That's right, "Echo" had to be filmed by Feng Xiaogang

*This article involves a small number of spoilers

"Echo" has been over for a while, but the discussion around it continues.

Compared with the more familiar suspense dramas, "Echo" gives people the impression of "half suspense". The original author once said that the origin of this book is "about trust and doubt", with family as the background and love as a touchstone. Later, because he felt that only this line was "too thin", he added a clue related to the case.

The starting point of creation is so, and the drama version of "Echo", which is an adaptation of the work, naturally follows this temperament. Many of the voices of discussion focused on the gender relationship presented in the play, the discussion of marriage, and the challenges behind it to the current mainstream drama audience. These interpretations also confirm that "Echo" is essentially more like a romantic drama, just borrowing a shell of suspense.

The field of dramas began to divide narrative perspectives by gender, which is actually what happened in recent years. On the one hand, there are more and more voices in the public opinion field discussing feminist topics, and the germination and awakening of women's consciousness have also been brought by female audiences to the process of examining the works of the series; On the other hand, female creators have also joined the struggle for "right to speak", hoping to present more "the world through women's eyes" on the screen.

Compared with the types with a weaker sense of gender interaction such as military, spy warfare, and criminal investigation, the male perspective is always particularly obvious in love stories, which is why "Echo" has such an obvious "masculinity".

There are several pairs of love relationships in "Echo", of which the more length is the heroine "Ran Dongdong" and her husband "Mu Dafu", "Mu Dafu" and the writer "Peizhen" are suspected of mental derailment, "Ran Dong Dong" therefore seems a little nagging, constantly asking whether her husband is cheating, and whether he loves himself, and even uses the method of investigating the case to try to find out the truth.

What can be felt is that the play tries to explore the importance of mutual trust in the marriage relationship through the couple, and also spends some space in the early stage to narrate the insecurity of "Ran Dongdong", which comes from finding that her husband is no longer honest with her.

But in the second half of the "Ran Dong Dong" various behaviors gradually began to lose logic and psychological motivation, she sometimes behaved very much in love with "Mu Daf", sometimes like a "madman", hysterically, aggressively and repeatedly questioned - so most of the audience could not understand and empathize with her, and even almost forgot that "Ran Dong Dong" was like this because her husband cheated first.

In the story of "Echo", some women are tortured by their partner's cheating to the point of almost becoming insane, while others show no concern at all. In the play, "Xia Bingqing" was first raped by "Xu Shanchuan", and then because "the money was in place", the two became a bonding relationship, and "Xu Shanchuan"'s original wife "Shen Xiaoying" knew that he had many lovers outside, but he didn't care, and he never asked - isn't this the ideal wife in the hearts of some men?

We try to find commonalities in these intricate relationships. Needless to say, Echoes attempts to approach and explore the nature of marriage. Love is a hormonal impulse, there is not a long shelf life, but behind the marriage is the social system of two people for a lifetime, hoping to use marriage to make two people's love constant temperature insurance This matter is obviously unreliable, it is difficult for someone to only be moved by one person in their life - these are all correct nonsense, is the view that almost everyone agrees with.

But regrettably, with a breakthrough that directly explores the nature of the marriage relationship, "Echo" does not try to go further. In other words, all discussions are based on the perspective of men, or in other words, the perspective of successful men.

In the marriage in the plot, only men seem to be bound by the marriage system, such as "Mu Dafu", who cannot be moved by other women and bears moral condemnation, and "Xu Shanchuan", who faces the threat of forced marriage by lovers even if he has countless lovers.

On the other hand, the women in the play almost all have a relatively "homogeneous" desire for marriage, but to different degrees: "Xia Bingqing" hopes that she can become the legitimate wife of "Xu Shanchuan", trying to exchange threats for marriage; The original "Shen Xiaoying" was reluctant to divorce her cheating husband; What "Ran Dong Dong" longs for is to have a love that is always fresh in marriage.

