Is it the return of realism that every plot can be on "hot search"
Today, the standard to measure a good work is not only an aesthetic yardstick, but also data is becoming a new element. With the rise of a number of topic dramas, it may be an opportunity for us to face up to this problem.
Since the beginning of this year, the popularity of a number of topic dramas, represented by Nothing But Thirty, has continued the new formula gradually explored by domestic urban dramas from Ode to Joy to Anjia, that is, the "realistic background color" of the dramas has been translated into "hot spots and pain points" at the practical level, adding a new element to the weight of "explosion" in addition to IP and stars: social controversial topics. This kind of drama series revolves around family of origin, intimate relationship and other times-derived propositions. The drama starts from the realistic predicament and ends with a compensatory solution in imagination. The part that asks the question is real, the part that solves the problem is suspended, and the behavior of "loyalty to reality" is accompanied by the deformation and re-covering of "reality", which is artificially extracted and re-injected into the work. This kind of drama can be collectively called topic drama.
"Twenty is not confused, only thirty, and I am confused in the middle." Rather than chasing the drama, the audience is looking for the resonance of life in a social news plot, having a discussion from a distance, and finally completing emotional catharsis and ritual solution. So, is the popularity of topic drama "real" beginning to return to the screen? Or is it the victory of another "cool drama"? For the "230" phenomenon, the two may be established at the same time: to complete the realistic proposition with the background of cool drama.
What is fascinating is not the plot itself, but the "debate body" with its own discussion heat.
The seven female characters in the two plays "Twenty Don’t Confuse" and Nothing But Thirty record their contemporary lives, from the ordinary girls in "20+", the female anchor in online celebrity and the female staying at home for two yuan, to the full-time wives in "30+", the struggling women in small towns and the economically applicable women. The screenwriter intercepts the greatest common denominator of reality, and uses an "ink absorber" to slice, concise, cut, splice and sew the workplace and family situation of modern women. On the one hand, the label typology allows the audience in front of the screen to project a part of themselves onto the characters more or less. On the other hand, the "ink absorber" filters the life by media narration, which makes the "truth" present a "second-hand" temperament.
The audience chanted "Too Real" Twenty Don’t Confuse. Each episode revolves around a hot topic and focuses on the title, such as "Is it wrong to love money?" "Where is the bottom line?" "Yan value is justice?" "The truth, the more you seek, the more vague it is?" Wait. It is called "real" because it is indeed our daily online media "experience", but it is inevitable that there will be a sense of "hot spots for the sake of hot spots" under the fine products. What is fascinating is not the plot itself, but the "debate body" with its own discussion heat. When the protagonist Jiang Xiaoguo has an argument with a classmate who refuses to pay back the money, their conversation is like a collection of golden sentences under an online hot post:
"For you, this money is just an entertainment expense for buying a mobile phone, but for me, it is a stepping stone to change my destiny."
"You weakness you are right? This is a moral kidnapping, and kindness requires itself. I have the ability to support you, but it doesn’t mean that I have an obligation. If you want to get something for nothing, why should I help you? "
The pros and cons output their opinions on a concept, and a widely spread "100,000+"new media article can be produced by selecting the angle: "College students would rather spend 4,000 yuan on clothes and shoes, but they don’t take the initiative to return their classmates 300 yuan, which is poor and reasonable".
Putting all the fulcrums and contacts on the plot of "Golden Finger" He Shuang, the sense of reality is once again overhead.
It is also labeled, taking the previous film Youth Fight, which was evaluated as "the post-50s imagined the post-90s through misunderstanding", as a contrast, and "the experienced person" defined the young people in a squint, and attached the withered labels such as "Goddess", "Schoolgirl", "Royal Sister" and "Addicted Girl" to them with wishful thinking. The labeling of "Twenty Don’t Confuse" is more like a kind of self-promotion and self-expression of young people: "Trying right is growth, and trying wrong is youth". This is of course an improvement for domestic youth dramas, and the creators have finally stepped out from the perspective of "private narrative" — — Instead of injecting the author’s own doppelganger into each character, filling his works with the symbols of the adult world and indulging himself in "implication", he focuses on the ordinary youth without dog blood and depicts the grounded friendship and growth between girls. However, the "report" group image scanning, the collision between strong setting and strong topic also gave birth to new problems. The plot is in "owing money, not paying it back", "being a mistress", "hidden rules in the workplace" and "bus sexual harassment"The topics such as "cyber violence" and "education generation gap" are quickly switched, and the details are not lubricated enough. All the fulcrums and contacts are placed on the plot of "Golden Finger" He Shuang, and the sense of reality is once again overhead.
