Paris by Night

Background

Paris by Night was conceived by immigrant Tô Văn Lai in 1983, in Paris, France, to "fill the cultural void" felt by Vietnamese refugees living in France. Shortly afterwards, the show's production company transferred to Orange County, California, which has a larger Vietnamese community.

Themes

The show is set up with "melodramatic performances, catchy pop tunes, Vaudeville-esque comedy, and elaborate set designs", with a large emphasis of production focusing on expressing Vietnamese culture. In recent years, the rising popularity of K-pop and J-pop has applied creative pressure to Thúy Nga CEO Marie Tô, who responded by insisting on keeping with the Vietnamese style, commenting "Of course, K-pop is very big now…but we kind of want to create our own image. The singer[s] we produce, we want to create their image—not imitating K-pop or anything." The show has since been noted as not only a form of entertainment, but a "way to connect to a larger identity".

Production

Episodes

Main article: List of Paris by Night episodes

Crew

While most of the staff and crew remain the same from show to show, the directors may vary based on the filming location. Richard Valverde served as director for shows in Paris, Michael Watt directed shows in Canada and the United States, and Victor Fable directed in the United States. Notable directors include The Voice's Alan Carter, who directed six shows in the United States, CEO of production company A. Smith & Co. Kent Weed, of six shows in the United States, and NBC director Ron de Moraes, who directed five shows.

Starting with Paris by Night 34: Made in Paris, Shanda Sawyer worked as the production's main choreographer.

Filming

Originally, Paris by Night was filmed exclusively in Paris, with its intended target audience consisting of the Vietnamese population in France. However, by the late 1980s, the production moved to Orange County, California following demand from the more populous Vietnamese American community for the production to host shows in the United States and the fact that most Vietnamese language performers from the former South Vietnam lived in the country, with filming beginning in the country in the mid-1990s.

Except for a few tapings, Paris by Night is filmed live before an audience. The show has since been filmed in France, the United States, Canada, South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand. It has never been filmed in its native country, Vietnam, due to potential censorship and administrative procedures.

Video release

Since the beginning of the show's run, the producers have been releasing videos of the shows on VHS and, more recently, DVD. Since the digital age, however, Paris by Night sales have dropped significantly, and the company has since switched to a video on demand service and subscription services similar to Netflix. Full shows and music clips have been made on the official Thúy Nga YouTube channel, supported with ad revenue. The company has also allowed IP addresses in Vietnam to stream shows for free, countering the country's ban on the show's sales. Production coordinator John Nguyen states “All the copies in Vietnam are bootleg or through illegal downloads."

Venues

Demographics

When first produced in the 1980s, the show was made for Vietnamese people who had been living in France in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the show found a larger audience in the United States by the late 1980s. As a result of the digital age of the 21st century, the show has become more readily accessible online. According to Thúy Nga, the main demographic of the shows consisted of people under the age of 40. Presenter Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Duyên commented on the show's popularity in Vietnam, noting "We actually give the Vietnamese audience in Vietnam a very high level of entertainment unmatched by what they have now."

Controversies

As an overseas Vietnamese production and classified as a "reactionary cultural product" by the Vietnamese government, Paris by Night has not been authorised to be legally purchased in Vietnam, although unauthorised copies can be easily obtained on the black market. It sometimes features performances that are related to historical events, critical of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party. Even though Thúy Nga has never held any events in Vietnam, many artists from the company have returned to Vietnam to perform and participate in concerts and television shows, as the Vietnamese music industry develops.

In 2004, in Paris by Night 74, Hoang Oanh sang a song about Operation Passage to Freedom and a video montage was shown depicting beleaguered-looking northern Vietnamese fleeing to the anti-communist south during the partition of Vietnam, where they were met by Ngô Đình Diệm and his government's officials. This performance coincided with the 50th anniversary of the migration. In 2005, Paris by Night 77 was devoted to the 30th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, and included songs explicitly critical of communist rule, lack of human rights, accompanied by montages of the closing stages of the Ho Chi Minh Campaign, the flight of distressed anti-communist refugees, and interpretative dancing critical of VCP rule, such as throat-slitting gestures. It also included documentary segments on the progress of Vietnamese immigrant communities since 1975, including one segment praising American support for South Vietnam and Operation Babylift—the communist government views the babylift of orphans as "abduction"—and gave awards to Vietnamese humanitarians and American political officials who helped Vietnamese refugees, as well as the Republic of Vietnam Air Force fighter pilot Nguyễn Qúy An.

