Inch head, dark square-frame glasses, red jacket are Li Ao's signature on TV. He searched for evidence, laughed and scolded, and the audience knew at a glance that he could be called the grandfather of today's "Internet celebrities". In his later years, he opened Weibo, had tens of millions of fans, updated almost daily, laughed and scolded language, and filled it with 140 words in a regular manner, but there was little interaction and no sound. If "Master Li" has more energy, today's interactive network live broadcast environment will become his most successful era.
Reporter | Liu
On July 23, 2011, Li Ao held "The Trend of Chinese Intellectuals" at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
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At the turn of the century, a television performer was born
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At the end of October 1995, when Li Ao came to the studio, Wang Shujuan was still a little incredulous in addition to being nervous and excited. Wang Shujuan was in charge of the implementation of the program, and for the 25-year-old at the time, Li Ao was a well-known writer who wrote articles in newspapers and magazines, and was also a topical figure who appeared frequently in news events, and was known for fighting lawsuits with people. After Taiwan's "lifting of strictness", shortly after the opening of the cable TV industry, Li Ao, as a guest, participated in China Television's "Tonight Has An Appointment" program five times, talking about the topic of both sexes, and his sharp words revealed his performance potential. But the harsh criticism of the authorities led to his attempts to do a stand-up comedy in vain when he tried to record. He actually came to the Taiwan Truth News Network, which was not large at that time, and hosted the self-talking "Li Ao Laughing at the Rivers and Lakes", which had to make people feel new.
"Li Ao's Wonderful World" program
Zhou Quan, chairman of Truth News Network, made this "brave" attempt to give birth to TV performer Li Ao. The column-style talk show style has been on fire for more than 20 years.
At that time, most of the guests invited by the Truth News Network were well-known politicians in Taiwan, and they had a certain degree of popularity on the island. Zhou Quan once revealed in an interview with the media that Li Ao's image of daring to tell the truth in an environment where society is not open made her feel that Li Ao's hosting of the program can make the audience think in the face of many things. On October 20 of that year, she sent the vice president to sign a cooperation agreement with Li Ao, and the two sides explained that the Truth News Network must not delete and modify the content without Li Ao's consent, otherwise each episode will lose NT$300,000, and Li Ao cannot sue the Truth News Network at will. In Li Ao's words: "I deprived them of the right to delete and amend, and gained 100 percent freedom of speech, unless they were not afraid of fines; on the contrary, they deprived me of the right to good litigation and achieved 'freedom from fear.'" ”
Li Ao's freedom in the show, Wang Shujuan felt most intuitively. Before the video, she only needed to set the table, prepare the water, and give the rest to Li Ao. She told me that no one helped him and that everything was prepared by himself. Although Li Ao was already the year of Hua Jia at that time, each episode of the program was completed in one go, and after the end of one episode, he drank saliva and then recorded the next issue. After the end of the section, Wang Shujuan's only task was to correct the typos in the subtitles during post-production, and Li Ao was strict, not even letting go of the difference between "of" and "get".
Nowadays, the program of "Li Ao Laughing proud of the jianghu" can still be found on the Internet. On the screen, after the 10-second countdown of the number flickering, the station logo of the Truth News Network was converted into the opening video of Li Ao shuttling through his huge study, the camera swept through Li Ao's collection of books and works, stayed at Li Ao's crossed waist to watch a picture of an inscription in the study, he looked back and smiled, and the camera was frozen in his face. In the next frame, Li Ao was already sitting behind the podium in the studio, and he said in a depressed tone: "Li Ao is smiling and proud of the rivers and lakes, and he is here again." ”
The background of the show is sometimes dark and shallow, and Li Ao's style is unchanged, always wearing a red jacket, which is particularly conspicuous against the black background. Wang Shujuan once recalled in an interview with other media that the red jacket was originally given to Li Ao by Zhou Quan for program identification, but she did not expect it to become his signature. "Li Ao will keep his style consistent." You Benjia, who later became a producer of Li Ao, told me that the Li Ao seen by Taiwanese audiences is basically a red jacket, while the Li Ao seen by mainland audiences through the program of Phoenix Tv is more of an image of Tang costume robes. "We wanted him to change his look, but he didn't like it. He had three sets of clothes, all identical. ”
Li Ao's state on and off the stage is completely different. Privately, from the guards at the gate to the staff at the time of the video, he was polite and courteous. Wang Shujuan recalled: "Sometimes I say loudly that the professor is good, and he will naughtily stand up straight, and say with one hand, Shujuan is good. But as soon as he started the show, Li Ao's unique style was revealed.