At this level, Nothing But Thirty, who is "dream-linked" with Twenty Confusion, shares the same set of paths to the truth. Age, mood and circumstances may be different. For 30-year-old women, things such as bags and shoes are the second, and their youthful spirit is restrained. They become women who change their identities at any time and cut off the shoes of their wives, mothers and women. After spying on the lives of 30+ women from all walks of life, Nothing But Thirty threw out three anchors to accurately hook the target audience, and the female audience can always find a piece of their own puzzle from the characters — —
Wang Manni, a cosmopolitan from a small town, is naturally more beautiful than the sky, and the age red line is approaching step by step. The choice before her is: continue to spend "floating" in Shanghai, or accept her fate and return to her hometown? Gao Fushuai’s love dream comes with the flood of the city. Is it climbing or getting lost?
Zhong Xiaoqin, a good girl, carries out the "textbook-like life schedule" step by step: she graduated from college at the age of 22, got a stable job at the age of 25, bought a house and got married before the age of 30 … … After marrying a blind date, the romantic fantasy and pink longing for love and marriage were broken. "Everyone wants to take shelter from the wind. Who will be Hong Kong?"
Gu Jiacong, a full-time wife, is capable. She is already in the "cloud" class and still fears that the class will fall, and she will inevitably be betrayed in her marriage. How did the domestic version of "I am a mother, I need a platinum bag" win the second half beautifully?
All three lines have their own strong topics, which mix topics such as infidelity, divorce, entrepreneurship and stay-at-home wife into a situation that is easy to substitute, so as to arouse the resonance of the audience. Nothing But Thirty broadened the imagination of domestic dramas about "how can middle-aged women live", and was no longer Luo Zijun in My First Half of Life or Hu Ke’s wife in Anjia — — The awakening of stay-at-home wives is often a "soft landing" based on the help of experts, and the real setbacks and detours that might have been encountered were folded up. Although Nothing But Thirty still has the disadvantage of "getting through customs too easily", at least two more possibilities are given.
The network makes the mass culture truly become "everyone participates", and the media culture covers the film and television culture.
From the perspective of data analysis, any video website, by analyzing big data through algorithms, will finally draw a similar formula for creating explosive urban dramas, that is, collecting daily sharing on social networks, condensing it into a "convenience bag" and "XX learning" of life, and obtaining "second-hand experience" from "second-hand life" and putting it into literary creation. In essence, the topic dramas such as Nothing But Thirty’s Twenty Don’t Confuse have achieved "truthfulness" at a low cost, but this "truthfulness" is not true enough because it is easy to get. Perhaps this is a new situation that literary and artistic creations face together in the era of online media.
In the "second-hand reality" mediated by the media, the quantitative climax calculation takes precedence over the complete perceptual experience, which is not only reflected in the topic first in creation, but also affects the audience’s acceptance of fragmentation. Re-cutting the plot by topic, so that domestic dramas have entered the era of short video brushing from the era of double-speed broadcasting. The progress of technology constantly empowers the audience: after the stage of watching whatever is broadcast on TV, the audience now can choose what to watch and decide how to watch it. The abundance of media has brought anxiety about content production. When the cost of creation is reduced and the content begins to be surplus, how to catch the audience’s attention in the fierce competition? What should content producers exchange for the audience’s time?
In the digital age, the life cycle of the work and the popularity index from the sudden rise to the decline have all pressed the acceleration button. Accordingly, new terms such as IP, traffic, topic, cool, people-oriented, paper-maker, including the "second-hand" mentioned above appear frequently, and a new media culture begins to cover the familiar film and television culture. From shaping characters to focusing on establishing people, from focusing on themes to setting topics, from typology to industrialization, is this audience worse than the last one? Is this director not as good as the last one? Or is this producer not as good as the last one? The answer to the question may only be: when the network has truly turned the mass culture into "everyone’s participation" and it is in the period of digital transformation, the closed situation in which a few industry elites controlled the right to speak in creation has been broken from the outside. As bourdieu analyzed, the art field is constantly tilted from the elite to the mass principle.
At this time, gaining attention and traffic has become a new category, and new media literacy has become a new problem that we can’t avoid. To cope with this challenge, we need to "desensitize" the new concept appropriately. In the past, we talked about "telling a good story", but now "how to tell a good story" has become equally important. The standard for measuring a good work is not only aesthetic yardstick, but also data is becoming a new element. With the rise of the topic drama represented by "230", it may be an opportunity for us to face up to this problem. (Han Siqi)
(The author is a doctoral student at Peking University Art College)