In Paris by Night 91, for the 40th anniversary of the Tet Offensive, one medley involved Quang Lê singing about the beauty of the former Huế, backed by female dancers, before an explosion knocks them and the bridge over the Perfume River to the ground, something perpetrated by the communists during the Battle of Huế during the Tet Offensive. Khánh Ly then proceeded to sing Trịnh Công Sơn's "Song for dead bodies" about the communist massacre at Huế, which killed thousands. A video montage of the massacre, inconsolable relatives and the subsequent exhumation and religious reburial was shown in the background during Khanh Ly's performance. The Vietnamese government and media outlets have criticised these programs for including content that is anti-communism and sensitive to Vietnam's history. Furthermore, all DVD copies of PBN 77 and 91 were ordered to be destroyed and forbidden from sales and distribution.

It is also the subject of some controversies among the overseas Vietnamese population due to what some perceive as its support of the current government of Vietnam. Paris by Night 40, with the topic of motherhood, featured a song by the composer Trịnh Công Sơn titled "Ca Dao Mẹ", which was performed by Don Hồ. The song included a reenactment of a bombing during the Vietnam War and showed a mother grieving over the death of her child and her husband. Some were offended by the song's antiwar message while others see this as an indictment against American and South Vietnamese troops even though the scene did not make it clear which side was doing the bombing. After a boycott, Thúy Nga reissued Paris by Night 40 with the bombing scenes removed. Paris by Night 40 is the most commercially successful production. The director of the segment, Lưu Huỳnh, later went on to direct The White Silk Dress in Vietnam, a film with similar themes.

In 2015, Vietnam Television was criticized for including a scene where Vietnamese singer Thu Phương performed in Paris by Night to introduce her as a judge and mentor in The Voice of Vietnam 2015 as the program was never authorized to be aired in Vietnam. In 2018, a protest occurred in Little Saigon, Westminster, California, U.S., organized by anti-communist Vietnamese community against Thuy Nga and Paris by Night program for cooperating with television and media companies in Vietnam.

Performers

Vietnamese male ===

• Bằng Kiều
• Don Hồ
• Dương Triệu Vũ
• Lâm Nhật Tiến
• Luong Tung Quang
• Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn
• Quang Lê
• Roni Trọng
• Thanh Bùi
• Tommy Ngô
• Tuấn Ngọc
• Trường Vũ
• Mạnh Quỳnh
• Trần Thái Hòa
• Nguyễn Hưng
• Trịnh Lam
• Mai Tiến Dũng
• Đan Nguyễn
• Hoài Lâm
• Ngọc Ngữ
• Tuấn Vũ
• Tuấn Phước

Vietnamese female

• Ái Vân
• Ánh Minh
• Diễm Liên
• Hồ Lệ Thu
• Hương Lan
• Hương Thủy
• Khánh Ly
• Lâm Thúy Vân
• Lynda Trang Đài
• Loan Châu
• Minh Tuyết
• Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Duyên
• Như Loan
• Như Quỳnh
• Tâm Đoan
• Thanh Hà
• Thủy Tiên
• Tóc Tiên
• Trần Thu Hà
• Mai Thiên Vân
• Quỳnh Vi
• Hạ Vy
• Diễm Sương
• Như Ý
• Myra Trần
• Hoàng Mỹ An
• Hoàng Nhung
• Châu Ngọc Hà
• Phương Yến Linh
• Hoàng Oanh
• Thanh Tuyền
• Phương Hồng Quế

International

Germany

• Boney M — Paris by Night 34

South Korea

These artists have performed in Paris by Night 81.

• Im Tae-kyung
• Jeon Hye-bin
• Kim Jong-kook

References

References

1. (2010-06-23). "We'll Always Have Paris By Night". San Francisco Weekly.
2. (2014-02-10). "For Vietnamese, 'Paris By Night' is a mix of Vegas, nostalgia and pre-war culture".
3. Karim, Karim Haiderali. (2003). "The Media of Diaspora". Psychology Press.
4. "Paris By Night 130 in Singapore - November 23 & 24, 2019".
5. Nguyen, Michael. (2015-11-12). "A Decades-Old Vietnamese Variety Show Goes Digital".
6. (9 October 2016). "Bí mật đằng sau việc sao hải ngoại đổ xô về Việt Nam "kiếm cơm"".
7. (28 May 2005). "Mầm độc của đĩa nhạc Thuý Nga Paris by Night 77".
8. (1 May 2008). "Trung tâm Thúy Nga Paris lại tự vấy bẩn váy mình".
9. Nguyen, Mimi Thi. (2007). "Alien Encounters". Duke University Press.
10. (12 May 2015). "VTV lại vướng scandal phát sóng Paris By Night".
11. (1 June 2018). "Little Saigon: Hàng trăm người biểu tình trung tâm Thúy Nga và VietFace TV".