Zhao Jinmai 's new drama "年中华年", although the plot of court politics was ridiculed by netizens as if it were a primary school student, the role setting of the eldest princess and the powerful minister still attracted the attention of many viewers.
heroine Li Rong is already the third eldest princess to shine in this year's film and television dramas.
From " Celebrating More Than Years ", " Mo Yuyunjian " to "Hua Hua Nian", whether they are female protagonists or not, the "eldest princesses" can successfully make the drama popular with their characters. In domestic entertainment costume dramas, she has passed the "primary stage of heroine" where the aura sweeps over everything. Today's costume dramas are looking for more diverse female roles - the "eldest princess" has become the best choice.
2024: The eldest princess gathers together
"The Year of the Flower" is a story about the rebirth of two protagonists: the eldest princess of Great Xia, Li Rong, her consort, and the first minister, Pei Wenxuan, had bad relations in middle age. Later, they both died and were reborn due to misunderstanding. After rebirth, Li Rong returned to before her younger brother Li Chuan ascended the throne. She was determined to protect her family in the struggle between the aristocratic family and the imperial power, and to help her younger brother ascend the throne.
Judging from the current feedback from the audience, even if measured by the standards of ancient puppets, its plotting and plotting is still childish and crude. In her previous life, Li Rong had no real strategy for the court, and what she relied on in her new life was not the experience and strategies accumulated in her previous life, but the loyal dog male protagonist of and her natural status as the eldest princess - this made the whole family The so-called court struggle in this drama will inevitably become a tool and stage for the male and female protagonists to spread their love.
In contrast, the image of Princess Wan Ning in "Mo Yu Yun Jian" is obviously much more three-dimensional. She once entered the enemy's country as a hostage on behalf of the prince, and was teased and humiliated by the enemy's royal dignitaries. When she danced like a dancer wearing light clothes, the glory of the princess was gone.
Later Princess Wanning returned to her homeland. She believed that she had sacrificed her life for the country and she deserved to enjoy the privileges of the eldest princess. She pursued power, blatantly interfered in politics, and ignored the emperor's power, because in her opinion, Dayan relied on herself. Only by sacrifice can it be preserved. Her resentment allowed her to interfere in government affairs with confidence, and because her emotions were so real and strong, this character became one of the main characters in the later period of "In the Clouds".
The eldest princess Li Yunrui in "Qing Yu Nian" is similar to Princess Wan Ning and has the ability to turn clouds and rain behind the court. She is eager for power. For the sake of power, she will use men at all costs and manipulate men to become A tool for your own power and gain. However, in the end the power struggle failed and he was demoted from the capital.
It is not difficult to find that due to her special status as a powerful person and her relatively marginal position in the court, the eldest princess in most costume dramas can only play subsidiary or villainous roles. However, even so, the eldest princess is still one of the few women who can reasonably enter the power struggle in the court. This also provides an explanation for the clustering of eldest princesses on the screen - even in costume dramas/ancient puppet dramas known for their "feudal" nature. I have to start trying to respond to the most popular female trait at the moment - ambition.
Chaotang: The career line of the eldest princess
The image of the eldest princess in traditional costume dramas is roughly the same as the Leyang eldest princess Shen Zhiyi in "Ning'an is Like a Dream".
"Ning'an Like a Dream" should be regarded as a "rebirth-like drama". The heroine Jiang Xuening has also "experienced" two lives. In the first life, Shen Zhiyi fell in love with Jiang Xuening, who looked like a man. After discovering the truth, she started to cause trouble for her. Later, she married a barbarian for the sake of national justice, but was designed to kill two people; In the second life, Jiang Xuening tried to change Shen Zhiyi's fate, but in the end Shen Zhiyi put the overall situation first, even though Jiang Xuening had done everything for her. After making the arrangements, she still embarked on the road to a foreign land .
Then Jiang Xuening did not give up rescuing the princess. In the end, the protagonist group invaded the enemy's royal court and welcomed the princess back to the court. During the subsequent turmoil in the court, Shen Zhiyi took charge of the Royal Black Armored Army and became the regent princess who was in power after the emperor's death.
From Shen Zhiyi’s body, we can see the inevitable existence of two traditional eldest princess characters.
First, it reflects the cruelty of the imperial family. Their marriage is usually a bargaining chip in power transactions. Especially when the country is in turmoil, the emperor's family must make sacrifices. As a female, the eldest princess will be the first to be sacrificed - no matter how favored or noble the princess was in the past.
Secondly, almost all of them have plots or possibilities of participating in government affairs. As mentioned earlier, the eldest princess is a marginal role in court struggles, but in special periods, such as when political power changes or when political power struggles, the eldest princess's status makes it possible to take charge of power.
