Shenrancaijing original
author | Li Qiuhan
editor | Wei Jia
Douban score 2.1, a score that cannot be lower.
's recently popular urban emotional drama "Gentlemen in the 8th District of " (hereinafter referred to as "The 8th District of the East"), a series of greasy and embarrassing plots aroused heated discussion among the audience, and the Douban score fell below the previous "Dream Chasing". Showbiz", which has become the lowest-scoring film and television work in history, can be described as an annual phenomenon-level bad drama.
It is a work created by actor Zhang Han as the producer, screenwriter and starring, and it revolves around the lives and emotions of four urban young men. "A warm, healing, funny and top story", Zhang Han introduced on Weibo before the broadcast. However, the market reaction after the broadcast is obviously a little different from the description.
The audience is indeed "up", but they are angry. "I don't understand, but I'm shocked", "After four years of polishing, the return is still a draft", "Can Douban introduce a sporadic function for it", social media is full of such negative comments.
Tucao Firepower focuses on the plot and lines it offends women. The most discussed plots are: when the heroine slipped, the hero accidentally pulled off the heroine's underwear; when the hero hugged the heroine, he put his hand on the actor's chest; the four leading actors dated foreign beauties , the ridicule is "win glory for the country". Some lines also made the audience feel uncomfortable, and there were many suggestive words such as "thin looks good, fat is easy to use"; "I don't wear a thing". The various slots of
make the audience unable to resist the sincere "fire". The topic entries about the show on Weibo, with the words "greasy", "outrageous" and "suspended", are mostly read over 100 million.
annual bad drama "Eighth District", how can it be so thunderous? Where the hell is
?
"Eighth District of the East" set off a flashpoint in the public opinion field because there are a lot of plots full of sexual innuendos and offensive to women. For example, when the male and female protagonists climbed the 20-story building, panting, and the man was tidying up his shirts, he was caught by the boss and asked, "What are you doing?" The male protagonist replied ambiguous, "We're chatting," and the boss responded, "It's very passionate." ;The hero and heroine imitated the plot of "My Sassy Girl" and exchanged shoes. The heroine said, "I have something on my body that I didn't wear." The hero pretended to be curious and asked, "What exactly are you not wearing today?"... That's not all of the show's problems. The difference between
and ordinary domestic bad dramas is that it not only has routines and suspension problems that are often complained about, but at the same time, due to the lack of professional ability of the main creator, there are defects in the plot setting, plot advancement, and line processing.
's previous label of "Eighth District" was the male version of "Thirty Only" and " Ode to Joy ". This type of group portrait story mainly revolves around several representative characters who are close to reality. Almost each of them is equipped with a career line and emotional line. The framework is simple, and it depends on how the creator fills in the "flesh and blood".
Let's first look at the plot settings. The drama selects four protagonists. Among them, the male protagonist Tong Yu played by Zhang Han is the chief person in charge of autonomous driving of a company, Guo Chong played by Du Chun is a university professor, and Xiang Xiaofei played by Jingchao is a luxury. Product sales, Li Jason played by Huang Youming and is a chef. Except for Zhang Han who continues to play the elite character, the other people's settings are basically ordinary people, which are in line with reality.
But when it comes to the extension of the four-person career line and emotional line, problems begin to appear.
commented by industry insiders that the emotional settings of the four are beautified from a male perspective. The engineer Tong Yu and the female CEO flirted a lot, the sales Xiang Xiaofei married the female president, the chef Li Jason fell in love with his idol blogger, and the dull university professor Guo Chong started a love triangle with a female teacher and a female student. The people they interact with are excellent, but the purpose is not to portray women, but more like to highlight the charm of these four men. However, just like the routine of "a domineering president falls in love with a workplace idiot" in female urban dramas, beautification is not necessarily a problem, nor is it what makes the audience the most angry.
z0The source of lines with male gazes that often appear in z dramas / Douban
The bigger problem is that when it comes to using lines and scenes to advance the plot, the creator's flaws are fully exposed.
For example, in terms of emotional advancement, it adopts idol drama routines, and the emotional entanglement between the male and female protagonists is a happy enemy + contract love model. How did
make the two of them happy friends? Conflict needs to be created. So there was a scene where the male and female protagonists were lying on the same bed, woke up and looked at each other's height, weight, measurements, and accidentally fell down and kissed, and even the male protagonist accidentally unbuttoned the girl in public. The plot of the main underwear belt. From the audience's point of view, this is all outrageous or even offensive content added by the main creator to the routine plot. How does
let the male and female lead realize contract love? The way it is handled in the play is simple and rude. As the CEO of a large company, the female protagonist pretends to be a couple with the male protagonist because she wants to avoid the harassment and pursuit of the company boss. This reason is really unconvincing.
