Source: Wen Wei Po
Not long ago, a domestic food drama "Fireworks and Sparks in the World" was broadcast in South Korea, allowing more people to understand and love Chinese food. When the drama was broadcast on the Youku platform earlier, it ranked in the top 10 of the Douban Chinese word-of-mouth drama list, and topped the list of Weibo TV dramas, and also refreshed the "ceiling" of the sub-account drama with the result of breaking 100 million yuan in the sub-account, reflecting the strong potential of food and television dramas.
As early as the primitive society, human beings know that if they want to engage in productive activities, the most basic thing is to eat and drink, and from the murals of the Altamira Caves we can glimpse the earliest portraits of cooking food. In contemporary society, diet has been widely disseminated in mass media, popular culture and daily life, especially in film and television dramas, diet has long become an indispensable performance element.
After the "diet" element is integrated into the film and television narrative, the seemingly ordinary foods and food-related things in our lives have symbolic and metaphorical significance. There is no doubt that after the long-term practice and repeated expression of the creators, the story with the theme of "diet" shows the characteristics of the genre and carries different cultural connotations and value functions. For example, the movies "Babette's Feast", "Thick Chocolate", "Stronger Taste", "Little Forest", "Elysee Palace's Female Chef", "Fallen Chef", "Burning Chef", "Julie and Julia", Japanese drama "Late Night Canteen", "Tokyo Grand Hotel", domestic film and television works "Chef Hanama", "Human Fireworks And Sparks", "I, Like You" and so on are loved by the audience. The unstoppable food trend has also spread to documentaries, cartoons and variety shows.
Food and television works often use larger pages to show the process of diet research, production, tasting and so on. Without the image, we would not have been able to appreciate the wonderful combinations, the changing techniques and the emotions behind the food
In 1895, the Lumière brothers recorded the French family having lunch on camera, and with the release of this short documentary film "Baby's Lunch", the presentation of food has since become an indispensable part of film and television dramas and mass media, such as Buster Keaton's "Chef" (1918) and "Dinner Party" (1933), which have a large number of scenes showing food. The most impressive are the classic passage in The Gold Rush (1925) in which Charlie cooks leather shoes to fill his hunger, and in One Night's Eve (1934), where Peter teaches Ellie how to make donuts in coffee. These food scenes either explain the cultural identity of the characters, or show the geographical and historical environment in which the story takes place, or become important props in the narrative, in which diet is only used as an element of icing on the cake, which is very different from what we call the "food movie" and "food drama" genre.
Food and television dramas usually take chefs or food lovers as the main characters, such as the famous chef Natsuki Oehana in "Tokyo Hotel", the female chef Hotenser in "The Female Chef of Elysee Palace", and the female chef Gu Shengnan in "I, Like You", and then focus on the protagonist's occupation or hobby - "food" as the theme or clue to unfold the plot. Their dietary preferences may vary widely, not only representing their personal tastes, ethnic background, class status, mental state, religious beliefs, but also showing different geographical environments, lifestyles and food cultures. Film and television dramas also use this to construct dramatic conflicts, weave rich storylines, and shape typical character images. For example, in the Japanese movie "Seagull Canteen", Yukie runs a Japanese restaurant in Finland alone, but due to cultural differences, her store is snubbed. In the domestic drama "I, Like You", Lu Jin is a domineering president worth hundreds of millions, no one can conquer his taste buds, gu Shengnan is a sloppy and wayward Cinderella chef, and the two are not right. In the movie "Crazy Feast", the Italian brother opens an Italian restaurant in the United States, but is at risk of closure. On the surface, it is a contradiction in the relationship between the characters, but in fact it is a conflict of cultural views, and this confrontation deepens the deep connotation of food and television dramas.
