Reporter | Pan Wenjie
Edit | Yellow Moon
"Gentlemen of the East Eighth District" written and starred by Zhang Han recently caused group ridicule because the male protagonist was greasy and disrespectful of women, and then, Zhang Han's reality show love variety show "Dear Online" was also discovered by netizens, the plot included Zhang Han feeding cakes, Zhang Han sending kisses, and the final ending was that Zhang Han shed sincere tears to fall in love with me, which also attracted a wide range of bad reviews. Zhang Han has always been a domineering president professional, and some of the images he played by the bully have been welcomed by many female audiences, but now he has been ridiculed by the crowd because of this label.
Looking back at Zhang Han's journey to fame, in his debut work "Let's See the Meteor Shower" (2009), the male protagonist Murong Yunhai, played by him, shouted out this famous saying: "I really hate the boring self-esteem of you grassroots classes, is it my fault that you are rich and handsome?" In "Here Comes the Shanshan" (2014), the president he played staged the famous confession scene that has been circulated to this day, and he put his arm around the heroine from behind and said affectionately: "I want everyone to know that this fish pond has been contracted by you." Then, he transformed from the owner of the pond to the "ladder master" - in "Warm Strings" (2018), Zhang Han still played the overbearing president, talked about love with his assistant president, and said to the heroine in the exclusive elevator: "From today on, you take this elevator, the password is your birthday," and then staged "elevator bang"... Each of the above characters seems to be overbearing and cold, romantic and affectionate, and when you think about it, it seems that there is always something wrong. It seems that this hegemonic human design has been barely maintained, until "Gentlemen of the East Eighth District" completely collapsed, but the root cause of the collapse of the overlord human design may have been buried in its basic setting.
Why is the hegemon tempting
The overbearing president is not necessarily the president, but it must be among the upper class. Li Chao, author of "The Image of the "Overbearing President": The Imagination of the "Upper Class" in Contemporary Popular Culture", believes that the overbearing president is "produced by a complex knowledge/power relationship and is the product of the author's collusion with the 'upper class'", because the writers who originally created these images are often in the middle class, like to imitate the life concept of the upper class, and imitate the logic of a "successful person".
In the literature of the wife that was ridiculed by the crowd some time ago, @ slowly into the moon has become the center of the storm. Her famous stories include: Because she spent more than a hundred dollars on games, her boyfriend said, "You want to me off?" "You're rich, aren't you?" "118 says to charge?" Overbearing quotes; The female protagonist needs a magic control keyboard, played the "boo", "boo", "hum" and other stunts, and the male protagonist "is sitting in danger, asking me in detail what is the use of the magic control keyboard, on what occasions can I use, including the frequency of use, the place of use, etc., he has asked over and over", "from a rational point of view to help me analyze the cost performance of the magic control keyboard", for this keyboard for a long time, the final conclusion is not to buy. In response to such stories, netizens ridicule not only the self-dwarfing of the female protagonist in love, but also in this kind of overbearing president style of love story, the male protagonist simply cannot support the overbearing president's personality - because he either has no money or is unwilling to spend money for the female protagonist.
It is not enough for the upper class and successful people, but the overbearing president also needs to have a domineering personality. Taking "Meteor Garden" as an example, the male number one set by manga author Kamio Leaf is a more introverted and traditional prince-type Hanazawa class, but in every popularity vote after the series of works, the domineering Domyeongji Temple has always been the champion. So the Daoming Temple was gradually straightened out in accordance with the "public opinion" and became the male protagonist. This also illustrates the popularity of the domineering president in the female audience.
Here, hegemony is not only a manifestation of masculinity, in the article "Can't Help Capitalism: Understanding the "Overbearing President"", Gu Li, associate professor of the School of Journalism and Communication of Southwest University of Political Science and Law, analyzes the charm of this domineering and high-cold personality, she believes that Gaoleng is a manifestation of high self-sufficiency, self-determination and self-control, and is the label and privilege of the "strong" in atomized individuals. The reason why the high-cold president can "play cards without common sense" is precisely because he is proficient in the rules of the game and has a precise grasp of the various relationships in society, "in a sense, he is the embodiment of the combination of knowledge and power." ”
Of course, the overbearing president is cold to everyone and does everything by any means, only to show the vulnerability of the heroine. The overbearing president often falls in love with the traditional "Cinderella", who has an ordinary family, ordinary ability, and ordinary appearance, but is always kind and simple, hard and brave, so that countless female audiences can self-substitute in such an image. The overlord story's strong rendering of the male protagonist's appearance, wealth, talent and cold and domineering personality is to set off the strong charm of the female protagonist from the side, so that the "ordinary me" as the heroine will become a "special me" in love.
Gu Li sees the "overbearing president" as the "cool article" of women who are the subjects of the classified gender, or James F. Kennedy. What C. Scott (1985/2007) called the "hidden script" of the weak. The strong sense of self-affirmation that women get in the story of hegemony is not obtained by themselves, but is often refracted from the president's aura and domineering favor of the male protagonist, just like the moon cannot shine on its own, but can only reflect the sun's light (popular culture is full of metaphors that women are the moon and men are the sun, as the Korean drama "The Moon Embraces the Sun" suggests). And women look for self-affirmation in such romantic stories, often because they can't find that feeling anywhere else. Why?