Wang Shujuan, who accompanied Li Ao in recording "Li Ao Laughs proudly of the jianghu"
Although it was the first time to host the program, Li Ao was free to put it away, he commented on current affairs, denied the characters, and exposed the black and digging up the shortcomings. Just like writing a column, he will first throw out a small story, then interpret the story in his own view of history, turn to the main topic, and use a wealth of historical materials and evidence to support his point of view. And the boastful exaggeration and colored strips are sandwiched in it, like the spicy seeds in Sichuan cuisine. Compared with watching Li Ao's text, Wang Shujuan, who personally came to the studio to watch his recording program, felt that Li Ao was more blunt when speaking, and his emotional expression was more direct. "Sometimes he gets angry as he talks."
More than 20 years later, Wang Shujuan still remembers Li Ao talking about the "Lu Annie Incident" in 1995. It was a controversy in which Anne Lu ranked first in the initial entrance examination for the doctoral program at National Taiwan University, but was not admitted to the re-examination, and it was derived from an extramarital affair between her and a professor at National Taiwan University. Because the male protagonist was the eldest son of the president of a well-known enterprise in Taiwan, it attracted the attention of the Taiwanese people at that time. "At that time, the gossip about her occupied all the major pages of the media." Wang Shujuan recalled to me. Li Ao grasped this seemingly gossipy event, but he talked about the confusion of Taiwan's military ranks, and then talked about Taiwan's education, especially the incompetence and management of professors in Taiwan's education, especially in Taiwan's universities as benchmarks. What impressed Wang Shujuan was that Li Ao not only took out Lu Anne's examination papers in the program, but also showed the internal documents of the education department to deal with the Lu Annie incident. "Master Li knew more than the media reported at the time, and almost all the traces of her (referring to Lu Annie)'s walking in NTU were sorted out by the master."
Showing physical evidence is the most distinctive feature of Li Ao's talk show in addition to the language style. During his speech, a board was set up on the table with the information he had collected, and he took a paper-cutting knife as a teaching whip to show and explain to the audience the evidence he had marked. "Every time I came to record a program, Master Li carried a leather bag, which was always full of information." Wang Shujuan told me about the origin of the evidence, "Each episode has a clear theme, and this information is the material he collected from different books and the evidence that proves that what he said is not false." ”
This style stems from the lifelong learning and thinking style of Li Ao, who is from the department of history, which is the basis for his all-encompassing stand-up comedy. "I've been to his study on Dunhua South Road, and it's a bookstore." Wang Shujuan recalled that in the space of one or two hundred square meters, there was no wall in sight, and every space was occupied by books. In addition to the collection of books, each book was dismembered by him, classified according to his own logic. When You Benjia helped Li Ao do the program, Li Ao was nearly 70 years old, and every time he recorded the program, the program team went to his home to pick him up. Li Ao's habits have increased unabated. "Every time he would bring a box, the box was neatly bundled with three stacks of materials, three episodes at a time, and for each episode, he would take out a stack, and when the episode was finished, he would put it back." You Benjia told me that Li Ao's study had four or five writing desks side by side, and he needed to cite different works to write articles, and if one table could not be put down, he put different types of materials on different tables. Until the years before his death, he continued to work every day.
The sharp and conclusive views have made "Li Ao Smiling proud of the jianghu" the golden signboard of the truth news network, and the program itself has become a topic of discussion. "After it is often broadcast, it causes an uproar in the political circles and media circles, and they rush to track down the report." Wang Shujuan described the pomp and circumstance to me, "Everyone is concerned about what Li Ao said and what material was revealed last night. The collaboration between Li Ao and Zhou Quan has also been smooth, and "Li Ao Smiles Proud of the Jianghu" became the first single-person talk show in taiwanese television history to record 1,000 episodes four years later. Later, it was renamed "Li Ao's Secret Study" and "Li Ao Turned All Beings Upside Down" until the contract was terminated in 2001.
