The author | Xie Minghong
Editor| Li Chunhui
In "Xiao Min's Family", Huang Lei said to his daughter: "Don't underestimate your father, your father was still very romantic when he was young." The daughter shook her head, not believing his father's "thinking of the year."
Think of that year, the divorced men and women Huang Lei and Zhou Xun in "Xiao Min's Family" or the beautiful and unrequited Yao Hui and Xiu He who staged the beautiful love in "Orange Red". In 2002, xiuhe, as a concubine of the Rong family, could only secretly communicate with her husband's sixth brother Yaohui. 19 years later, Zhou Xun was worried that Huang Lei's ex-wife was an old family member known by his mother, and the two could only engage in "middle-aged romanticism" downstairs in the community.
But it is also "stealing affection", which is also too discounted on the artistic quality of CP. Probably because the hard candy jun looks at people with too heavy filters, he still does not believe that Zhou Xun, who is still cold in the play, will hang bacon, sausages, and sauce duck on the balcony of the home.
"Orange Red" is still a bit of a big era of romance. I vaguely remember the red orange grove, Xiuhe and Yaohui drizzle talking. The red sun is on the mountain, and a touch of golden red on the edge of the sky illuminates the oranges of a tree. There are two sets of social color systems here, the gloomy forest of the Rong family compound and the dazzling red of the orange groves, contrasting the strength of feudal ethics with the youthful youth of young girls.
Looking at the "Xiao Min Family" in the blessed Huang Lei and then playing the warm man with a broken mouth again, although it is carefully preparing for the anniversary of love, people can't help but sigh that the pattern of the national drama is really getting smaller and smaller. There is no longer Yao Hui and Xiu He in "Orange Red", and there is no longer Lin Huiyin and Xu Zhimo in "April Day on Earth", leaving only the educational anxiety and middle-aged stumbling in "Xiao MinJia".
As Tom Ganning says, "Every period of cinema constructs its audience in a new way." "The same is true of TV dramas. Bidding farewell to the "big era writing" from the 90s to the beginning of the century, from Guo Jingming's "small era" to the "small series" of Lemon Meng Pictures, whether it is small luck or small death, those rushing and boiling are gone, only the long days are trivial, and the romantic is gone.
A small Min family, three pairs of divorced people
The divorce variety show of three women has made a bunch of people sigh and feel, and the divorce drama of three women is a rating code. At the beginning of the story of "Xiao Min Family", her sister Tang Yixin told her sister Zhou Xun, who has been divorced for more than ten years, that she was also divorced. The mother was not shocked, and all three of the family unlocked the divorce experience.
According to the theory, Xiao Min (Zhou Xun), who works alone in Beijing, has someone to take care of, and her mother should not object. But Li Ping (Qin Hailu), the ex-wife of Xiaomin's lover Chen Zhuo (Huang Lei), is not only Xiaomin's hair and small in his hometown of Jiujiang, but also the father of Xiaomin's ex-husband Jin Bo (Tu Yansong) and the old leader of Li Ping's father's factory.
There are so many foreigners in Beijing, who cares about the grudges and grudges in your hometown? People in the play are a bit unable to erase their faces and cannot let go of the heavy past. Xiao Min had corresponded with Teacher Su in her hometown, but it was limited to communication and did not develop into an extramarital affair. Teacher Su's wife took Jin Bo to find Xiao Min to make a big fuss, including perhaps Li Ping's testimony.
Xiao Min, who divorced in a rage, fled her hometown and came to Beijing to become a midwife, and the child stayed in her hometown and was raised by Jin Bo and her grandmother. As Li Ping discovers her ex-husband and Xiao Min's love affair, this past haunts Xiao Min's heart, making her sleepless at night. Although Chen Zhuo generously said that "all is over", Xiaomin's mother still made the middle-aged CP "low-key".
"Xiao Min Jia" wants to shoot the short love of parents, but the main contradiction in the play is a bit "worried about giving new words". Xiao Min's good eldest son Jun Jun, and Chen Zhuo's good eldest daughter Jia Jia, are all 20-year-old college entrance examination repeat students. But Xiao Min and Chen Zhuo, as parents, are afraid that their love affair will affect their college entrance examination.
