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Vivienne Chow

The younger generation of Canto-pop stars  appears to be working hard to live up to the infamous 'sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll' standards of western celebrities, to judge by  recent  showbiz scandals ranging from photos of stars having sex  to drug possession. 
Critics believe that this is a wake-up call for the government to revamp its publicity strategy for social campaigns, which have relied heavily on young idols. 
'The government is lazy and has no new tactics,' said  Bottle Shiu Ka-chun,   cultural critic and a social work lecturer at Baptist University. 
'They always stick to one way and that is to use idols, whether it is  in anti-drug or anti-mosquito campaigns.' 
Mr Shiu said  the government had underestimated young people for a long time, assuming that they would listen and follow whatever their idols did.
'They look down on young people,' he said. 'Young people are not 100 per cent copycats. For example, they will not do drugs because their idols are caught doing drugs. 
'They will not take sex photos just because Gillian Chung Yan-tung  took those photos.'
The call came after pop idols Kelvin Kwan Chor-yiu  and Jill Vidal,  who appeared in a government anti-drugs campaign two years ago, were arrested for cannabis possession in Tokyo last week. 
It is the latest celebrity scandal since the Edison Chen Koon-hei  sex photo scandal surfaced a year ago, tarnishing Chung's image,  among those of several other female stars photographed engaging in sex acts with Chen which ended up on the internet. 
There was strong public vilification of Chung, whose public persona was modelled on a girl-next-door image.
Despite the scandals surrounding the stars, it appears that idols will continue to feature in social campaigns. 
Commissioner for Narcotics Sally Wong Pik-yee  said last week that the government would be more cautious about selecting celebrities as anti-drug-campaign figureheads. 
A spokesman for Radio Television Hong Kong, one of the major media companies that regularly presents such social campaigns, said the  broadcaster  always discussed the choice of stars with campaign organisers and vetted the artists to make sure they fitted the profile. 
 He did not say  whether the station would alter its approach to hiring pop stars for social campaigns but said artists did have an influence on young people. 
Chinese University journalism professor Anthony Fung Ying-him  said that using idols did have an  impact. 
He said that even US presidential election candidates sought celebrity endorsement. 
 Stars in the west were comparatively exempt from the kind of social responsibilities borne by their eastern counterparts, Professor Fung said.  
Hong Kong  had very high expectations of its celebrities because of deep Confucian values, he added. 
'That's why when the Edison Chen sex-photos scandal broke, it became such a big deal.  It was also covered in the US but the coverage was not so negative.'
Choi Chi-sum,  general secretary for the Society for Truth and Light,  said that entertainers did not necessarily have high moral standards. 'They make mistakes just like anybody else,' he said. 
However, not everyone saw it that way. 
Mr Choi said many people had unrealistic expectations of artists. 'I urge those celebrities who do not live a proper private life not to do public service because you cannot be two-faced,' he said.
But Baptist University's Mr Shiu said that the government should be held partly responsible for this, as  many stars had used  social campaigns to boost their image. 
  Being more cautious with star selection was not ultimately the way to save the government from embarrassment, he said. 
'The government must change because society has changed. Using idols [for publicity] is merely one of the many equations. People are not that naive any more.'



Critics question role of fast-living stars in social campaigns