author | Xie Minghong
editor | Li Chunhui
Why is he arresting the mistress again? When people with insight make such complaints, we must admit that if it weren't for that person's disgusting or ingenious mistress, this drama's hot memes would not be able to get in front of us. These days, the budget for publicity and distribution has been reduced, and how difficult it is to make a drama popular. Xiaosan has to memorize too many KPIs by himself.
So Chinese dramas have a paradigm of family description: the wife wakes up sleepily, the attentive husband has prepared iced American breakfast for her (but he doesn’t know how to have Chinese breakfast), and the daughter mumbles and asks her father to send her to school. The wife started a beautiful day again, but unexpectedly found a hair that did not belong to her in her husband's clothes. As soon as the husband in a suit and ties went out, he sent a text message: "See you at the same place."
As for the follow-up development, whether it is catching the mistress or catching the mistress. It is natural for housewives to enter the workplace again. When Chinese dramas focus on happy marriages and considerate husbands, the creators must have the belief to tear them up. Only by destroying false happiness can we create true happiness. The best way to destroy it is to add extra members to the family.
's "If Running Is My Life" just concluded, and the "third child" Chu Zhijuan once again showed us the power and necessity of non-staff members. The phrase "You're really hungry" has become synonymous with hunger. Not to mention the "cheesey" flirting scene, which shocked the hearts of the audience. With this hot meme, the show directly opened up the situation in short videos, and the reputation of "Lao San" spread all over the world. The emergence of the old baby
also helped the scumbag man in Chinese dramas to understand and reverse his case. Facing her, Xu Huanshan said, "The boat has passed the Ten Thousand Mountains", Chen Junsheng said, "This third child is extraordinary", and Qin Feng exclaimed, "I like the cheese flavor." In horizontal comparison, there is also a sense of liberation in epilepsy. What we want is to break stereotypes, and what we want is to dig into the pain points of human nature.
I would like to say that the most indispensable role in Chinese dramas is the mistress. The emotions and actions of the male and female protagonists are always hindered by some pure love fantasies and always have a certain etiquette character. Since the mistress and the cheater have decided how to have fun, what they reflect is the most primitive desire, the truest human nature, and can stimulate the simplest moral discussion.
It is also in the continuous discussion of mistresses that people have re-united their self-understanding and social consensus on intimate relationships, the institution of marriage, and women's choices. In today's period of moral panic, how can it not be considered a reconstruction of mainstream values?
The temptation of a mistress
"I just want to see what he likes", this is a common mentality of a wife after discovering that her husband has cheated on her. Not only is he angry, but he also sees the problems of marriage through his mistress: What can I not provide him, but what can his mistress provide him.
Take Chu Zhijuan and Qin Feng from "If Running Is My Life" as an example. Chu Zhijuan is five or six years older than the man, and her looks are not as good as those of her original wife, An Xin. But her appearance relieved Qin Feng's inner depression. An An was violent because of his disability. Qin Feng took care of his wife all day long and felt that wearing the mask of "good man" was too tiring. It just so happens that Chu Zhijuan also has a mother who has been bedridden for many years and has a bad temper, so their situations are similar.
In the past, you would never accept such nonsense. But the scene in the rain made people feel that they were quite pitiful. The two people lingering in front of the bed of a long-term illness seemed to have found a companion in the mist.
It can be said that few men in Chinese dramas cheat just for sex. Most of the time, they want to seek approval, and mistresses can often provide emotional value by prescribing the right medicine. In " Thirty Only ", Lin Youyou treats Xu Huanshan as a big boy and supports his dream of fireworks. But back home, his wife Gu Jia kept issuing KPIs for climbing up to the upper class society.
Gu Jia asked Xu Huanshan to fast and drink only vegetable juice for dinner, just like the queen in "The Legend of Zhen Huan" who told Da Ju not to drink the fourth bowl of old duck soup. The temptation of a mistress is essentially a downward freedom. You are not allowed to eat or drink anything, but others can make it at Mistress's place.
The weakness of human nature is that it is easy to be tempted. Those parts that are tightly restricted by the wife can easily fall if left unchecked by the mistress.My wife cried and said that I take care of everything so well for you, why would I still cheat on you? The husband may still be secretly complaining about why he thinks the mistress is good, because she doesn't care about anything.
In "My First Half of Life ", Ling Ling won Chen Junsheng not because she was more beautiful than Luo Zijun, but because she gave him the "illusion" that he was more family-oriented and better at living. He ran away from his marriage because he felt that as a middle-class man, he could not afford Luo Zijun's money. But I didn’t expect that after being with the mistress, the other party’s financial burden would also be quite heavy. Life has become more prudent, and the quality of life has really declined.
There is an emotional deficit between the mistress and the eldest wife. The aunt is usually pressurized, and the mistress is usually decompressed. The essence is that their positions are different. In Chinese dramas, there are often plots where the mistress immediately becomes annoying to the men as soon as they take the position, because they suddenly also have the mentality of a grandma.
In short, the mistress reveals the problems of gender relations and marriage relations, and also shows that these problems cannot be solved once and for all, and can only be constantly sought for dynamic balance. Idol dramas are always answering the question of what women want, and what men want can only be glimpsed in the image of mistresses.
The mistress and the "independent woman"
In early Chinese dramas, except for Qiong Yao who had deep sympathy for the mistress, the mistress was always regarded as a family destroyer and the target of moral criticism. The coquettish Ellie in " The Temptation of Going Home " uses all means to gain power but is confident. In "The Three Daughters of the Xia Family", Xia Youyou firmly believes that everyone should rely on their own abilities in love, and gives positive psychological hints before becoming the third daughter: "Why should Yang Zhenzhen fight with me? She is just a daughter selling chicken rice!"