In dietary film and television works, after experiencing career, emotional and other life setbacks, the protagonist often obtains the healing of the soul or the victory of the story through diet. This means that the climax of the contradictions in food and television works revolves around food or uses food to solve, such as the mayor of the town who disdains Vivian's chocolate in the movie "Thick Love Chocolate" secretly nibbles on it at night, and Vivian not only does not mock him but reaches a reconciliation with him; in the movie "Delicious Love", Kate's unreasonable pickiness of the guests for food inspires her to give up her original job as a restaurant chef and get back together with her lover Nick; the victory of a cooking competition in the movie "Golden Jade Mantang" resolves the business crisis of Manhan Lou; In the TV series "Fireworks and Sparks in the World", the chef of the "Flower House", Hua Wheat, debunked the evil man's treacherous scheme and won the championship in the Eight Treasures Competition where famous chefs gathered.
Food and television dramas often use large pages to show the process of food research, production, tasting, etc., creating a delicious and attractive feeling in audiovisual. On the one hand, film and television dramas use montage techniques to artistically process the technical procedures of diet cooking, making the cumbersome food processing process more ornamental and aesthetic. From the selection, cutting, cooking to plating, the clips are edited in the order of representative action fragments, condensing cooking time while emphasizing cooking details. On the other hand, the food tasting process also creates a sense of ritual beyond daily life, or to express the etiquette of eating, such as the order of tasting French dishes in the movie "The Feast of Babette"; or to show the protagonist's emotional attitude towards food, whether it is enjoyment, awe, or pickiness, rejection, and the audience relies on this emotion to establish an emotion for food.
The food culture of each country and nation has its own strong characteristics and rich connotations. French cuisine pays attention to the combination of color, flavor and shape, with delicate taste and exquisite presentation; Italian cuisine highlights the original taste of ingredients, preferring tomatoes and olive oil; Chinese cuisine makes good use of fire, medical and food combination. The food of various countries presents a very different style due to region, ingredients, cooking techniques, culture, etc., and if there is no video presentation, those wonderful combinations, ever-changing techniques and the emotions behind the food may be difficult for us to appreciate.
The reason why "diet" is popular on large and small screens is, on the one hand, because those intricate and exquisite foods with attractive colors and cooking techniques that are rare in daily life can extend the audience's perceptual senses through a large number of close-ups, slow shots, etc., and mobilize the most basic physiological needs of the audience. Diet "is an unusual complex, it condenses personalized fantasy, inspiration, taste, imagination and style", it is the collision of various unknown taste buds, not only brings great imagination space to the creation of film and television dramas, at the same time, the visual spectacle of imaging also brings the audience a novel and unfamiliar experience.
Food film and television dramas emphasize the color, aroma, taste and shape of food, tempting the people in the film at the same time, but also making the audience addicted. For example, in the movie "Babette's Feast", Babette, who is actually a famous chef in a French restaurant, wants to serve an authentic French meal to the rustic villagers of the Danish town, in which Babette prepares ingredients and cooks more than one-third of the film, and the order of serving and the combination of wine also show the exquisite style of the French. The Japanese series of movies "Little Forest" is almost entirely based on the trivial daily life and cooking process of the protagonist Koichi rising from sunrise and sunset, divided by the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter far from the city, each season has its own ingredients, koichi accepts natural gifts and cooks for it, so that the seemingly simple ingredients burst out of the fresh taste. Almost every episode of "Fireworks and Sparks in the World" has a cooking bridge, three meals a day, talented and beautiful, not only the food makes people salivate, but also the strong pyrotechnic atmosphere and the ordinary life of the long stream of fine water are also envied.
In addition to giving people a sense of physical satisfaction, the diet on the screen can also fill people's psychological holes and relieve people's psychological pressure from a deeper level. It is well known that when a person is in a state of negative emotions or tension, the craving for food is greatly increased as a way to dissolve negative emotions. The popularity of a new network live broadcast program "Eat Broadcast" that has emerged at present can explain some problems, on the one hand, "Eat Broadcast" satisfies the curiosity of different people for various foods, liberates their suppressed appetite, and on the other hand, it also confirms the spiritual loneliness and social alienation of the people behind the carnival. In film and television dramas, there is no shortage of bridges to obtain spiritual comfort through eating, such as the Japanese drama "Late Night Canteen", every midnight, all kinds of guests will go to the "late night canteen" as a guest, unload the tiredness of the day, and tell the sour, sweet and bitter spicy of life in the aroma of food and the restaurant full of humanity. In the Japanese drama "Lonely Foodie", the grocery store owner Inokashita Goro goes deep into the streets of Japan every day after work, tasting all kinds of food, although Goro is alone, but it seems that he is not lonely, from cream fruit sandwiches to rich black coffee, to the vast and profound Chinese cuisine, he eats a lot, sometimes even without lines, only listens to the sound of chewing food and swallowing saliva, and then picks up a satisfying, leisurely close-up reaction shot of him, can't help but sigh what can be more pleasant than enjoying food?
