The Sound of Protest: Bollywood’s Jimmy Jimmy and COVID unrest in China
/In October 2022, following a Covid outbreak, factory workers in China began protesting the Chinese government’s stringent measures to control the spread. What followed was a series of protests against lockdowns and the government’s closed-loop management system that did not allow factory workers to leave the factory; this led to the virus spreading rapidly among the workers. The government came down heavily on the workers in trying to curb the protests. While the factory workers voiced their protest on the street and online, another subtler wave of online protest emerged as humor through the sound of Bollywood. The Chinese Tik Tok Duoyin abounded with videos of Chinese netizens (Internet citizens) singing Jimmy, Jimmy a popular Bollywood song from the 1980s. Jimmy Jimmy, however, is not just any Bollywood song; it was the youth anthem for many soviets and east Europeans in the eighties. In this post, we focus on primarily three aspects of this event. First, what qualities make a song a protest song? Second, how do we account for the transcultural, trans-linguistic flow of the song, and what does this exchange reveal about the cultural dissemination and absorption of Bollywood in China?
Why Jimmy Jimmy?
The song Jimmy Jimmy from the Bollywood film Disco Dancer (1984) has historically enjoyed a global resonance. In a time when the Soviet Union did not allow American exports, the sound of Disco made its way to the USSR and Eastern Europe through Bollywood. The song has had an interesting afterlife in the post-Soviet digital space through performers like Baymyrat Allaberiev, whose rendition of Jimmy Jimmy in 2009 brought back the Disco Dancer phenomenon, leading to multiple versions, performances, and renewed digital fandom. In the context of the circulation of the manifold Tajik and Uzbek versions of Jimmy Jimmy, Chapman notes that past film materials provide rich dispersed content that can often be reified with new meanings.[1] The digital in this context provides a fecund space for the osmosis of Bollywood’s malleable cultural form within transcultural spaces.
However, the question still bears asking, why Disco Dancer? The very specific kind of technological and capitalistic bent of Disco was unique, but it became a distinctive amalgamation when fused with Bollywood’s expressionistic and melodramatic overtones. Its catchy lyrics, over-the-top mise-en-scene, and melodrama entwined together to lend it a malleable quality that overlays well with the discursive malleability of the digital - that is ever-changing and evolving.
There are multiple factors that go into creating the digital malleability for Jimmy Jimmy. First, is the music and ease of lyrics. Second, is the sound of Disco “mix” that is more immediately subversive and situates the audience as the true star of the show. The hedonistic, subversive quality of disco comes together seamlessly in its Bollywood iteration with Jimmy Jimmy’s excessive and melodramatic mise-en-scene. It, therefore, became the perfect globally malleable Bollywood sound that is equally availed of by the Tajiks or the Chinese.
What explains the Chinese resonance?
The performative sentimental excess in a film like Disco Dancer lends it a camp quality that is further accentuated by Disco. In protesting the state-imposed oppressive Covid restrictions, China’s netizens leaned into the malleable quality of the song and its Bollywood aesthetic. What was being performed was a queering of the Bollywood aesthetic wherein the Chinese performers of Jimmy Jimmy donned androgynous digital avatars through filters (See images below). The political resonance of the moment juxtaposed with the campy quality does not diminish the citizen videos’ political import. It rather accentuates it by couching a subversive protest by queering and highly stylizing the performance. The parodic adaptation of Jimmy Jimmy, in this instance, works as a political tool and strategy of subversion that allows them to escape direct state censorship yet communicate their protest musically.
figure 1: Screenshots from Jimmy Jimmy Performances on Chinese Tik Tok Douyin
Why Tik Tok? Platform Mediation
The production, circulation, and reception of protest songs have become increasingly contingent upon the specific affordances of social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok/Douyin. Specifically, in the case of rapid popularization of the Chinese renditions of Jimmy Jimmy on TikTok and Douyin, the televisual appeals of short video formats attract ordinary people to upload and share songs and comic performances in the first place, even when cultural producers might face tight censorship and surveillance in authoritarian states like China. The platforms’ algorithmic recommendation system further enables its over 1 billion users to quickly discover viral content, both within and beyond the Great Fire Wall (a euphemism for the censorship system in China). Moreover, netizens could share viral short videos from the platform of their origins to other platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. The multi-platform migration of a protest song like Jimmy Jimmy in social media, together with the accelerating news production cycles at news agencies around the world, provides further affordances for popularizing protest songs like Baraye and Jimmy Jimmy.
