After chasing the "Annual Comedy Contest" (hereinafter referred to as "Comedy Contest"), I changed my mind about comedy. In the past, I thought that comedy with dramatic structure, tragic core and satirical expression was high-level, but this variety show made me realize that the standard for measuring good comedy in today's era may lie in the sincerity of comedy to reflect real life with "jokes".
If comedy creators face the current society and face up to the difficulties and pains encountered by ordinary individuals in reality, and the inner impulses and desires, they may create good comedies that restore life or even higher than life, and gain resonance. In other words, the audience does not care about the form and means of comedy, but whether the content of comedy can be related to their real life experience.
Big environment
Popular talk shows and new comedies such as sketch comedies, camel comedies, and comic talents promoted by the "Comedy Contest" are becoming the reasons for audiences, especially young people, to find new favorites, which are in line with the characteristics of the "short and fast" era, and can also use the baggage of "stability and accuracy" to cut to the heart of life. The audience "looked at themselves in the mirror" haha laughed, feeling that everyone's life is like this, venting emotions and getting comfort.
Looking back at the traditional party sketches, cross-talk and even comedy type of film and television dramas, it is becoming a "fake big empty" report, always trying to force "tall" from our life at a glance.
Tracing back to the roots, it is probably that many traditional comedy makers have long ceased to eat human fireworks, leaving only the skills of making cars behind closed doors; the creators of new comedies are traveling in the human world, using many of the stems from their own experiences with universality. Li Shi, one of the presidents of the "Comedy Competition", squeezed the subway in Beijing every day during his work at the advertising agency; many of the "waist actors" who participated in this variety show had to worry about work and bread every day, and were distressed that life was being dominated by cloud algorithms.
This is the tragedy of the times that you and I are both experiencing. On the material side, we are exhausted by the problem of house tickets, and we are led by big data and mass media to enter the black and white network tearing world, and the spiritual level degenerates into a frog at the bottom of the well that can only see the sky above our heads. The formation of the entertainment focus market has not made us more diverse and inclusive, on the contrary, everyone is imprisoned in their own familiar fields and scorn everything outside the region.
Works such as "Internet Physical Examination", "Where Has Time Gone", "The Law of the Jungle", and "Hard Choices" in the "Comedy Competition" speak out about various group symptoms in the context of the times. Netizens gave comments on these works, such as "good truth in the world", "I feel that my life is peeped", "my mobile phone has been monitored", indicating that our lives have been created into a similar model by the Internet, high-tech, and involution.
《Internet Medical Examination》
Observing the changes in the self-deprecating and mutually derisive language of the public, especially young people, for example, the "dick silk" in the early years has been replaced by "mourning", "waste firewood", "lying flat", etc., and many people's mentality in the world has changed. Unable to escape the encirclement of the strange circle, the individual's flattening may be regarded as a silent declaration of the private category. The emergence of "uninhabited social" groups in Japan has also shown signs in China.
The above-mentioned works that reflect the environment can become blockbusters one after another, which also shows that they have become the carrier for the public to relieve their inner depression, and at the same time help them restore their normal mentality in the face of life.
Small dreams
Another reason why Comedy Contest can make comedy "break the circle" and become a phenomenon-level cultural event may be its full respect for personal dreams, giving the audience an excellent example of "ideals shining into reality".
As far as the works are concerned, the works such as "This Killer Is Not Cold", "The Last Lesson", "Ten Years of Work Under the Stage", "Wukong" and other works created by the "Dream Runner-up" group show the situation of the little people who are not ambitious, and also use the frustration of the insistence on the dream to tell the audience that on the road to striving for the ideal, you can boldly listen to the will of the heart and do not have to care about the eyes of others.
For individuals, Jiang Long, Zhang Chi, Wang Hao, Shi Ce, Dasuo, Sun Tianyu and other actors who came to the stage from life, and screenwriters such as Liu Beast, Yu Ao, and Huan Zhu who came to the front of the stage from behind the scenes, the attention and success they gained in the show were also quite inspiring.
The phrase "love can withstand the long years" that the big lock said to the audience at the award ceremony of the show is not a chicken soup cliché. People who stand on the stage of the "Comedy Contest" and strive to chase their dreams have indeed become an example for the audience - even if they are older and more professional, bravely moving forward may turn their dreams into reality.
Of course, it is not so easy to realize dreams, but people really need the support of dreams to live a lifetime. When we take stock of the inspirational little people in the movie, we often put Yin Tianqiu in "The King of Comedy" shouting the slogan of "hard work, struggle" while running to tomorrow in an important position, because he let us see the glimmer of dreams and even faith.
The King of Comedy
In addition, the audience is sincerely happy about the emergence of Jiang Long and others, and hopes that their future path can be wider and wider, further indicating that the "Comedy Competition" has achieved the effect of empathy with the audience. It's like the love of the working class around the world at the beginning of the last century for the comedian Charlie Chaplin.