With the help of diet, film and television works or complex expressions of human emotions, or in-depth discussions about human nature, diet has become a special meaning carrier for us to examine society and life
When we watch food and beverage genre film and television dramas, it is not difficult to find that its genre elements are the food itself and its delicious and attractive image symbols.
The audience's spiritual desire for food has contributed to the emergence and continuous development of food and television dramas. Although the expectations of different people for the type elements are different in each period and different people, the shell presented will also be mutated or strengthened with the change of time and space. However, in general, the food genre film and television dramas mainly take "personal value realization" and "restaurant management" as the main clues in the narrative.
In the narrative thread of "personal value realization", this type of film and television drama mainly aims at the realization of the protagonist's professional value and life ideals, and the protagonist is usually a chef or a food lover, who has his own career pursuit and love for food, but life often makes it backfire. Through the continuous improvement of cooking skills, personal value is finally realized.
For example, in the movie "Antarctic Cooker", chef Jun Nishimura racked his brains to cook for seven lonely men at the icy Antarctic expedition base, because everyone lived in a closed space all year round, the enthusiasm for food gradually declined, and even some people got up every night to steal ramen, which made Nishimura Jun feel depressed, and everyone's disregard made him suffer. Finally, Nishimura sat down steaming around the table with a traditional Japanese ramen noodle, and he smiled with relief as he watched them devour this simple hometown delicacy. Arguably, this is Nishimura's happiest moment as a chef. The movie "Julie and Julia" juxtaposes the pursuit and love of food between Julie and Julia, two women of different eras. A middle-aged julia, a housewife, followed her husband, who worked in the embassy, to France, where she fell in love with French cuisine. In order to learn French cuisine, she enrolled in the most expensive cooking class, through continuous study of cooking, constantly facing the challenges of publishing houses, and finally wrote the best-selling book "Mastering the Culinary Art of French Cuisine". More than fifty years later, Julie despaired of her boring life and wanted to change her life with something meaningful, so she began to challenge herself to practice the recipes in Mastering the Culinary Art of French Cuisine for a year, sharing them daily on her blog. In the end, she was warmly sought after by netizens and found the value of her own existence.
In the narrative thread of "restaurant management", restaurants are either facing fierce competitive pressure, or business is dismal, or they are isolated at the beginning of their business. Through the efforts of the protagonist, the restaurant can always overcome all difficulties and gain the love of diners.
In the movie "Chef Down", Kyle is the chef of a well-known restaurant, but is forced to leave because of the owner's business philosophy, and with the support of family and friends, Kyle decides to set up a mobile restaurant. Penniless, isolated, dish research, and marketing have become practical issues that the protagonist needs to consider, and thus form a dramatic conflict. The Japanese drama "Tokyo Grand Hotel" is based on the French celebrity chef Natsuki Ohana and the team to make a comeback to start a business, in order to obtain the goal of three Michelin stars, everyone's unremitting efforts have finally achieved success. The Man Han Lou run by the European boss in the movie "Golden Jade Man Tang" is challenged by Huang Rong, the Indian restaurant and the Michelin restaurant compete in the French town in "Michelin Love", the single mother Dandelion runs a bleak ramen restaurant in "Dandelion", and the Flower Wheat opens a small noodle shop to subsidize the family in "The Fireworks Chef on Earth", which was initially questioned, but she proved herself with her cooking skills, and then opened her own restaurant "Flower House". Whether individual or collective, the plot of the history of struggle is more tortuous and the more it can gain the favor of the audience.
