Sohu Entertainment Special (Shanjin/Wen) With a good reputation, the "Rock and Roll Flower", which was not concerned at the beginning of the broadcast, completed the counterattack, and the popularity index and ranking on many lists are rising.
The basis of the counterattack is scarcity and rebellion. In recent years, among the protagonists of domestic dramas, there are almost no selfish mothers, and there are few middle-aged women who have really failed.
Middle-aged women are either decent and capable elites, or completely wives and mothers, shrewd and capable, and focus on raising children.
And "Rock and Roll Flower" shows an undignified and "incorrect" middle-aged woman's life - no money, no career, no family, only illness.
Selfish losers
The heroine Peng Lai is the lead singer of the female rock band "Crazy Flower", who was once so popular that she bought a house in Beijing's third ring road.
In order to connect with international standards, she went to the United States alone to fight for her career, but she became a resident singer who sang "Love to Fight to Win" at a Chinese wedding banquet, and a caregiver who cut nails and bathed the elderly in a nursing home.
Ran away for half his life and returned to become Loser.
The career is not successful and the family is not harmonious. Penley had a very bad relationship with her daughter, who was 6 years old when she went to the United States to pursue her career, and she did not return to China for the next 12 years.
Penglai, who only returned to China because of the death of her ex-husband, and her daughter had a disagreement over the sale of the house, and frequent quarrels and vindictiveness were the daily life of the two.
From a worldly perspective, Penley is a selfish and incompetent mother. She left her daughter and chose herself, she gave up her motherhood and chose a career.
The daughter hates her mother for not caring about her, and Penley does seem to love herself more.
The scene that best reflects Penley's selfishness is in episode 11. She reorganized the band "Crazy Flower" and went on a variety show, in order to leave a perfect stage for herself who may be deaf, she chose the weakest novice band in the PK section, that is, her daughter's band.
She would rather eliminate her daughter and ruin her dreams than win; She would rather win than wonderful.
Such an undignified, flawed, and even selfish protagonist is precisely where the show is realistic enough.
"Our Marriage" also portrays a mother who plays rock, she is highly educated, capable, can retire to be a full-time mother, can quickly return to the workplace, hold high the feminist banner, and play with the workplace and family.
This is a suspended cool drama, but also a slogan.
But "Rock 'n' Roll Flower" does not provide any "coolness", nor does it have the blood to bottom out.
Penglai decided to fight for a career at the cost of losing his daughter; Middle-aged and undesirable, always wanted to make a comeback, and always failed.
For her first performance after returning to China, she fainted on stage drunk; participated in a variety show and was eliminated after not going through a few rounds; He said that he wanted to return to the top, but he couldn't even quit drinking; If you want to play a good band, you may lose your hearing as a result.
Until the end, Peng Lai remained at the bottom, not completing the perfect curtain call of her dreams, but leaving a stage out of tune.
Although many viewers criticized the conflict between mother and daughter as too exaggerated, the good thing about "Rock 'n' Roll Flower" is that it portrays the extreme character as believable.
Peng Lei is logical and self-consistent, she has a background of growth, reasonable motivation for behavior, and consistent personality characteristics.
The root of the character tragedy is the shadow of the original family, abandoned by his parents in childhood, often beaten by drunken aunts, and did not get much love before, so he was afraid to give love, so he loved himself more.
Is it real rock or not?
"Rock and Roll Flower" has always been committed to proving itself "rock concentration".
The media viewing meeting was held in the Beijing School bar, the drama team asked Wujoren, Orange Sea and other bands to help publicize, and the director said in an interview that he grew up with early Chinese rock music...
Even so, there are still many viewers who are dissatisfied and think that "Rock and Roll Flower" is "not real rock".
The reason is that the songs in the play are not good, the audience holding signs at the rock performance, and the portrayal of rock singers is too stereotypical - smoking, drinking, cursing the street, fighting.
If "Rock and Roll Flower" is required by the standards of professional dramas, it is expected to truly show the ecology of the rock industry, concoct popular rock songs, and deeply expound the spirit of rock, which will obviously not be satisfied.
It does not provide these. And when the drama over-advertises what it cannot provide, it is probably inevitable to arouse the audience's disgust.
In fact, rock is just a shell to the show, it is even an element that can be replaced.
Even if the heroine is a rapper, street artist, art film director... As long as her upbringing background and personality traits remain unchanged, the essence of the story will not change in any way.
Rock is not the point, but in this self-reconciliation story, the heroine does have a "rock" side, which is not reflected in obedience, music, live performances, but choices for life.
