◎Jade-like stone September 10, 2024, is the 40th Teachers’ Day in our country. On this day, the TV series "When the Mountain Flowers Are Blooming" based on the deeds of Zhang Guimei, the principal of Huaping Girls' High School in Lijiang, Yunnan, the recipient of the "July 1st Me

◎Jade-like stone

September 10, 2024, is the 40th Teachers' Day in our country. On this day, the TV series "山花 Blooming Time" based on the deeds of Zhang Guimei, the principal of Huaping Girls' High School in Lijiang, Yunnan, the winner of the "July 1st Medal", was broadcast simultaneously on CCTV 1 and Tencent Video. The show received rave reviews when it first aired, with viewers saying, "This version is just right." Nearly two months after it aired, about 140,000 Douban netizens gave it a high score of 9.4. As of now, it is the domestic TV series with the best reputation this year.

At the same time, there are several female-themed film and television productions this year that have also achieved good results. At a time when attention to gender issues continues to rise, we might as well use this as an opening to observe several ways of telling "her" story.

Why is "When the Mountain Flowers Are Blooming" so beautiful?

What's so good about "When the Mountain Flowers Are Blooming"? Some commentators believe that it continues the tradition from left-wing literature to socialist aesthetics: an advanced figure with firm beliefs, optimism and practical ability, infecting the people around him with his own qualities and actions, thereby overcoming difficulties and obstacles together, Toward a brighter future.

This is indeed the case. The best and most touching thing about this drama is the extremely vivid and lively female portraits.

Female group portrait narratives are not uncommon in female-themed works in recent years. From "Twenty Not Confused" and " Thirty Only " to " Old Girlfriends " and " Fireworks ", it has almost become a creative ideas. But "When the Mountain Flowers Are Blooming" is also a drama about heroes and models. Hero-model dramas, as the name suggests, should be centered on the heroes and models themselves and highlight advanced individuals. However, the series did not focus entirely on Zhang Guimei as an individual. Instead, it took Zhang Guimei as the center and told about her female students, her young female colleagues, her like-minded female friends, and even just one person. The story of the relationship between ethnic minority women and female stall owners.

More importantly, their stories do not develop in parallel in their own worlds (as shown in most urban female group dramas), but are closely related and support each other in the vast social life. Together they accomplished an unimaginable feat. In this sense, the series establishes a female community. This kind of female community has never existed in the left-wing literary tradition. Even "Red Detachment of Women" actually mainly tells the heroic story of Wu Qionghua alone. Or, it can be traced back to Xiao Hong's "The Field of Life and Death", in which Wang Po, Jin Zhi, Yueying and Ma Mianpo also formed a group portrait of women. However, at the time, it was criticized by some literary theorists for lacking the typicality of the characters. Such a female community is exactly what countless ordinary women in real life are experiencing. It is also what countless female creators, female workers, and even female consumers are connecting and working hard to create with each other.

Compared with the movie " I am a mountain " with the same theme, which will be released in 2023, the drama's "When the mountain flowers bloom, she laughs in the bushes", allowing "her" to hide behind the "mountain flowers", may be better than The movie "I Am a Mountain" is smarter and a choice more suitable for the current audience and market. Therefore, we can easily see that the series has learned from the movie's previous mistakes. Through movie feedback, if the audience didn't like it, the series was simply axed.

At the same time, we found that the series has added many elements that young audiences love, such as talented girlfriends who inspire each other, a hilarious leadership duo, and lines about girls being "free to be themselves."

What is the origin of "her" story?

Looking back, this year many female-themed film and television dramas have attracted a lot of attention and discussion. The first is "My Altay" in late spring. This miniseries, adapted from a collection of essays by writer Li Juan, soothed the increasingly anxious hearts of the audience with its vast natural scenery and warm and lively friendships between women.

Then in early summer, after " My First Half of Life " and " Golden Years ", another drama series " The Story of Rose " adapted from Yi Shu's work became popular. Although the audience began to pay attention to the appearance and performance of "Fairy Sister" Liu Yifei, it still aroused a lot of discussions about the plot and characters.

Entering autumn, "'s Determination to Run away " directed by Yin Lichuan and starring Yongmei was released. If there are any so-called "hot hits" this year, then this film adapted from the true story of "@50岁aunt's self-driving tour" should be one of them.

