Exploring Gender Perception and Agenda-Setting in the Chinese Variety Show Your Face Sounds Familiar

Your Face Sounds Familiar is a popular variety show in China. The show gets high ratings by inviting guests to imitation other celebrities. However, two gender-related-issues were continuesly discussed during the show. The first is that government banned show from cross-dressing for male artists, which was once the most attractive part of the show. The second issue is that the proportion of the number of guests varies significantly between the two genders. Most of the guests were male. By discussing the two gender-related-issues, the research aimed at investigating about how variety shows can effect on peoples gender cognition issues, such as the cognition of the human gender, the attitude of cross-dressing, the tendency of teenagers feminization, and the progress of gender equality. First hand data were collected during the internship experience in the program panel. Discussion was also based on interview of internal high-level-staffs and top comments of external audiences. The study finds that variety shows can indeed change people's gender cognition. The variety show sets agenda by attracting the audience to satisfy their curiosity. It makes the audience easier to accept the values spread by the program in an entertaining and implicit way. Such influence effects of audience cannot be achieved by traditional and serious program.