Cui Jian once said, "In fact, the spirit of rock is the spirit of people, and there is no need to emphasize the word rock too much." It doesn't matter if you rock or not, what matters is whether you or not yourself. ”
From this point of view, Penley is indeed physically "rocking". Do not maintain health, do not soak goji berries in thermos cups, do not admit fate, and do not face reality; Always drunk, always idealistic, always love yourself more, always live in the dream of a comeback.
Outside the play, "Rock and Roll Flower" can create such an alternative female character, 12 episodes and 5 days to air, not deliberately catering to hot spots, not trying to please all audiences, it is already a rock and roll thing.
To say that it is really not rock and roll enough, it is probably not rebellious to the end.
In the last episode, the daughter learned that Peng Lai had been silently caring for herself, understood her mother's love and bitterness, and the two reconciled. Such a simple and crude design is obviously a bit cheesy and expected.
The "middle woman's dilemma" inside and outside the play
"We will definitely be cheaper than Hu Ge, and it will be just as easy to use, I hope everyone will give me more opportunities." At the 2019 FIRST Youth Film Festival, Haiqing's words made the career crisis of 40+ actresses widely concerned.
In the past two years, the national drama market seems to have a lot more mature female themes, but the plight of the big Qingyi people seems to be continuing.
At the opening ceremony of this year's Hundred Flowers Award, Yao Chen said: "I am 43 years old, and actresses of this age still have relatively limited space for expression in performance, and they will also want to explore at this time, so they will look for those fresh creators." ”
Yao Chen found his own way, serving as an executive producer, cooperating with a new director, and focusing on female themes.
"Send Me to Qingyun" comes from newcomer female director Teng Congcong, starring Yao Chen and serving as an executive producer. Like Peng Lai, Sheng Nan, the heroine of "Send Me to Qingyun", is also impressive, and she frankly admits and faces her desires.
In the completed "Three Noble Love History", Yao Chen plays the "witch" in the eyes of children, the singer Xia Jie, and in order to control the artistic direction, she served as a co-producer.
Middle-aged actresses want to play a good female role, it seems that they can only "curve to save the country". But even if he can take the initiative to hold some discourse power, Yao Chen in recent years is still not very productive.
In an interview with Sohu Entertainment, Yao Chen said that he really did not produce much, "I have never made a choice because of the type of play, I don't care about the type, I care about people." Is this person writing interesting, this person is not what I want to get close to her. ”
And an offbeat, real female character like Penley is rare and rare. Yao Chen's last drama "Holiday Warmth", Douban 6 points, she played Xu Yi, and Bai Yu sibling love, but unfortunately did not get out of the idol drama routine of "sister and dog love".
Other Tsing Yi people, who have not yet taken into account behind-the-scenes creations, are not in a good state of work, with low production and erratic quality.
Yuan Quan's works broadcast this year include "War of the Roses" and "Meet the Season" with a score of 4.8 on Douban, and the common points of these two dramas are dog blood, levitation, falsehood, and wisdom reduction.
Tong Yao broadcast Douban's 5.6-point "Home of the Heart" in the first half of the year, in which she played the strong woman Gu Qingyu, a senior management of the company, a deposit of millions, and a casual purchase of houses, but the result is still persistent in the love brain of junior high school Bai Yueguang.
Haiqing, who also appeared in "Home of the Heart" this year, repeats the old path of "national daughter-in-law", and is even worried about buying a house; The literary film "Hidden in the Dust" has a good reputation, but it is still a movie from a male perspective.
Song Jia has Douban 5.7 points of "Dressed Up" this year, which has been miserably evaluated by the audience as "more and more ungrounded"; Bai Baihe has broadcast two 6-point dramas this year, killed for three years, and has not come back...
Middle-aged actresses with acting skills are consumed in homogeneous roles and low-reputation works.
To some extent, the plight of middle-aged actresses reflects the stubborn diseases of domestic dramas, and cannot create a sufficiently complex, vivid and real middle-aged heroine.
Although "Rock 'n' Roll Flower" has a somewhat polarized reputation and not every viewer likes Penley, it does offer a progressive female image.
Beautiful, powerful, elite, dedicated, sacrificial, there are enough "correct good women" in domestic dramas, and complex "crazy women" and "bad women" may be new ideas.
Of course, the "bad" and "crazy" here are not the "vicious female partners" of the past, but to rebellion, a female image that breaks the shackles of tradition and morality.
Even if there is controversy, it is always more vivid and interesting than those cookie-cutter faces.