We might as well look at these film and television works through the framework of literary history, and we will find that they can almost correspond to several main lines in the history of modern Chinese literature. In "The Determination to Run Away", Li Hong gradually awakens after experiencing half a lifetime of depression and hard work, and finally leaves her family to seek another way of life. This is the most familiar female image for hundreds of years - the runaway Nora. This image from Ibsen's works traveled across the ocean from distant Norway and entered China through " New Youth ", the most important position of the New Culture Movement. Nora is not only the starting point of the Chinese women's liberation movement, but also one of the origins of the enlightenment narrative.

In addition to enlightenment and the left wing, "The Story of the Rose" and "My Altay" represent two other relatively hidden threads. The former points to the popular romance that spread from Hong Kong and Taiwan after the establishment of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, of which Yi Shu himself is a representative. Although urban women like Huang Yimei also grow up stumbling between the honey and thorns of love, they are ultimately different from Qiong Yao's romantic heroines - they believe in love, but do not indulge in it.

"My Altay" points to a perspective represented by Fei Ming, Shen Congwen, Wang Zengqi and others: to observe the dialectical relationship between movement and stillness, civilization and wilderness, modernity and tradition in a more natural and inner way. . This perspective does not conflict with enlightenment, but it does not completely overlap. Li Wenxiu, a young literary girl who returned from the city to her mother Zhang Fengxia's canteen, actually broke into Altay as an outsider. She had frictions and discords with the local herders, and also formed friendships with the girls on the grassland. In the end, she walked towards the city again, but the grassland was no longer a barbaric land, and she also re-understood her mother's choice.

Shouldn’t independent women embrace love?

The interesting thing is that people actually have a hard time accepting new stories - although we usually don't want to admit it. Part of the pleasure of reading and watching comes from familiarity, because familiarity is the basis of understanding. Only by finding the origin of these women's stories and marking their starting points can we know exactly how far we have come. Of course, being able to carry out such a counterpoint does not mean that the current concepts and creative techniques are still stuck a hundred years ago. On the contrary, the audience's dissatisfaction with some of these long-standing narrative patterns reflects changes in concepts. The most prominent one is the changing attitude of contemporary audiences, especially young female audiences, towards love in female stories.

For example, "Huang Yimei has everything, why should she suffer the pain of love?" ("The Story of Rose") "How could Zhang Fengxia suddenly bring back a man? Is this plot necessary?" ("My Altay") For another example, it is also the story of Zhang Guimei. The audience is also strongly dissatisfied with the excessive scenes of Zhang Guimei's deceased husband in the movie "I Am a Mountain".

To some extent, this is certainly an improvement. This means that we begin to be wary of the idea that traditional romantic narratives try to convey - that love is the highest or even the only value in women's lives (this is a typical gendered value). Because we began to pay attention to: when love is implemented into an intimate relationship and a marriage relationship, those inevitable games in daily life.

But at the same time, we may have fallen into another trap.We consciously stand on the standpoint of new women who “abandon the supremacy of love” and make the following criticism: It is not great enough to describe Principal Zhang’s spiritual motivation as love for her deceased husband and persistence in their common ideals. The dwarfing and narrowing of Principal Zhang’s “big self”. However, one of the most insightful concepts is not exactly "personlispolitical" - putting love, marriage and family into the private sphere to distinguish it from public spheres such as political activities, market production, and social life, and from The logic that housework is not productive labor and therefore does not need to be paid is the same, and it is precisely the former that is the prerequisite and guarantee for the latter.

If we refuse to accept that domestic violence is a private matter, why will love be "inferior" because of its "private nature"? Similarly, if we refuse to agree that love is the highest or even the only value in women's lives, is it equivalent to thinking that women should stay away from love or even lust? Why can't Zhang Fengxia feel that she needs the company of a member of the opposite sex at some point in her life? Why can't Principal Zhang have an unbreakable affection for her deceased husband?

may further ask, if we regard "fear of loneliness and occasional weakness" as women's shortcomings, then whether the heroine who appears in every story should have no weaknesses and dark sides, is it absolutely correct? What about women? In fact, we have heard too many stories about what kind of women we "should" be; what is really lacking is the story of what kind of women we "can" be.

Source: Beijing Youth Daily