Stills of Li Ao participating in the "Kangxi Coming" program
<h1>The screams of the Dark Ages, the origin of personal style</h1>
Li Ao once confessed in a TELEVISION program: "As an intellectual, with a good mind and backbone, this is a difficult thing. I Li Ao did this. But unfortunately, I am out of the intellectual world, no one thinks I am a scholar, I am not willing to be a scholar, what have I become? I became an entertainer. I'm here, and you see how I act on this stage by the standards of an actor. ”
But before You Benjia came face-to-face with Li Ao, he was very disdainful of Li Ao's TV show. Li Ao, whom he could accept in his heart, was a writer with a sharp literary style before the 1990s. "I was first and foremost a reader of Li Ao, and when I was young, I read his books as banned books." You Benjia told me that he was born in 1966. In Taiwan, after Li Ao landed on television in the 1990s, young people knew more about tv performer Li Ao. For those born in the 50s and late 70s, reading Li Ao's early articles was affected all their lives, and Li Ao in their hearts was a writer. ”
The writer Li Ao became known for publishing "The Old Man and the Stick" in Wenxing magazine on November 11, 1961. Professor Zhu Shuangyi of the Institute of Taiwan Studies of Xiamen University introduced to me that taiwan set off a "Sino-Western cultural controversy" that year, which began with this article. Li Ao, Ju Haoran, and others published articles in Wenxing affirming Hu Shi's contributions, advocating "total Westernization, and confronting the Kuomintang officials against Xu Fuguan and Hu Qiuyuan. At the age of 26, Li Ao continued his liberal stance, and in the oppressive atmosphere of authoritarian rule at that time, he proposed "the elderly handing over the baton", which was welcomed by young intellectuals. After "The Old Man and the Stick", he wrote an article entitled "Seeing the Disease of Those Who Talk About Chinese and Western Culture", criticizing by name more than 40 scholars and celebrities in China who he regarded as sticking to the rigid tradition in the past 300 years, attacking the "unhealthy heart disease" that is prevalent in Chinese, and believing that "we should blame the ancestors for leaving us too much 'Oriental civilization', which is a heavy burden that overwhelms us and delays the speed of our modernization."
His article caused an uproar. Li Ao once recalled the white-hot scene at that time, "countless letters, countless criticisms, praises, supports, intimidation, and countless textual debates." Zhu Shuangyi told me that at that time, dozens of newspapers and magazines in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas regions intervened or made reports, and there were at least a hundred articles of various kinds expressing negative opinions alone.
"Compared with Hu Shiping's calm article, why is a liberal with a sharp language style like Lu Xun's?" Looking back at Li Ao's language style, Professor Zhang Ning, who studies modern and contemporary literature at the College of Literature of Beijing Normal University, remembers that when he first read Li Ao's essays, this was his biggest doubt. Later, he believed that from the perspective of expression, in a silent environment, only sharp sounds could be heard. In hindsight, Li Ao's spear of language was sharpening more and more sharpened. The controversy ended with the banning of Wenxing magazine in 1965. After that, Li Ao's articles were banned, he was imprisoned for more than five years, and after his release from prison, he still attacked the authorities' tyranny, and his articles and books were repeatedly banned. When Li Xin, the former editor-in-chief of Sanlian Bookstore, worked at the People's Literature Publishing House, he was the first person to officially introduce Li Ao's works to the mainland. He once wrote a book recalling his interactions with Li Ao, arguing that "repeatedly being suppressed and ostracized by the authorities has gradually led Li Ao to a situation where he does not speak harshly and others ignore him." He must make a shocking statement in order to attract social attention. Over time, making amazing speeches with an arrogant attitude gradually became his style of language."