Chaplin portrayed Charlie the tramp in black-and-white silent films such as "Anle Street", "Gold Rush", and "City Lights", and his humorous story of fighting wits and courage with the police, capitalists and other powerful peoples, about the exploitation of the proletarians by the capitalists of the European and American powers, and the invasion of the weak peoples by the developed countries. The audience looks at Charlie with both sympathy and affection, as well as identification with him as a kind or even his own family. They hoped that the emaciated Charlie would escape the pursuit of the mighty police forever, and that he would not, like them, spend the rest of his life drawing a prison in the palm of the capitalist's hand.
Fueled by the audience, Charlie's adventures were gradually mythological, and he once became a figure comparable to Ulysses.
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Anle Street》
Little sweet
Chaplin witnessed the destruction of human order and social structure by the two world wars and the global economic crisis in between, and did not trust human society. In films such as "Modern Times", "The Great Dictator", and "Mr. Verdou", he criticized the hypocrisy of the times, the authority of idols, and the blind obedience of groups. Among them, "Modern Times" is even more cautionary and forward-looking, using the relationship between workers and machines in industrial society to reveal the era's devouring of individuals and predict the crushing of human nature by science and technology.
Modern Times
However, in Chaplin's works, the light of hope also appears frequently. One of the themes of his early films was that innocent girls used pure love to redeem the wanderers who wandered the world. In "Modern Times", the stray girl who broke into the life of the homeless man illuminated his future, and the two even spent a happy time in the dilapidated wooden house in the countryside. In "Anle Street", the priest's daughter appears in the light, prompting the tramp to make up his mind not to steal again. In City Lights, the flower girl still possesses this magic despite being blind, and she "looks" into the eyes of the tramp, which makes him feel compassion.
City Lights
On the stage of the "Comedy Contest", love also completed the redemption of life. Wang Zi's one-man mime "Cupid of the God of Love" uses rich limbs and expressions, a small amount of vocals and soundtracks to tell the cuteness and playfulness of Eros, the mystery and beauty of love. Zhang Nana and Zhu Yi's "Good Girlfriend", two social phobia patients use the puppet "girlfriend" around them to complete the temptation of each other, but the final establishment of love is not the help of "girlfriend", but the result of their victory over their respective demons under the encouragement of each other.
"Good Girlfriend"
"Hao Shi Chengshuang" combination Wang Hao, Shi Ce jointly launched the "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", "Lover Missed", "Romantic Leak", "Walking the Flower Road" and other works with the texture of life, but also in the form of a love suite, telling the story of the encounter between men and women, although there are small episodes of killing and separating each other, but it does not hinder the overall trend of mutual support and love, giving a two-sex marriage mode that is both in line with reality and far more ideal than reality.
Perhaps it is precisely because the love in life is much more "bone-like" than the love interpreted by Wang Hao and Shi Ce, and the audience will project sustenance and fantasy on them.
Small thoughts
Looking at the works that appeared in the "Annual Comedy Competition", the difference in style is very obvious. Solo-completed mimes, object dramas, sketch comedies and comic talents cooperated by two people, trap comedies and sitcoms performed by three or more people are all available, realistic and exaggerated techniques coexist, and the themes are all-encompassing, covering reality, fantasy, fairy tales, fables, etc.
Although some works have the shadow of traditional comedy, especially the evening sketches, and try to give value to the audience by sensational means, most of them do not pose to give comedy a layer of so-called serious meaning, but use a crisp and effective way to express the chest to make the audience laugh.
The Law of the Jungle
Interestingly, works that do not have a didactic meaning instead stimulate the audience to accept the truth of life they show, and then take the initiative to complete the thinking about themselves and dignity. Flipping through the short comments written by the audience on Platforms such as Douban and Weibo, you will be amazed at the endless energy and power contained in the simple and direct "laughter".
Although many works seem to have "no heart and no lungs", this is not the case in fact. Song Muzi, He Wenjun and Li Fei co-starred in "Three Dogs Live Room", which seems to only sprinkle dog blood, but actually points to the carnival that may only exist in people's imagination in real life. Tudou and Lü Yan's "Father's Funeral" uses a seemingly nonsensical form to hook up many people's questions about the profession and identity of fathers who are not good at words when they were young, which can be regarded as the sincere communication about family affection initiated by children to their parents.
Laugh, Piolević! 》
Won the most eye-catching award in the industry, "Laugh, Piolevich!" created by Iron Man, Yang Fan and Guan Chao! In a dialect that sounds like a scumbag, it tells an absurd story related to films such as "Persian Language Lesson" and "The University of Laughter", which makes people wary of populism and totalitarianism, and cherishes the value of comedy in the present - if the big lock is rewritten, comedy can not only withstand the long years, but even frost.
Wen | Meisheng
Edit | Yu Jing