The popularization of a parody version of Jimmy Jimmy in the Chinese Internet needs to be situated in the tightening censorship and surveillance systems in China, particularly during its draconian zero-Covid policies in recent years. Since the early 2000s, Chinese netizens have created an Internet culture of “e-gao” through satire, parody, punning, spoofing, and mockery in countering official discourses and policies.[2] For example, netizens coined the meme of a “grass mud horse” (meaning “fuck your mother”) to implicitly criticize the government’s Internet policies in the late 2000s. Since then, the image of a “grass mud horse,” together with other made-up “mythical creatures” (shenshou), has become a symbol of resistance against censorship. During the global pandemic of COVID-19, apart from protest songs like Jimmy Jimmy, people have resorted to various forms of online parody and dark humor to express their discontent and dissent. On many college campuses, for instance, students under long lockdowns made paper pets and uploaded the photos and videos of them walking those pets on campus. Women podcasters, rather than directly criticizing the lockdown policies, humorously chatted about their experiences as a way to “make sweetness out of bitterness.”[3] The flourishing of online parody and humor attests to the resilience of Chinese netizens in dodging and dealing with censorship on a daily basis.
Besides satire and parody, translation also plays a crucial role in resisting censorship in China. Broadly speaking, translation is the practice of bringing the meanings of a given text across to another context through a certain medium. In China, translation of a specific text - be it televisual, audio, textual, architectural, or bodily - is a common tactic of protest in cyberspace.[4] One prominent example is that during Wuhan Lockdown, netizens used translation to relay messages that had been censored by the state.[5] The protest song based on the translation of the original Bollywood song Jimmy Jimmy is another powerful example of how translation and satire work together as a gesture of playful resistance against government censorship and covid policies.
Translation, in the case of Jimmy Jimmy, works through specific tactics of anonymity, transliteration, dubbing, and bodily performance. To start with, while the song became a hit within a few days on social media, the anonymous translator of the original lyrics remains unknown as of today. Thus, no individual could be potentially incriminated by the government. Moreover, the translation of Jimmy Jimmy into a protest song is, in fact, a process of mistranslation through transliteration. The original soundtrack is in Hindi; sometimes, English transliteration is displayed as well. The Chinese translation is often displayed on the screen as follows:
Jimmy
借米 (jie mi)
[Can I] borrow rice?
Aaja
哪家 (na jia)
Which family?
Jimmy
借米 (jie mi)
[Can I] borrow rice?
Aaja
俺家 (an jia)
[It’s] my family.
俺家里没米了（an jia li mei mi le）
My family does not have rice now
你家里有米吗？(ni jia li you mi ma)
Does your family have rice?
少拿点不需多 (shao na dian bu xu duo)
Take less, you don’t need more
Hindi Transliterated Lyrics Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aaja aaja aaja
English Translation Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, come come come
Hindi Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aaja aaja aaja
English Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, come come come
Hindi Aaja re mere saath
English Come with me
Hindi Yeh jagi jagi raat
English This night is without any sleep
Hindi Pukare tujhe sun
English Listen, it's calling for you
Hindi Suna de wohi dhun
English Sing the same tune for me
Hindi Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aaja aaja aaja
English Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, come come come
Hindi Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aaja aaja aaja
English Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, come come come
Hindi Aaja re mere saath
English Come with me
Hindi Yeh jagi jagi raat
English This night is without any sleep
Hindi Pukare tujhe sun
English Listen, it's calling for you
Hindi Suna de wohi dhun
English Sing the same tune for me
Hindi Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aaja aaja aaja
English Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, come come come
Hindi Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aaja aaja aaja
English Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, come come come
Hindi Aise gum-sum tu hai kyun khamoshi tod de
English Why are you quiet, break your silence
Hindi Jeena kya dil haarke pagalpan chhod de
English Don't lose your heart and live, don't be mad
Hindi Aise gum-sum tu hai kyun khamoshi tod de
English Why are you quiet, break your silence
Hindi Jeena kya dil haarke pagalpan chhod de
English Don't lose your heart and live, don't be mad
