"When the "Uncle Circle" enters the public's field of vision with an excellent male group portrait drama, we hope to see that the "Sister Circle" can also follow the trend, no longer need to be a supporting role in the main drama, nor do we have to cater to the market "girl", but receive more and more "good roles" as a middle-aged actress."
The hottest actor at the beginning of 2023 is none other than Zhang Songwen.
In the opening hit drama "Crazy", Zhang Songwen, with his superb acting skills, left a deep impression on the audience with the role of gang-related businessman Gao Qiqiang. Netizens even commented: "It is recommended to check Zhang Songwen, it doesn't look like acting." ”
And Zhang Songwen off the screen is a rare "living person in internal entertainment" active in the Internet. Whether it is a sincere and wise reply in the Weibo comment area, or the national K song account found by netizens along the network cable, it adds a touch of affinity and humor to this new male god.
(Zhang Songwen Weibo comment area)
In addition to Zhang Songwen, Zhang Yi and Li Jian in "Crazy", Yu Hewei and Zhang Luyi in "The Three-Body Problem", Wu Jing, Andy Lau and even director Guo Fan in "The Wandering Earth" and other male stars have all fought in this Spring Festival stall. Because the age of these actors has bid farewell to "fresh meat", they are affectionately called "Uncle Circle" by netizens, and have aroused the attention and "archaeology" of netizens to middle-aged actors in domestic entertainment.
(Internal entertainment "Uncle Circle")
With #Neiyu Uncle Circle Tiancai# on the hot search, the powerful middle-aged actor returned to the public's field of vision and got a share of the traffic soup in the "Fresh Meat Era". In addition to the carnival, we still have a trace of doubt: is the rise of "uncle circle" a comeback of "rice circle culture", and can it solve the reality of middle-aged actors?
1
The rising "uncle circle" cannot escape the shackles of the "powder circle"
"Uncle circle" has been around for a long time.
As early as 2018, a post "Xu Zhengchao's words signed in only 22 people, why is the box office appeal so strong" triggered a "Uncle Circle 101" wave. In the traffic era where the draft is in full swing, netizens spontaneously held a folk draft for a group of middle-aged actors, writing copywriting, creating data, and building a website for "uncle" actors such as "brother Mountain Fighting" Xu Zheng, "Brother Sanshi" Huang Lei, "Brother Sanshui" Huang Bo, and "Uncle Fruit" Zhang Guoli.
(Douban "Uncle Circle 101" audition post)
Nowadays, the "uncle circle" culture is making a comeback, marketing numbers list the names of middle-aged actors, and under the call of "choose the uncle circle in your heart", netizens are happy to "uncle of their own". Zhang Songwen, an "old transparent" actor who has been concentrating on acting for 19 years, actually has a "station sister".
(Marketing number "Neiyu Uncle Circle Tiancai Nomination" post)
Yu Hewei, who won the Best Actor Award at the 27th Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Award for the role of Chen Duxiu in "The Age of Awakening", was accidentally "out of the circle" because of the magical line of "then playing music and dancing" by netizens.
(Yu Hewei emoji)
Starring actor Wu Jing, who has a box office of more than 30 billion, his screen image is known as a "tough guy". Recently, netizens have archeological Wu Jing's "hate to marry rough men" side when he was young, and they couldn't imagine that he was a "love brain" wearing the coat of "wolf warrior".
(Wu Jing's early Weibo)
And actor Zhang Yi, who is still the "only pure white jasmine in Jinghai" policeman An Xin in "Crazy", has become the sinister and cunning villain He Li in "Manjiang Hong" in a blink of an eye. Half sea water and half flame, and the acting skills that transform freely between good and evil are impressive.
("Anxin" and "He Li")
Compared with the traffic "fresh meat" has more maturity and acting skills, and less male gaze and preaching than "daddy taste man", this group of middle-aged male actors impressed the audience with their works and won fans with their personality, which is one of the reasons why some members of the "uncle circle" are loved by netizens today.