But these five years , six years of drama, the image of the mistress has been changing, and the audience's attitude has become ambiguous and even unconsciously substituted. Hard Candy is willing to ask a question: Is it possible for the classic screen image of a mistress to be combined with the image of an independent woman that has been highly regarded in recent years?
Wang Manni in "Thirty Only" should be regarded as a contradictory stage. She was "tried", but she had inner struggles after the truth was revealed. She clearly disliked her ex-boyfriend for not being able to afford luxury goods, but she appealed for pure love when she broke up with Tony Leung. The dilemma lies in: talking about money with someone who has no money, and talking about love with someone who has no love.
Lin Youyou is on the other extreme. Being with Xu Huanshan is purely about love. In the eyes of many viewers today, a woman without career ambition is more terrifying than destroying other people's families. Even if you are just trying to make money, you are still a sane person. Don't rush to post anything, Wang Baochuan wants to call her "sister".
The one who is more crazy than Lin Youyou is Shi Yue in " Wife's New World ". Unlike other mistresses who are docile and submissive, Shi Yue will torture men and let everyone know that there will be retribution for abandoning the first wife. Faced with grievances, she never gets angry but goes crazy. Although he is a villain, he gained the audience's favor because of the villains' interactions with each other.
The relatively new mistress images are Chu Zhijuan in "If Running Is My Life" and Jiang Xi in " Good Things Come in Pairs ". They do not love men wholeheartedly, but have more plans for themselves, which can be seen as an improvement in the image of women.
Chu Zhijuan is a rare independent female mistress. She is Qin Feng's leader in her career and takes care of her sick mother alone in the family. If she hadn't been in third place, she would have been an independent woman in the politically correct sense. What's even more cool is what she said when she broke up with Qin Feng:
"Do you think I'm older than you and not as good-looking as you, so I should just sit there obediently and be picked on by your family?", "Sorry, since After my mother died, I made up my mind. In this life, I will never forgive her for all her faults just because she is an elder." "I am not another An Xin, I am myself, and I want to be myself. I Living in this life is not to meet everyone's expectations."
Putting aside the identity of the third party, Chu Zhijuan's words are really sober in the world, and they feel better than the highlight lines of the protagonists. She did not follow the old path of the mistress in the past and became the new main wife, washing her hands and making soup while being teased by her mother-in-law.When she clearly stated "I want to be myself", she had completed her self-salvation. The complex mistress image of
also makes it difficult for the public to comment. Morally it should be criticized, but from a human perspective it is inevitable to agree with it. This is exactly what Chinese dramas need, real people, more three-dimensional ordinary people. It's a pity that the only characters who can act according to their own desires are mistresses, or criminals who end up in jail.
The mistress is a mirror
"If she were not a mistress, she would be really free and easy." Although the Internet is understanding, it does not mean the acceptance of the mistress's behavior in real life. But the image of a mistress can indeed help people re-examine their marriage and themselves.
Because the image of the third party is in a gray area and its topicality can be extended in many ways, it has always been regarded as a viewing tool by Chinese dramas. How to photograph a humane and topical third person, Mr. Hard Candy believes that there are two main aspects that need to be grasped:
First, they are live people with complex personalities. The characters will act and think differently when faced with different situations. , rather than being static and black and white. In "The First Half of My Life", Ling Ling has both love and plans for Chen Junsheng. She needs a man in her life to share the financial pressure, and Chen's appearance is a good choice. But we can't say that Chen Junsheng was just Ling Ling's meal ticket, because when she finally found out that Chen Junsheng regretted marrying her, she felt heart-wrenching regret and sent an email to the company admitting her crime.
Perhaps what the third party first fell in love with was material conditions such as a house and a car, but after a long period of love and care, it was inevitable that he would fall in love with the man. Miss Zhifu in "An Jia" refuses to return Mr. Kan's property. The fundamental reason is not to make a fortune, but because she feels that her feelings have been let down.
Huang Jiayi, the daughter of a wealthy family in "Good Things Come in Twos", married a scumbag despite her family's objections in the early stage of her relationship. Later, after discovering the other person's disguise, she decided to divorce and let the scumbag clean up and leave the house. Especially after giving birth to a child, she has the confidence and financial resources to be a single mother, changing the past pattern of mistresses ending up miserable. This reversal shows that people are complex animals, and so are mistresses. It is impossible to be purely in love or just to get women.
Just as ex-wife Lin Shuang said to Huang Jiayi, "There are moral rights and wrongs between us, but there is no win or lose, because we both got what we wanted." When the audience was still wondering why the aunt didn't hate the mistress Well, the drama has set things right and explained: Instead of hating the mistress, it is better to point the finger at the scumbag.
Secondly, the drama might as well place women in a broader social environment to interpret it. They are not just "mistresses", but also mothers, daughters, and individuals with rights such as dignity, equality, freedom, and self-realization.
In "Good Things Come in Twos", Jiang Xi and his first wife Lin Shuang partnered up to make money, which can be regarded as an imaginary reconciliation; similarly, in "Brilliant Turn", Sophie also settled the differences with her mistress Ding Manman, and Ding Manman even submitted the boyfriend's marriage. The criminal evidence was used to complete the counter-killing. In more and more dramas, the wife and the mistress can form an alliance to fight against the scumbag, instead of engaging in female competition with no economic benefits.
Aesthetics should be independent and creation should be free. If we can sum up any new consensus from the changes in the image of mistresses, it is that mistresses who focus on making money are sober ("Good things come in pairs"), and mistresses who only want love are crying for help ("Thirty Only") , the love brain is already at the bottom of the contempt chain, and the advantages of the marriage system are becoming increasingly difficult to discover.