Hindi Aaja re mere saath
English Come with me
Hindi Yeh jagi jagi raat
English This night is without any sleep
Hindi Pukare tujhe sun
English Listen, it's calling for you
Hindi Suna de wohi dhun
English Sing the same tune for me
Hindi Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aaja aaja aaja
English Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, come come come
Hindi Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aaja aaja aaja
English Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, come come come
Hindi Jimmy aaja, Jimmy aaja
English Jimmy come, Jimmy come
Hindi Aaja re mere saath
English Come with me
Hindi Yeh jagi jagi raat
English This night is without any sleep
Hindi Pukare tujhe sun
English Listen, it's calling for you
Hindi Suna de wohi dhun
English Sing the same tune for me
As shown above, the Chinese lyrics phonetically mimics the Hindi lyrics but comes with new meanings. The opening line “Jimmy” is translated as “jie mi” (borrow rice) in pinyin, the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, which becomes the most catchy phrase from the song. The term “aaja” is translated into two different Chinese meanings - one is “which family” and the other “my family” - which create a sense of a dialogue. The lines go to recreate a scene in which one is borrowing rice from someone else, perhaps their neighbors. This is a common scene during the COVID lockdowns when food supplies were short and people had to try everything they could to feed themselves. There have been many stories of people coordinating group-buying, crying out for help for their kids or the elderly, and helping both strangers and neighbors. The joyful lyrics and the playful bodily performance in the viral short videos, in a sense, remind people of the painful experiences of the constant fear of starvation and the lack of freedom to express their anger and frustration in public. The musical sound of Jimmy Jimmy despite its apparent sentimental campy frivolity embodies the subversive, performative potential of the sound of protest all the way from Tajikistan to China.
[1] For more see “Performing ‘Soviet’ film classics: Tajik Jimmy and the aural remnants of Indian cinema” by Andrew Chapman in Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema.
[2] Li, Hongmei. "Parody and resistance on the Chinese Internet." Online society in China. Routledge (2011): 71-88.
Meng, Bingchun. "Regulating e gao: Futile efforts of recentralization?." China's information and communications technology revolution. Routledge (2009): 64-79.
Yang, Guobin, and Min Jiang. "The networked practice of online political satire in China: Between ritual and resistance." International Communication Gazette 77.3 (2015): 215-231.
[3] Wang, Jing. "Lockdown sound diaries: Podcasting and affective listening in the shanghai lockdown." Made in China Journal 7.1 (2022): 151-161.
[4] Zhang, Weiyu, and Chengting Mao. "Fan activism sustained and challenged: participatory culture in Chinese online translation communities." Chinese Journal of Communication 6.1 (2013): 45-61.
Yang, Guobin. "The online translation activism of bridge bloggers, feminists, and cyber-nationalists in China." Media Activism in the Digital Age. Routledge (2017): 62-75.
[5] Yang, Guobin. The Wuhan Lockdown. Columbia University Press, 2022.
Biographies:
Swapnil Rai is an Assistant Professor of Film, TV and Media at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Swapnil’s research is concerned with the intersections of politics, popular culture and media industries and brings together global media industry studies, transnational stardom, audience studies and women and gender studies. Her work has been published in a range of scholarly journals including Communication, Culture & Critique, Feminist Media Studies, International Journal of Communication, Jump Cut and Cinephile. Her book Networked Bollywood: How star power globalized Indian cinema is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Swapnil is a member of the editorial board of Pop Junctions and a board member of the feminist media collective Console-ing Passions. She tweets @i_swapnil_rai .
Jing Wang is an incoming Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently Senior Research Manager at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC), Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Jing’s research focuses on anthropology of Islam, race and ethnicity studies, sound and podcasting, feminist practices and theories, and transnational media. She has published in journals across disciplines such as New Media and Society, Made In China Journal, Asian Anthropology, Terrain: Anthropologie & Sciences Humaines, and Journal of Transformative Learning. Committed to public and multimodal scholarship, Jing co-founded TyingKnots 结绳志 and Global Media & Communication podcast series. You can find her on jing-wang.net and Twitter @JingWang0815.