It can be said that it is the huge gap in reality that causes this problem. Being in love with a domineering president can not only achieve the consummation of love, but also achieve a class leap and achieve "one-stop" full satisfaction, which to a certain extent reflects the inability of the author (and the reader) to imagine an equal and healthy relationship. The reason why women must achieve the fulfillment of life by being overpowered is because social resources, including economic resources, are more inclined to the male group, and more resources are often allocated to "successful people". In this way, women are placed under a structure in which only men can (or more easily) achieve their own interests.
Why did the hegemon fail
"The so-called love that people talk about is very far-fetched, because one side is a woman who learns to fall in love through a girl comic, and the other side is a man who learns sex through AV, so that two people have to 'share' the same space in different contexts and try to drag each other into their own contexts, which is too strong." 」
In her book "Beginning at the Limit: A Jane of Feminist Reciprocating," Ryomi Suzuki said this in a letter to Chizuko Ueno. She believes that in a romantic relationship, one side longs to be in love, the other side desires to have a woman and satisfy sexual desire, and two people with different desires have barely achieved coexistence by sharing another goal (procreation), but there is always a fundamental difference in the love script in the understanding of men and women.
In this sense, it is not difficult to imagine that different people have different understandings or interpretations of overbearing presidents. Even women who are addicted to reading romance novels undoubtedly long for a pure relationship of equality and freedom in their hearts, but what does the bully crave?
In "Why Sheng Ji Mo", He Yichen used his social capital to make things difficult for Zhao Mosheng's company and retaliated against Zhao Mosheng who left him. "If You're Okay It's a Sunny Day" (2021) tells the story of Tang Mingxuan, general manager of the fashion group, falling in love with the designer, here, the male protagonist Baba always said amazingly: "The elevator that just sent you up, including the 153,800-square-meter Mingyuan Building under your feet now, all of this belongs to me Tang Mingxuan." Do you know that the reason why you can jump up and down on this place is because of my acquiescence, and without my nod, I tell you, you can't even enter the gate of the Mingyuan Building. It seems that men, as the party who holds the right to speak, have become reasonable in giving and taking ordinary girls, and it seems that as long as the end point is two people in love, no matter what happens in the middle, it can be reasonably explained.
Originally, the capital and power in the story of the overbearing president were hidden in the appearance of pursuing true love. In the article "Overbearing President: Image Shaping and Cultural Reflection on the Male Image", author Zhou Genhong pointed out: "The overbearing president drama releases the original sin of capital through love, and finally constructs a new narrative in the name of emotion that conforms to the mainstream ideology. "The problem is that in the female romantic love imagination, the end point is that the two achieve equality in love, and power and capital are only means to express love; However, some male characters holding the script of "hegemony" have given up the emotion itself, and their eyes have long lingered on the main body of the male elite.
When the overlords are addicted to the setting of their own capital and power, and even further strengthen the male privileges under the patriarchal system, what is created is not the "overbearing president" in the eyes of women, but the men's infinite indulgence in their own charm can not extricate themselves. Such a bully is no longer a bully in the eyes of women, but a "BKing", that is, a person who thinks that he is full of charm and radiates light around his hands and feet. In "Gentlemen of the East Eighth District", when the male protagonist sleeps in the female protagonist's room, the screenwriter makes the female protagonist have the inner activity of "this man is 1 meter 83", which is also the height of the actor himself. It can be said that at this time, the boss is looking at the heroine with affection, but the handsome herself reflected in the heroine's eyes.
Epilogue: A narrative of self-destruction
The "Book of Broken Walls" edited by Shao Yanjun, a researcher of online literature, pointed out that in the story of the overbearing president, "one vein is the president's dual control and abuse of the girl's spirit and body, and the other is the president's growing fascination with the girl." This sadomasochistic plot of "dual control and abuse of spirit and body", in Zhou Genhong's view, is a process of negotiation to dissolve the social, capital, power and gender gap between the "overbearing president" and the "ordinary woman" in the play, with the aim of achieving a balance between the social reality order and the communication of love. However, due to the excessive self-focus of some failed overlords and indulgence in the world of the self, this double control and abuse has become a stage for overlords to show off money, power and manhood, and sadomasochism has thus become a PUA, a bully for the weak.
The other vein, "the president's growing infatuation with girls", in some greasy hegemonic dramas, is manifested as countless girls involuntarily mothing to the fire like a mad to him. They stay with the men they look up to, at the indifferent overbearing president, and refuse to pick up the girls' love scripts.
The existence of these failed scripts is predictable, after all, in the perfect form of the "overbearing president", the rift is deeply rooted in itself - the arrogance and indifference of the overlords based on money and power are understandable by default, and the humiliation and violence of the male protagonist to the female protagonist are originally regarded as an acceptable love prelude.
Resources:
Li Chao: The Image of the "Overbearing President": The Imagination of the "Upper Class" in Contemporary Popular Culture
Zhou Genhong: "Overbearing President: Image Shaping and Cultural Reflection of Male Image"
Gu Li: "Can't Help Capitalism: Understanding the "Overbearing President""