In more detailed scenes, in order to promote emotional warming, there are many unreasonable plots.
For example, the male and female protagonists are going to be late for work. As the CEO who formulates the company's rules, the female protagonist doesn't want to be late. Seeing that the elevator hasn't come down yet, she decides to climb the stairs in a hurry. Therefore, the two climbed up the twenty floors and finished the climb. Look at each other and smile. But according to common sense, the time to climb the twenty-story stairs is obviously longer than that of the elevator. Another plot of
is that when the protagonists start a business and open a store, when the manpower is not enough, the male and female protagonists decide to deliver food by themselves, but the distance is as long as 32 kilometers and there is traffic jam, and it takes three or four hours to get there by taxi, so the two decide to ride a bicycle together. . 32 kilometers is faster to take a taxi, or is it faster to ride a bicycle? It doesn't matter, anyway, the two of them had a rare relaxing romantic moment.
is specific to the lines, and the screenwriting skills are not enough. A senior producer told Shen Ran that to truly judge the ability of a screenwriter, it depends on the lines. And this is where "Eighth District" has been complained the most. The lines in the
play have two characteristics, one is to play side balls, and the other is to "do not speak human words".
Source of dialogue between male characters and foreign beauties/ Douban
In addition to the controversial "rainy night, cold iron", such unintelligible dialogues, there are also many lines related to famous quotes and famous books in the play . For example, in episode 6, the hero and heroine came home from get off work in the middle of the night and sighed when they saw the rising sun, "We are like travelers with keys. As said in "Folding Beijing", the old world has been folded , waiting for a new world to unfold". In the two or three minutes of dialogue, celebrities and works such as Ginsburg, Chekhov and also appeared. But the audience complained on the barrage and didn't understand a word. Why is
so bad? The reason why
has such a plot is related to the creative ability of the main creator, the aesthetic ability of and the lack of life experience.
Zhang Han, who is the producer, screenwriter, and starring, led the birth of this work.
started writing the script on July 1, 2017. On that day, Zhang Han posted a Weibo with the text "Ready" (ready), a picture, and a pen with the words "Like Us". The same" (the alias of "Gentlemen of the East Eighth District") and other words. If this is the starting point, Zhang Han has indeed done it for four or five years.
When Zhang Han started to write the script in 2017, the source of Weibo / Weibo screenshot
did not doubt Zhang Han's "heart" in making this drama. In the past three years, he has talked about "Eighth District" on many public occasions. In an interview with the media,
mentioned that he wrote the script with the writing team. In the variety show, he said that after the director has finished editing once, he will stare at it again and decide the cut. He also mentioned that, for the sake of this drama, he had to work around the clock for 24 hours, personally watch the later stage, and even let the snowflakes fall on the eyelashes. Judging from the cameo Liu Tao, Huang Yi, Yang Shuo and other actors, Zhang Han also mobilized a large number of friends in the circle for this drama.
zThe working moments of Zhang Han recorded in the 175z
variety show reminded that later snowflakes should fall on the eyelashes, not on the shoulders.
has obvious shortcomings in terms of creative ability, from actor to cross-border screenwriter and producer, as a newcomer, Zhang Han. Taking the phenomenon of narration and flashback narrative often appearing in "Eighth District" as an example, senior screenwriter Lao Chen told Shen Ran that a common sense in scriptwriting is to use narration and flashbacks with caution. "It's not that it can't be used, but it should be used with caution. Visual works test how to use pictures to express events. Some immature creators, when they can't use pictures to express content, will use narration, and they are not very good at expressing emotions. When laying the groundwork, use flashback."
Secondly, his aesthetics and cognition also have an impact on the series.
Before creating this work, Zhang Han played a lot of domineering president roles, and there were a lot of domineering golden sentences both in and out of the play. For example, "This fish pond was contracted by you", "The elevator that took you up just now, including the 153,800-square-meter Mingyuan Building that you are stepping on now, all belong to me, Tang Mingxuan!" In the variety show, he said the sentence "First love with me is the greatest happiness in her life". When
was interviewed by the media before, Zhang Han mentioned that the protagonist Tong Yu is a software development engineer because he likes Iron Man, and he also said that this self-created character has a lot of his shadow on him, "It's funny. , persistence, tenacity" is his definition of Tongyu's character. The lines in the play are indeed "very Zhang Han", such as "As long as I live, I will never lose", "Want to be my girlfriend, you have to compromise and take care of me" and so on.
In such so-called realist works, this kind of "me-respect" tyrants can easily be criticized as greasy by the audience if they are not handled well. Coupled with some offending women's plots, it will lead to bad things. comment.