On the other hand, the emergence of "Uncle Circle" is actually closely related to the mainstream boutique film and television dramas that have been well received in recent years, and it can be said that it is a mutual achievement between good works and good actors.
In the past, the "traffic coffee" who relied on capital hype and paid attention to Bo, filmed with stand-ins, relied on dubbing, couldn't remember the lines and directly read the numbers, and often "collapsed the house"... All kinds of operations make people call "internal entertainment is over", but now this group of middle-aged actors use their acting skills to make the audience regain confidence in internal entertainment again.
American scholar Kern once proposed: "Our era is an era obsessed with beauty and youth, and television, movie drawings and dominant visual media constantly remind us that elegant and natural bodies and smiling faces are essential factors for happiness." ”
In visual culture, beautiful appearance is the product produced by idols. In idol talent shows, young and energetic beautiful faces, as well as words such as "cultivation system" and "producer" created by the media, fans gradually fall into sensory pleasure and false control over others, and pay time and money for it.
The rise of the "uncle circle" reflects the public's redefinition of "self-worth" at a certain level. In the "Uncle Circle", acting skills and works are the standards for measuring the level of actors, character and personality are the bonuses of stars to get love, and external factors such as age and appearance are no longer amplified. When the public's definition of the value of stars returns to the right track, the "age anxiety" and "appearance anxiety" imposed on individuals by "consumer idolatry" will also be reduced.
However, just when we thought that the wind blowing in the traffic era might be about to pass, the "rice circle culture" seems to be making a comeback in the "uncle circle".
Before there was "Uncle Circle 101", and then there was Zhang Songwen's "Station Sister" and "Uncle Circle Tiancai" selection, when the "Uncle Circle CP" this delayed element also became the media's term for publicity, the audience's appreciation of the actor's own acting skills and works gradually "changed", is this still difficult to escape another hype premeditated by capital?
In this overwhelming #Uncle Circle Tiancai #marketing, fans who were obsessed and chasing "brother" in the past switched to "uncle", "CP stew, can this be knocked", "inventory of the actor's x tension", "young and don't know uncle fragrance"... In one Internet carnival after another, fans have once again fallen into the trap of "idolatry", and the attention to the actors' acting skills seems to have faded.
("Uncle Circle" Hot Video)
It seems somewhat anachronistic to call for the return of reason at a time when the momentum of the "uncle circle" is gaining momentum. But the "overturning" of stars again and again, as well as the endless public opinion backlash caused by the irrationality of the "fan circle" have announced this fact to us: "star making" is risky, and star chasing needs to be cautious.
At this time, the cute version of Wu Jing, who is still in the "courtship period", may become synonymous with machismo "daddy man" in the mouths of netizens. At this time, netizens were still immersed in the sci-fi plot of "The Three-Body Problem" and were deeply shocked, at that time, the hot search of #Three-Body Uncle Circle CP# made some netizens feel a little uncomfortable, pointing out that the platform marketing was too much.
In short, the rise of "Uncle Circle" should be the beginning of "content is king and respect professionalism", rather than a marketing method dressed in the guise of "professionalism and acting skills", so as not to let the tragedy of the traffic era repeat itself.
2
Behind the explosion of "Uncle Circle": Where is the solution to the dilemma of "sister circle"?
If the "Uncle Circle" relies on acting skills and personality, the "Sister Circle" still cannot escape the judgment of "beauty".
"Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" has been broadcast for three seasons, and as early as the first episode of the first season, the program team set up three targets: gender, age, and prejudice. However, after three seasons, middle-aged actresses not only failed to break these three targets one by one and cross them one by one, but instead showed a group of female stars who are still properly maintained at an age and spend a lot of time and money to lock in their tight faces, to some extent, the importance of appearance to women's careers has become more and more prominent.
In the face of 30 middle-aged actresses, the audience's first thought is often not their works, but their appearance, love history, the former "plastic sisterhood" and the "tear x war" Shura field.