The advertising slogan of Li Ao's books can best express his strategy. "In the past fifty years and five hundred years, the top three people who Chinese written vernacular texts have been Li Ao, Li Ao, Li Ao, and those who have scolded me with their mouths and bragged about me have all offered me tablets in their hearts." Li Xin remembers that Li Ao once told him why he made such an arrogant advertising slogan for "Tradition under Monologue". "In this way of expression, you can scold me, you can hate me, but you can't forget it, because this text is so powerful - so the bragging should be blown like this, and there is skill in it." 」
The language style of television performer Li Ao is in line with this, and mainland readers are also very popular in reading Li Ao's texts. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a time difference between readers in mainland china and Taiwan who knew Li Ao, and when "Li Ao Smiled proudly" was popular in Taiwan, the mainland only had a sporadic cognition of Li Ao. Li Xin's work has promoted Li Ao's popularity. According to his recollection in the article, in 1989, he published Li Ao's "Tradition under Monologues", when propaganda posters were plastered in Xinhua Bookstores across the country, the first 50,000 copies were sold out, and soon reprinted to nearly 200,000 copies. He hit the iron while it was hot, and in the following years, he published 7 books by Li Ao in succession, preparing for the rolling "Li Ao Has Something to Say".
In January 2005, Li Ao made his first appearance after surgery
<h1>Facing the mainland, Li Ao's wit and measure</h1>
14 years ago, Lu Bin, the producer of Phoenix TV, was less than 30 years old, and he knew that Li Ao had been in prison and had read some books published in the mainland, but those early works did not show the sharpness of "Master Li", until "Li Ao Has Something to Say" launched by Phoenix Satellite TV from 2004 to 2007.
In Taiwan at the beginning of the 21st century, a democratic society has been formed, and Li Ao's criticism of the authorities has lost its opposite. Zhang Ning believes that although there is nothing wrong with free discourse, it has become a trick of entertainment. As a result, the audience's tastes changed, and Li Ao's book-like talk shows were declining in Taiwan. And because of his unscrupulous laughter and scolding of the authorities, most of the TV station owners did not dare to bear the trouble he brought.
In this situation, Li Ao chose to play his unobstructed side to the extreme in "Kangxi Coming". In January 2004, when "Kangxi Lai" premiered, Li Ao was the first guest, and then participated four times. He joked with the two hosts, talked about his private life, discussed his books, and became a complete old naughty boy. However, contrary to expectations, compared with other star guests, Li Ao's characteristics are not obvious in that entertainment program, and the ratings are not ranked in the history of the program. Between 2004 and 2007, he was mainly a "legislator" in Taiwan's "Legislative Yuan".
In contrast, the Phoenix Terrace, which is located in Hong Kong and faces the mainland. You Benjia told me that they targeted Li Ao, Zhao Shaokang, and Chen Wenqian, the most well-known people in Taiwan at that time, and planned to let these three people jointly open a program in Phoenix to promote Taiwan's current politics and history. From the effect point of view, the three people's faces have their own emphases. Zhao Shaokang's political experience focuses on Taiwan's current politics; Chen Wenqian is portrayed as a Western female intellectual; and Li Ao becomes a traditional Chinese literati, pinning history and current affairs.
"Do you think that many of the current reading programs are very similar to Li Ao's programs?" Yumoto asked me back in an interview. The style of "Li Ao Laughing at the Rivers and Lakes" is continued in "Li Ao Has Something to Say", and it is more mature and self-contained. He told me about Li Ao's producer, "the easiest job in the world." Li Ao asked them to have three camera positions, a long-range view, one to look at his face, and one to specifically look at the information displayed in his hand, so that they could clearly illuminate the words and notes on the information. "He didn't have an outline, he didn't have a manuscript, he started talking about the material in order, and more than 700 episodes had never been remade." And he is afraid of the cold, the temperature of the studio will be raised, but perhaps recording the program is a very heavy mental work, every time Li Ao finishes recording, his clothes will be soaked. More than ten years later, You Benjia still remembers Li Ao's magic and concentration vividly.
Scale is the most important thing for the staff of Phoenix TV. At that time, You Benjia was responsible for recording programs for Li Ao in Taiwan, recording twice a week, recording three episodes at a time, each program of 20 minutes, and after recording, it was transmitted to Hong Kong and Shenzhen through broadband at the same time. Lu Bin, based in Shenzhen, is responsible for post-processing, as well as censorship of writing, speech and politics. Li Ao asked that after the program was broadcast, he would send him the video broadcast by the program and the feedback from netizens. "We were like listeners, with no idea what he was going to say." When he first recorded the first few dozen issues, although You Benjia told Li Ao that he could speak freely, he was still secretly worried that he was talking too much. Later, he found that Li Ao would sometimes ask him back, is this not forbidden?