In addition, the narrative perspective of "extramarital affairs" is also worth playing. In triangular relationships, men are directly "invisible". When "Ran Dongdong" and "Mudaf" first got married, there were female students who adored "Mudaf", he told "Ran Dongdong" about it, and asked her to come forward to settle it, "Ran Dongdong" ran to give the female students a problem, and after a fierce confrontation, the other party finally retreated, and the original match won a big victory - this plot appeared in the play as evidence that the two were in love.

"Ran Dong Dong" and "Beizhen" also went head-to-head

The plot of "Original vs. Mistress" has appeared more than once in "Echoes". "Xia Bingqing" dressed up, took the initiative to meet "Shen Xiaoying", and told her the fact that "Xu Shanchuan" raped her, and the original wife's answer was - "He can rape you, you must also be responsible, or you took the initiative to send it to the door." ”

Such lines, placed in the context of the moment, seem out of place. After all, the kind of female relationship we expect is to be able to understand and help each other, like the man who joined forces to get rid of domestic violence in "Jiang Zhao Dawn". But in the perspective chosen by "Echo", this does present a certain reality.

"Xia Bingqing"'s appeal is marriage, and "Shen Xiaoying" firmly believes that the reason why "Xu Shanchuan" will not divorce her is the conclusion that a woman has instrumentalized her position in the marriage relationship: "I gave him two such lovely children, I serve him like a servant every day, I don't care what kind of woman he is with, if you marry him, can you do it like me?" ”

This is a popular "female competition" narrative in the last era, in order to highlight how "sought-after" men are in the love market. "Yiping" and "Ruping" in "Deep Rain" turned against "He Shuhuan", and "An Lingrong" in "The Legend of Zhen Huan" did not hesitate to frame his girlfriends in order to gain the favor of the emperor - in short, women will fall into endless competition in order to compete for male attractiveness, while "stabbing the same sex", they will also objectify themselves to amplify those traits that can attract men.

And the role of "Shen Xiaoying" is familiar in temperament, thinking and behavior, isn't this "big sassy honey"? ——Gao Xiaosong once made an accurate summary of the role of "Sami" in "Strange Words", which is "fight to give you a continuation of the brick, the stubble piano to sing harmony to you, you are beaten into a vegetative state, and you will be raised for a lifetime." At that time, Cai Kangyong asked suspiciously: "So is this a word for praise?" ”

One sample that can be used for comparison is the episode in the Japanese drama "Restart Life", where several girls discover that their friends are unknowingly dating married men and decide to tell her the truth. Before that, they had "rehearsed" several times about how they should deal with it if their friends were crying, sad and sad. As a result, after the other party knew the truth, his first reaction was to call the man immediately, and after cursing, he simply announced the breakup.

Of course, from a realistic point of view, when women face extramarital affairs, whether it is the end of the liso, sad crying, or entanglement or even confrontation with the original wife, the existence of these situations has a certain degree of rationality, and the difference between film and television dramas is which one to present. But it seems that "Restart Life" chooses a female perspective, while "Echo" has a male perspective.

The advantage of the male perspective is that it is accurate in portraying men's attitudes towards love and marriage. After "Xia Bingqing" directed and acted in a play where he found another good person and wanted to break up with "Xu Shanchuan", "Xu Shanchuan" seemed relieved, but in fact drank alcohol all night - but was he really just reluctant to bear this love? There seems to be another psychological factor, "Since I was a child, no woman dares to do this to me."

Since it is about love and marriage, it must involve the portrayal of men and women.

In Echoes, there are three types of male attraction: money, talent and power.

"Xu Shanchuan" supports his lover, and can easily make "Xia Bingqing" accept the fact that he was raped, which is related to his being rich enough; "Mudafu" can both attract "Ran Dongdong" and entangle with the spirit of the writer "Beizhen", because he is talented enough; And men who do not have these characteristics, such as "Wu Wenchao" played by Bao Bell, and "Yi Chunyang", a schizophrenic who kills people for 10,000 yuan.

