S China car show bans 'vulgar' displays

Organizers for this year's China (Guangzhou) International Automobile Exhibition on Thursday issued a proposal for stopping vulgar activities and performances, including models wearing overly revealing clothes.

The four organizations hosting the exhibition released a proposal on Thursday morning before the opening of the show.

In the proposal, organizers suggested that malicious hype and various uncivilized activities should be brought to a halt.

Recent years have seen it become increasingly common for car exhibitions to attract visitors with models more undressed than dressed. The organizers suggested that exhibitors should control their partners, especially car models and performers, to prohibit models in revealing clothes or other ungraceful performances.

A "healthy and well-organized environment" should be created for the show and vulgar activities should not be spread, the proposal said. "This move came after increasingly vulgar activities in recent years," said an employee from the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Automotive Industry Committee, one of the four hosts, on Thursday.

"The Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition, as one of the three biggest international exhibitions in China, should be the first place to ban any vulgar activities to purify the exhibition environment. Otherwise, it may damage the image of the auto industry as a whole," said the employee.

The employee stressed that "we will request that exhibitors avoid hiring any revealingly dressed models, and remind other exhibitions to abide by the law and reject vulgar activities." During the 2012 Beijing International Automobile Exhibition, Beijing authorities seriously criticized the models in the BMW area of the show for dressing too revealingly, and ordered organizers to rectify the issue immediately, reported the People's Daily on Thursday.

The report said that although the vulgar atmosphere had died down for a time, it has again become common to see some models wearing thin, sheer and transparent clothing in sales promotions at local auto exhibitions.

Some exhibitors, especially those from smaller or less competitive brands, have attempted to use models in skimpy clothing and vulgar activities to attract more visitors. Meanwhile, some models saw auto exhibitions as a shortcut to fame.

Many Web users slammed exhibitors using models to draw attention, saying that "high-quality, high-performance cars are the right way to attract customers." Some Web users said they had the impression of "less sexy models" at this year's Guangzhou show.

"Many clothes were provided by dealers and I also disliked those revealing clothes," the China National Radio quoted a model as saying.

Hu Xingdou, a social science professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, told the Global Times that the proposal cannot truly prohibit uncivilized performances driven by commercial interests.

A better way to reduce such vulgar activities, Hu said, is to ask the exhibitors to be more self-disciplined and invite greater media supervision of such shows.