How exaggerated is this underground romance? After her mother and Junjun came to Beijing, Xiaomin hurriedly hid her condom. Chen Zhuogang and Xiao Min stayed warm in the hotel for a moment, they had to smear some wine on their bodies, and went home to deceive Jiajia that she was accompanying customers. According to Xiao Min and her sister Xiao Jie (Tang Yixin), she and Chen Zhuo have never spent the night at home, and they are both spy movies like "outside joints".
The second story line of Xiao Jie's acquaintance with the new boy Xu Zheng (Fan Shiqi) after the divorce is even more sloppy. Her ex-husband Tong Bing is a mother who only knows how to play games, until he went to the Civil Affairs Bureau for divorce, he still let Xiao Jie wait for him to finish the game. Tong Bing and her mother went to Xiaojie's house to turn over money, which also made people feel out of touch with the times. What age are there for private money to hide books and snack cans? Dare to ask if you have heard of mobile payments.
In short, the purpose of this line is to let the audience scold Ma Baonan and open the way for Xiao Jie's feelings. Of course, there are also the stories of two repeat students, Junjun has excellent grades but is not close to his mother Xiaomin, Jiajia is cheerful and lively and close to his father Chen Zhuo, but he loves to spend his mother Li Ping's money. Li Ping, a rich woman played by Qin Hailu, is the source of happiness in this drama. It is almost 2202 years old, and it is a blessing for the audience to see such an exaggerated upstart.
The strange look and feel of "Xiao Min Jia" is that Zhou Xun is too literary and artistic, and it does not look like he will be involved in the dog blood element at all. Elements such as middle-aged divorce, children's re-reading, and hometown public opinion are more like explosive weights that are hard stuffed into it, and they are occasionally disconnected from the narrative line.
"Small series", midlife crisis and middle-class dilemma
Lemon Meng deliberately created a "small series" and was indeed quite successful. But from "Little Parting", "Little Joy" to "Little Min's Family", Hard Candy Jun has indeed seen a little greasy.
To borrow Haiqing's words in "Little Joy": "When people reach middle age, crises will never come alone." Under normal circumstances, the protagonists of "small series" dramas always face a series of mid-life crises in the middle-class dilemma. This is a collective syndrome that includes many elements such as career, marriage, health, and psychology.
It is worth playing that women take on almost all the roles of "kinship alienation". "Little Parting" presents the powerlessness of a middle-aged mother. Tong Wenjie, an executive of the company, is fierce, but due to the education of her children, she has entered the so-called "early change" state, which directly triggers the crisis of affection between mother and daughter, as well as the emotional crisis with her husband.
The identity change of Song Qian's single mother in "Little Joy" has brought her a strong sense of insecurity. She put all the attention and love that should have been shared with her husband on her daughter Hideko. She constantly stressed to Hideko, "Mother only has you, without you, how can mother live?" For her daughter, she gave up her position as a physics teacher, took full control of planning her daughter's life, and went to self-loss.
Of course, there is also Jiang Xin in "Little Shed", who directly hallucinates the child under high pressure and creates the famous scene of the bully doll tearing the roll. Zhou Xun of "Xiao Min's Family" seems to be as free as the wind, and he can't escape the embarrassment of having to attend a training class for his son to ask his ex-wife to present his boyfriend.
Fortunately, the end of the education and training industry in reality finally put a stop to the "training class anxiety" of such dramas. Hard Candy Jun predicts that the next blockbuster may be a response to the "double reduction of parents".
Although there are many doubts, it must be admitted that the "small series" does not choose the bottom family sample is smart, otherwise the heavy perception will make it difficult for the audience to substitute, or even unbearable.
The people in the play are not too poor in money, and occasionally dressed relative to their identity is still a bit extravagant. The richest in "Little Parting" is Zhang Liangzhong's family, equipped with a car, a special driver, and donated a library for his son to go to school. The most generous Li Ping family in "Xiao Min Family" wears a CHANEL for their daughter, but the good villain is also self-made, and now he must continue to work hard.