Some people attribute the episode's problems to actor crossovers. In fact, such crossovers were very common in the film and television industry before. For example, Zhang Ziyi , Chen Jianbin , etc. have all made movies before, and they did not cause such a big controversy. Zhou Xingchi was only an actor at first, and then he transformed into self-directed and self-acted.
In the final analysis, the key to determining the performance of a play is whether the creator who has absolute control over the project has sufficient professional ability and aesthetic ability.
In a report introducing his experience in creating "East Eight District", Zhang Han said, "The actor's struggle to the end is not about talent, nor skill, but knowledge, knowledge and experience. Being an actor takes time to accumulate. .” Obviously, content creation too. Will
have the next bad drama?
In the final analysis, "East Eight District" was scolded, one because the plot was suspended, and the other because it offended women. Will there be another drama like this in the industry? The answer may not be optimistic.
On the one hand, suspension scripts are still being produced, which is determined by the professional ability of the creators. The industry is mixed, and a large number of creators are too far from the lives of ordinary people.
, a senior screenwriter told Shen Ran, "Creation requires life experience." Many creators have not worked after graduating from college, and they can only rely on "thinking" to write scripts. "For example, in the episode of 'untwisting the underwear' that was complained about in this drama, the creator's purpose is to create unhappiness between the male and female protagonists and become a pair of enemies. In fact, there are many ways to cause unhappiness in real life, but the creator has no life With experience as the support, we can only imagine the plot, and such a shocking plot appeared." The creator of
lacks life experience, so he will splicing and assembling the scenes he has seen in film and television works, "Maybe the characters' occupations are different, The plots are different, but the content is connected. This is also the reason why the current urban dramas are becoming more routine," he said.
On the other hand, the cognition of creators is also uneven.
It is worth noting that most of the urban emotional dramas developed from a male perspective in recent years have also been evaluated as greasy and suspended. For example, in the previous "Welcome" starring Huang Xuan , the male protagonist is a security guard, crazyThe way to pursue a beautiful and rich heroine is WeChat bombing, stalking, approaching each other's family members without consent, touching each other directly, etc. The audience complains that there is no sense of boundaries. The
Douban score is 3.4 points, and the male urban drama " If Time Can Turn Back " starring Jin Dong is similar. In the play, the three frustrated middle-aged men went crazy in order to survive the mid-life crisis, and there were unreasonable plots. There were also many men staring at the plot setting.
They all caused complaints when they were on the air. The reason why this phenomenon occurs is still related to the cognition of the creator.
The context of the era has changed.
In the drama market with female audiences as the main body, the cognition of such works is still in the past, and the content is not in line with the times.
, even if it is a previous hit drama, may be complained about as a male fantasy. For example, in "Struggle" 20 years ago, the male protagonist Lu Tao was pursued regardless of the rich family's daughter Mi Lai, and a rich father was airborne. More than ten years ago, Chen Sicheng played the role of the rich second generation in " Beijing Love Story " written, directed and acted by himself, and successfully chased after the goddess, while the gold worshiper played by Yang Mi was abandoned and obtained infertility end.
Today, people's cognition has changed, but on the creative side, some creators are still stagnant.
Works such as "Eighth District" have been criticized as having a male gaze, and some people have called them aggrieved, thinking that in female emotional dramas "little milk dog" and "little wolf dog" are set up and "the overbearing president only serves me" The plot, also with a female gaze.
, a screenwriter who pays attention to women's issues, told Shen Ran that the so-called "gazing perspective" itself is not worth advocating, and neither men nor women should become consumer goods. Men, no matter how good they are, they will not be accepted."
In her opinion, the problem with works such as "East Eighth District" is that "women are regarded as trophies of men's competition", "women are not objects of admiration, but objectified prizes, so there is a reason for 'making foreign beauties for the country'. Glory' is a saying".
She mentioned that the audience's dislike of this is not "feminist". "The foundation of modern consciousness is the self, who am I, what I pursue, and what I want to do," Liu Qing said. At present, the reason why many film and television works are so twisted about women's plots is "because many creators themselves They have not solved this problem, perhaps due to the influence of their educational background and life experience, they lack imagination of independent women and how a woman can realize her self-worth.”
is in line with the current era, producing film and television works that respect women, and have It doesn't mean that every work should put women's roles in an important position, but it should be narrated on the basis of respecting women. "Eighth District" obviously did not do it. If the professional ability and cognition of the creators of
cannot be improved, such spit-out works will not disappear.
* The title image is from "Gentlemen of East Eighth District". At the request of the interviewee, except for Liu Qing, the rest are pseudonyms.
