倫 as part of my Masters in Arts (Literary Studies) and presented my paper at the Celebrity Studies Journal Conference 2012 in Deakin University. Yes! I am not joking! National University of Singapore (NUS) gave me credit for my research module and I graduated. Fast forward to 2022, the world has changed very much but Jay Chou is still around and people are still paying big bucks to watch his concerts.
To commemorate Jay Chou’s Carnival World Tour 2022 in Singapore, I have unearthed my “relic” research paper to share with anyone out there who may be interested to read my 8000+ word thesis. This is a serious research! I really devoted lots of time in 2011 to research and write! Thanks to my supervisor Dr Edna Lim and NUS for indulging me in this literary+cultural studies journey.
A short disclaimer: The paper has not be updated since 2011 so some sections of the paper and analysis may be outdated. I think may may agree that Jay Chou’s music creations have been quite stagnant in the last few years and there hasn’t been much innovation or breakthrough. Well, he is undeniably still a big star so enjoy reading!
I would love to hear your thoughts so leave any comments below. If you like my paper, download a free PDF copy here!
An Asian man in a simple t-shirt and blue jeans leaping into air with a guitar – this picture of a twenty-four year old Taiwanese, Jay Chou, graced the cover of the March 2003 issue of Time magazine. Chou’s meteoric rise to stardom in less than three years earned him the title of “New King of Asian Pop”. Eight years later, Chou is still the reigning star in the Chinese entertainment industry. He is the most popular Chinese singer in East Asia and other Chinese communities all over the world. He has received accolades for being a singer, musician, song-writer, producer, actor and even director. His overwhelming popularity is not confined to the music industry as he has crossed over to the film industry and acted in seven national and international movies.
Looking at his impressive achievements, one cannot help but ask, “Why is Chou so successful?” This paper aims to investigate the factors which propel Chou to stardom and establish him as the most iconic star in East Asia. This paper is organised in four parts. Firstly, the relationship between Chou’s star image and his charisma is examined. The paper proceeds to analyse his distinctive “Chou Style” music and focuses on his “China Wind” evolution. In this paper, the term “Chou Style” is used to describe Chou’s unique brand of music which consists of an innovative hybrid of musical styles. Next, the commodification of Chou’s stardom is explored through a study of his product endorsements and music concerts. The last section investigates Chou’s crossover from music to film through an analysis of his significant films. Finally, this paper concludes by looking at the impact of Chou’s success on East Asia’s entertainment industry.
In this paper, the terms “star” and “stardom” are used as assembling expressions that encompass different modifications like celebrity, idol, personality and pop star. Chou not only embodies the metaphoric quality of a shining star, but his fame in the music industry has spread over to the film industry. Using tools of semiotics, contextual and historical analysis, Richard Dyer provides a framework to examine film stars as images, signs and a social phenomenon which can be used to analyse Chou’s stardom¹. However, in the era of globalization and confluence of new media, stars emerge from not only film but other entertainment industries as well; hence Dyer’s discussion of film stars has to be expanded when applied to the analysis of Chou’s star image². David Marshall’s discussion of the celebrity figure is useful as he expands Dyer’s ideas and analyses three types of celebrity, namely the film, television and music celebrity³.
As a result of the diverse ways in which fame can be attributed to a person, other terms like celebrity, idol and pop star are commonly used to describe a famous personality. However, the terms like “star” and “celebrity” are used in different contexts. The term “star” is most commonly used in film studies to denote a dialectic between on/off-screen presence and a dialogue between the performing presence and the “private” life of the star (Ellis 1989). On the other hand, the term “celebrity” has a more contradictory and often less prestigious lineage (Holmes and Redmond 3). The common use of the term “celebrity” indicates how the media contexts of fame are now less specific, with individual celebrities rarely restricted to a single media form (Holmes and Redmond 11).
Looking at Chou’s unprecedented stardom, he is definitely not another celebrity. A star is a celebrity but a celebrity is not necessarily a star. Even though the critics have provided useful ways to analyse stardom, Chou’s immense popularity challenges some of the limitations in the prevalent theories. While terms like “star” and “stardom” are used in this paper, it is important to note that the concepts of star and stardom have to be reformulated in order to examine Chou’s impact on popular culture in East Asia.