Wu Wenchao (top) Yi Chunyang (bottom)

And the attractiveness of women, the part presented in the play is a little lackluster. "Xia Bingqing" is a kind of "mistress" character who combines male stereotypes, looks gorgeous, exchanges her self-esteem for money, and regards beauty as a passport to life, when she goes to meet "Shen Xiaoying", the camera also unabashedly focuses on her buttocks; "Ran Dongdong" is the backbone of the criminal police with a successful career, but she is an "unqualified wife" at home, not only does not do housework, but also is suspicious, and she is busy enough to solve the case, and she has to spend other time investigating whether her husband is cheating.

In addition to the two main female characters, the personality label of the original wife "Shen Xiaoying" is "open-minded", she does not care whether her husband cheats, tacitly allows him to raise a lover outside, as long as he goes home; "Shen Qing" returned to good ex-girlfriend who once abandoned him because he ran to become a junior for a talented literature professor; The only writer with a social label that is detached from emotional relationships, "Beizhen", is a fantasy addict who cannot create without love.

The fantasy of "saving the wind and dust" is also reflected in "Echo". Because of the complete imbalance of identity, status and objective conditions, "Xia Bingqing" has always been at a disadvantage in the relationship with "Xu Shanchuan", even if the other party is a rapist, but after giving her living expenses, buying her a house, a car, and helping her pay off her debts, she will become a "savior" who fell from the sky.

Even "Wu Wenchao", whose objective conditions do not seem to be superior, when facing "Xia Bingqing", although it looks like "licking dogs" (the word is also full of masculine colors), it is actually a mentality of "saving the wind and dust", and the few "sober moments" of "Xia Bingqing" is because Bao Bell recommended a few books to her. In short, the two men around "Xia Bingqing", one saved her with money and the other saved her with knowledge - but why did she "fall into the dust"? No one asked anymore.

Content creation from a male perspective, of course, is justified. Although many data show that women are the main force of the theater audience, we are not advocating the complete disappearance of works that serve male "fantasy". However, when we see barrages such as "It's good to have money", "Sent to the door by yourself", and "The main palace lady is powerful", we can't help but wonder if the screen works that can trigger such a voice from the audience are not worth thinking about?

However, this seems to be the same dilemma for most male creators. 14 years ago, Song Siming in "Snail House" was still the dream lover of the majority of women, but in today's perspective, he is a complete "scumbag"; In the past, the drama of "Little Three Dou Main Palace" was common in the content of the series, and the bridge of girlfriends turning against each other for men was even more common, but now, "female competition" has long been out of fashion - these are all eliminated male narratives.

Women's consciousness is irreversibly awakening and evolving, at least in the mainstream trend that presents itself on social platforms. As a more intimate mass entertainment commodity with a stronger consumer nature, it is inevitable to take this into account. What kind of female screen image is accepted? What kind of gender relationships are more acceptable to today's female audience? These problems can actually have a fuller solution idea.

In the years when women's dramas were just on the rise, the male characters in them were too stereotypical or even negative, or adopted too single a female perspective, which were all objective doubts. When we were talking to a female director at the time, her answer was: "It's too early to talk about 'breaking down barriers' until women's stories are fully told." ”

At the same time, she also mentioned that the shift of gender perspective in drama works is a necessary process for the development of the industry: most of the content of the past episodes was from a male perspective and no one noticed. When male creators begin to realize that more and more works from a female perspective are gradually gaining attention, in order to compete for the right to tell stories, they will naturally begin to highlight the value of the female presence in their stories.

So the same is true of most of the dramas presented today, and most male creators, if not fully empathetic, will at least "accommodate" a little, removing those obvious clips that will make women feel uncomfortable, and "Echo" obviously chose to go against most mainstream answers and seem to be unconcerned - who else can have such courage except Feng Xiaogang?