However, within the framework of ancient puppets that was based on love in the past, the heroine's ambitions can be high, but they should not be too high. The highest position of imperial power that a heroine can reach is the queen. This also makes countless ancient puppet dramas with big heroines unable to escape from harem battles. No matter how big the promotion of the heroine is, its core is still female competition and the ambition of having a "safety card".
In "Ning'an Like a Dream", Jiang Xuening's first life was determined to be a queen since she was a child; in " Splendid Weiyang " the heroine Li Weiyang's final identity is the queen of a country. The entire story of " Dugu Tianxia " originates from a prophecy that "only Dugu can rule the world". No matter how the fate of all the daughters of the Dugu family changes, their destiny is to choose to assist a wise king and then ascend to the throne.
The eldest princess will never be able to enter this queen system, which also determines her identity. Either she is a villain who is greedy for power and eventually becomes miserable, or she is the best assistant who gives way to the overall situation.
However, today, as the "heroine-led drama" promotional label gradually fades out of people's sight, the public's demand for female roles has become more concrete and real. Ambition and freedom have become essential character attributes for the new style of "heroines". In the even more sinking short drama market, the eldest princess has long become a popular "career" for the heroine. With one hand, she has reached the pinnacle of power with her career, and with the other, she has become the real "big brother" of this era by pursuing love until death. Heroine" script.
shows ambition: How far can the character of the eldest princess go?
In the discussion about the eldest princess in "Mo Yu Yun Jian", the most common type of negative comments is that the eldest princess who cannot inherit the throne has no possibility of becoming an enemy's hostage - such discussions are actually based on reality. The possibility of the eldest princess turning black. However, no matter how unbearable the reason for the eldest princess's darkening is, it is just a set of reasonable excuses provided by the screenwriter for the eldest princess' pursuit of power.
Encountering humiliation in an enemy country is the fate that the eldest princess is most likely to encounter. is mentioned in "Mo Yu Yun Jian" and "Ning'an Like a Dream". The expression in "Spending Time" is more direct. The emperor of Daxia was worried about the expansion of the family's power, and had many suspicions about the prince Li Chuan and the eldest princess Li Rong, who were of the family's blood. Li Rong walked on thin ice in the court to protect his younger brother, but in the end the sister and brother separated.
Only then did Li Rong notice how miserable her brother who was born in the imperial family was living. She also began to openly express that she wanted to hold power in her own hands and would form her own power team, because only in this way could she protect the one she loved. people.
Will this be a new direction for the heroine?
In 2022, the short play "The Eldest Princess" became a small hit on the Internet. This short play was considered to be a mixture of ancient GB memes. gb refers to the heterosexual relationship model in which women are strong and men are weak. This model almost completely reverses the traditional gender model. research also pointed out that a typical feature of gb literature is that the female character is always on the active side, staring at the passive male character.
In "The Eldest Princess", the eldest princess is regarded as an absolute evil girl by the outside world. It is rumored that she is extravagant, licentious and kills innocent people indiscriminately. In order to collect evidence of her crime, the male protagonist was arranged by the emperor to enter the princess's mansion as a guard. From the perspective of the male protagonist, the audience can gradually discover the true appearance of the princess, while the male protagonist has to swing between the dual identities of lover and undercover agent. In the end, the plot was revealed. The emperor and the princess were on the same side, and they pretended to be against each other in order to deceive the prime minister.
The princess is always the one behind the scenes, and the male protagonist is always the "chess piece" in the game. In other words, the entanglement and pain of the male protagonist being loyal to the emperor and falling in love with the eldest princess is within the control of the eldest princess. The eldest princess, who is always the superior, does not actually need to confirm her subjectivity by becoming an empress.
Taking into account the audience and wide audience group of ancient puppet dramas, it is still difficult for mass-level dramas to achieve a true "reversal of the traditional relationship between the sexes", and can only make a balance between the two. For example, the eldest princess Li Rong in "The Year of the Flower" has a higher status in the court than the male protagonist Pei Wenxuan, and her personality is also more powerful. But she is always in a passive position in the relationship, needing guidance and guidance from Pei Wenxuan, and their relationship also needs to be driven by Pei Wenxuan.
All those driving behaviors are the "sugar spots" in the play.
Therefore, for ancient puppet dramas with emotions as the main narrative, the biggest label of the eldest princess is still her identity. But we can already see the multi-faceted role of the eldest princess that is tried to be shown in different dramas: the eldest princess in "Hua Hua Nian" has reached the position of the heroine, and can show her ambitions without using her cruel past as proof of her reputation. ;
The eldest princess in "Mo Yu Yun Jian" finally faced her father's selfishness and hypocrisy, and realized patricide in both psychological and behavioral senses.
As there are more and more images of the eldest princess in film and television dramas, the audience will have higher and higher requirements for the three-dimensionality of the characters, and the exploration of the image of the eldest princess will become deeper and deeper. In addition to entering the court in a grand manner, it is really exciting to see how the image of the eldest princess transforms and grows in the new era.