Workplace crises are only embellishment elements, they are meant to create a dilemma for the middle-aged protagonist, so as to complete the multiple references of society, family, school, fairness, ethics, responsibility and other texts. In "Little Parting", Fang Yuan was forced to resign due to an almost surgical accident, and eventually returned to the hospital. Dong Wenjie was demoted in the unit and fought with young people to return to the headquarters. This gives the workplace description of the follow-up episode a good mold of drawing a tiger with a cat.
Of course, this kind of drama is also inevitable for middle-aged men looking for "rejuvenation elixirs". In "Little Parting", Zhang Liangzhong found his youth through the young and beautiful Tina. Qiao Weidong of "Little Joy" is dissatisfied with the harmonious family and ushers in a late "rebellion". "Xiao Min Family" is the "emotional reorganization" of several pairs of middle-aged divorced families, and I don't know which uncle will fall on the heavy responsibility of the old house on fire.
Say goodbye to the big times
"By the time next spring comes, these workers will disappear completely from the Bund. They would go to another ruin that needed them, and with their flesh and blood, forged a new Great Wall—a transparent brick wall to isolate the poor from sight. ”
It is hard to believe that this is the words in the book "Little Times", and the deliberate criticism is obviously decoupled from the whole novel, and it is completely eliminated when filming and television. As a post-80s writer, Guo Jingming obviously grasped the pulse of a certain era. He pulled the "individuals" in the literature of the 90s who had escaped from the territory of the times back into the great history of the times, the "market".
It is possible to criticize the consumerist cult in it, but we have to admit that the characters in the "small era" still have a certain charm of the "big era". Whether it is the Chinese dream or the American dream, the idol is Gatsby or Bill Gates, worship and consumption, is still an enterprising life. Instead of being like the parents of the post-70s in the "small series" drama, they obviously enjoyed the dividends of the era of economic rise, but they have been trivial and trivial in their individual difficulties, and they have no time to go far.
In the Hong Kong drama "Genesis" in the late 1990s, almost all the characters were enterprising, and the atmosphere of the times came to the fore. Everyone wants to fight a better life with their bare hands, and their personality characteristics are highly compatible with the social environment. Ye Rongheng and Ye Rongjin are commercial value figures who put interests first, and only talk about gold and do not pay attention to heart. Huo Jingliang and Fang Jianping regard entrepreneurship as self-realization, regardless of temporary profit gains and losses.
"Xiao MinJia" director Wang Jun's own "Farewell, Vancouver" filmed 18 years ago also reflects the infinite romantic imagination of the Chinese people overseas in that era. More typical is "Beijingers in New York", which focuses on the Chinese who lives and works hard in the United States, telling the ideal dilemma and identity anxiety of a group of exotic gold-seeking Chinese in the 80s.
In the context of a particular era, with some kind of radical or whimsical ideal, the whole society is permeated with a restless and even wild atmosphere. This is the "writing of the times" of the national drama 20 years ago, and the young people who have died of addiction fill the small screen.
In the anxiety of children's further education, with the expectation or imagination of Jackie Chan, the whole era exudes the condensation and rigidity of conservatism. This is the "writing of the times" of the National Opera 20 years later, and the parents of the children who are older than the sky have acted out one after another. Huang Lei's character Fang Yuan in "Little Parting" was copied and pasted in different plays.
From "Addiction and Death" to "North and South", the poor mouth of the children of the courtyard has lost its spirit. From "Beijingers in New York" to "Take Dad to Study Abroad", the Chinese living overseas finally "not bad money". From "Orange Red" to "Xiao Minjia", the mirror image of the era carried by Huang Lei Zhou Xun CP has gradually fragmented.
We don't know how it feels for the audience to look back at the national drama of our time 20 years later. Or perhaps this era is characterized by fragmentation, trivialization, and collective anxiety. Criticism of the "small series" does not reflect the times as a whole because we do not have a holistic understanding of the current era.
Is it that the creator's sword is less of a pattern, or is the audience forcing them to do so? "Everything that is solid is gone, everything sacred is desecrated, and people finally have to calmly face the real situation of their lives and their relationship with each other." Marx's words can still be borrowed as footnotes.