(News related to "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves")
When middle-aged actress Haiqing called for "asking directors and producers to give middle-aged actresses more opportunities" at the award ceremony and was ridiculed by the crowd for "asking for food in public", we found that in recent years, many dramas such as "Icebreaking Action", "Great River", "Age of Awakening" and "County Party Committee Compound" seem to have become the home of middle-aged actors.
("Drama" that has received praise in recent years)
As mentioned earlier, the popularity of "Uncle Circle" is inseparable from the blessing of the explosion of the main drama, and some netizens commented: "The main drama is a male group portrait." In the current popular mainstream dramas, male characters are in the main position, and female characters are often in a marginal position to assist the development of the storyline.
Netizens who did not buy the "uncle circle" sharply pointed out: How will the uncle circle rise? The main theme drama and high-quality large-scale production have been occupied by your uncle, still not satisfied?
(Netizen Comment)
In addition, although the rise of "uncle circle" can be counted as an attempt by internal entertainment to break age anxiety, in fact, ageism is rare among men. For men, increasing age is often a sign of greater maturity. It is enough to see from the "volume" of middle-aged male actors that "Uncle Circle" may have always lacked traffic, but it has never lacked good scripts. But for women, aging is always associated with aging and frailty.
Whenever middle-aged actresses are mentioned, the word "crisis" is always inseparable from keywords such as "popularity", "age" and "anxiety". Entertainment news of "inventory of plastic surgery actresses" and "middle-aged bliss and collapse of appearance of actresses" can be seen everywhere on the Internet, all of which convey the strict and ubiquitous scrutiny of women's appearance requirements in this era.
(Actress information can be seen everywhere on the Internet)
Therefore, when the internal entertainment "uncle circle" suddenly ushered in another peak of its own traffic at the age of forty or fifty, and the acting career went to a higher level, actresses of the same age mostly chose to "return to the family". Under the "survival of the fittest" of capital, audiences and markets, there is really not much room left for middle-aged actresses.
And the entertainment industry is just like a mirror, refracted into real life, why not? The media blindly advocate and advocate the value of youth, under the leadership of consumer ideology, a wide range of cosmetics and developed advertising and plastic surgery industries continue to promote and create the myth of youth and beauty, intensifying women's fear of aging and ugliness, which is an unavoidable symptom of this era.
Back to the actors themselves, it is in such a difficult market that there are still high-quality middle-aged actresses who have played one humble role after another in many popular dramas with superb acting skills. Just like the "sister-in-law" Chen Shuting in "Crazy", even though she is a villain, she has still been loved by netizens with her fierce personal charm.
("Sister-in-law" Chen Shuting in "Crazy")
In the same way, a "The Legend of Zhen Huan" that has been broadcast for 12 years has been "wrapped" by netizens, and the life of each female character in the play is a tragedy created by the feudal system, and each character has its own distinct personality and soul under the careful interpretation of the actors.
(Netizens' evaluation of "The Legend of Zhen Huan")
But a "The Legend of Zhen Huan" can make netizens watch it over and over again, doesn't it also reflect the scarcity of high-quality "female group portrait dramas" today? When suspended awkward plots, routine characters and exaggerated lines, as well as deliberately creating contradictions in order to highlight realistic themes, these factors have become synonymous with female group dramas, where is the spring of middle-aged actresses? When the so-called female independence becomes the beautification and lust of reality in film and television dramas, how can actors come to the public?
At the end of the day, what actors need most is still good work. When the "uncle circle" enters the public's field of vision with excellent male group portrait dramas, we hope to see that the "sister circle" can also follow the trend, no longer need to be a supporting role in the main drama, nor do they have to cater to the market "girls", but as a middle-aged actress, receiving more and more "good roles".
(Image source network)
Resources:
[1] ZENG Yiguo, XIAO Ying. From "Age Anxiety" to "Sister Circle Culture"——The Dilemma of Middle-aged Women in "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" and its way to solve the siege[J].China Book Review,2021,No.369(11):17-26.)