Li Ao pays attention to the audience's reaction, refutes the views of netizens in the program, and also likes to circle around the boundaries of scale. At that time, the public opinion environment on the mainland was no better than that in Taiwan, and the audience expected him to say something that others did not dare to say, and Li Ao knew this very well. In Zhang Ming's view, Li Ao's remarks do not hurt himself, and he is always safe compared with the crimes he was convicted of when he was young. Li Ao's image of daring to speak out is his "selling point".
From the perspective of producers and ordinary audiences, Li Ao is broadening the boundaries of scale. "He used to say a certain historical figure, and I felt a tingling in my scalp at the time, do I think it's okay to say that?" Lu Bin once recalled in interviews with other media that Li Ao had a cliff theory, believing that many managers understood the original truth of the matter, but he did not know where the real acceptance of things was, so every time he came to the edge, he tried to take half a step forward. "The original intention of creating "Li Ao Has Something to Say" was to hope that the audience could understand the story behind the matter and many aspects. He said that there are four major faces in the Chinese literary world, but those are all figures we revere. At first I couldn't accept it, but after he analyzed it from all angles, saying that this person was complicated, he gradually agreed with his statement. ”
"In my impression, he was always moving forward, never going back." When Lien Chan visited the mainland, Li Ao's repeated scoldings in the program were the most memorable to Lu Bin and You Benjia. "He scolded for nine episodes in a row, and I was going crazy." You Benjia recalls. At that time, Lian Zhan was in the limelight, and it was easy for Phoenix to do such a program that made people feel that they were singing the opposite tone, and he himself felt that it was not authentic. "I specifically talked to him. He said: 'I can't let that bottom line go.' I can not do the show, you open the skylight is not my business. "They ended up broadcasting five episodes, and those that didn't have to be replayed could only be replayed, and those that were broadcast were also interspersed, one episode of scolding, and another episode of the others." At that time, Li Ao asked for a film, and I could only say that I had not sent it yet. You Benjia told me that afterwards he talked to Li Ao, and Li Ao showed a smile that "I wanted to deliberately cause trouble.". In LuBin's view, that is also the performance of his speculation on the psychology of the audience, "At that time, the audience must want to see this the most."
Through these methods, Li Ao gained great influence in the mainland and was the highest-rated single-person talk show of the year. At that time, "Li Ao Has Something to Say" was broadcast on two stations at noon and in the evening, and Lu Bin remembered that the program in the noon time slot had adjusted the time. "When I went to Beijing on a business trip, an academician scolded me fiercely for this, saying that after the time adjustment, they could not take a lunch break."
The result of this popularity was the 12-day "Shenzhou Cultural Tour" in September 2005. You Benjia told me that after Li Ao recorded on Phoenix TV for more than a year, he accumulated a large number of feedback from mainland netizens, and Phoenix SATELLITE TV hoped to promote a "netizen meeting" between Li Ao and mainland audiences. "He didn't come back in 56 years, the first time he came home, which is a very special topic in itself." Phoenix TV built it into a TV operation that tracks the story in all directions. Li Ao traveled to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, searching for his hometown and giving speeches at Peking University, Tsinghua University and Fudan. His performance methods were fully displayed in the auditorium, and li ao's exposure in the mainland public media was the peak.
In Li Ao's later years, You Benjia still had a personal relationship with him. At the beginning of the year, he had visited Li Ao, but he could no longer wake him up. After meeting Li Ao, he regarded Li Ao as a friend, but still had some views on him doing TV shows, and he told Li Ao bluntly, and Li Ao smiled mysteriously, as if to say: "Do you really understand?" Yumoto said to me, "I didn't ask him why he switched from being a writer to a talk show." If I asked, he might jokingly say, because there's a lot of money. ”
(Thanks to Jin Lin and Lai Ting for their great help in this article, intern Zhou Xiaowei also contributed to this article.) References: "Li Ao's Landing", by Li Xin; "Li Ao's Commentary", by Chen Caisheng)