Many food and beverage dramas often mix other genres in their narratives. Since genre is a product of the audience's subconscious, in order to maximize the audience, film and television producers usually mix different genre elements in the face of more consumer demands. It is not difficult to find that food genre film and television dramas and love, family ethics, action, comedy and other elements are often intertwined, such as "Like You" is not only a food movie, but also the classic joyful enemy model of the male and female protagonists, and the genre elements of love films. The movie "God Eater" martial arts the chef's cooking skills, and titled "Leaning On Heaven Cut" and "Slaying dragon chop" and other titles, playing with knives and spoons is like dancing knives and swords, which is dazzling.
According to Lawrence Vicente, narrative is made up of stories and themes that guide the narrative of a story, provide emotional communication, or convey a deeper meaning. Any story or plot without a theme is like a mess. Food and television works have developed so far, most of which present consistent themes, and these "concepts" and "paradigms" together have gradually formed a clear genre division of such works. However, due to the cultural differences between the East and the West, the desires, emotions, and concepts conveyed through food are different. Correspondingly, Chinese or East Asian food and television dramas pay more attention to the complex expression of human emotions, while Western or European and American countries emphasize in-depth discussion of human nature and highlight the background of individualism.
The performance of food genre film and television dramas on human emotions is complex and profound, which stimulates the most sincere and simple resonance of human emotions. In traditional Chinese food culture, food is always tied to emotions, the Dragon Boat Festival commemorates ancestors eating rice dumplings, the Mid-Autumn Festival misses relatives to eat mooncakes, the Spring Festival family reunion eats dumplings and tangyuan, and the diet itself and eating behavior contain many abstract and figurative symbols. In the ideographic space of the film, diet not only assumes the narrative function, but also constructs the metaphorical text and symbolic field of human seven passions and six desires.
The movie "Eating Men and Women" through the event of the family banquet insight into the estrangement of father and daughter in the extended family, which should be used as a link to connect emotions is useless, the daughters have their own thoughts, and the indifferent attitude contrasts with a large table of delicacies. As the chef's sense of taste fails, the old family order falls lonely, and the emotional ties drop to the freezing point. It was not until the establishment of a new order at the end that the family feast was filled with warmth. In the Japanese drama "The Taste of Chengsha", a septuagenarian woman, a middle-aged man and a high school girl get together because of the gong shop, they know each other, and they have formed wonderful emotions like mothers like sons, fathers and daughters. In the movie "Song of the Quiet Cafe", Mika, whose father's love is missing, and her single mother Eriko have different emotional traumas, the two are connected by a café, and the film expresses the theme of accepting more warmth and kindness instead of spending life in misery and cowardice through the image of "coffee".
On the other hand, food genre film and television dramas emphasize the liberation of individual desires, expressing respect for life and the pursuit of humanity. In the West, under the influence of religious culture, appetite as one of the original sins has always imprisoned people's instinctive desires. In film and television dramas, food is seen as opposed to the doctrines and stereotypes of repressed human nature and symbolizes the power to liberate people's free nature, which has the ability to discover and perceive the true happiness of life.
In the movie "The Feast of Babette", in the face of Babette's request to cook an authentic French feast, the devout believers still did not resist the temptation of the world. Under the stars of the Nordic night, they clasp their fingers to each other for the breath of food and wine, allowing emotions to be released. Food is like a catalyst and a booster, allowing imprisoned hearts to meet each other. The film "Chocolate" is more obvious in the narrative, with Vivian, a foreigner in a red cape, coming to a town where thought is imprisoned to open a chocolate shop, but the mayor of the town, who symbolizes theocracy and patriarchy, constantly obstructs. Although the townspeople are under the majesty of the mayor, they cannot resist the delicious taste of chocolate, which symbolizes the freedom of human nature, and finally even the mayor cannot resist the temptation of human instinct and lies down in the "chocolate pile". Vivian's victory symbolizes the total victory of humanity and humanity.
With its unique genre elements and the material and cultural attributes of diet itself, food genre film and television dramas have become an indispensable carrier of meaning for us to examine society and life, driven by human subconscious desires.