This "Magnolia Award" proves that domestic dramas in 2023 surpass the previous ones? It's still early
Text | Ling Hu Boguang
On the evening of June 23, the results of the 28th Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Award were announced, and "The World" and "County Party Committee Compound" jointly won the best TV series; Lei Jiayin won the best actor with "The World"; Wu Yue won the best actress with "County Party Committee Compound". Li Lu won the best director for "The World".
Best Supporting Actor "The World" Ding Yongdai, Best Supporting Actress "The Beginning" Aunt Liu Dan.
This "The World" and Wang Haiyu and Wang Daou won the Best Screenplay (Adaptation) Award, it can be said that "The World" has become the biggest winner of this magnolia, and the list of other winners is not listed, and the competition is really fierce this time, like the actors of "The Three-Body Problem" were not nominated, and Zhang Songwen, who was very popular in "Crazy", was not nominated.
The award-winning TV series and the scene will not be written here, and there is nothing to write about.
The progress of domestic dramas in the past two years is indeed obvious, like this year's TV series word-of-mouth, quality and market masterpieces include "Go to the Windy Place", "The Three-Body Problem", "Crazy" and "Long Season". The market results are poor, but the word-of-mouth masterpieces include "Moses on the Plain", "Daming under the Microscope", "Thirteen Years of Dust", "Breaking the Elite 2" and so on.
Even idol dramas have works such as "Love Only", "Starfall into Sugar", "Heart Protection" and so on.
As a result, I saw that many people think that the rise of domestic dramas in the new era has begun to surpass the shape of previous domestic dramas. So what should we think about this?
Good works continue for half a year, and domestic film and television "comprehensive revival" in 2023?
It is a fact that domestic pop culture has exploded from 2023 to now, but it is a bit unrealistic to say that it is a bit unrealistic to catch up, although I absolutely think that domestic TV dramas have a huge gap with the international level whether in the 90s or now, especially compared with peak American dramas, British dramas, and Japanese dramas.
Now domestic dramas have been able to level most Korean dramas, and have basically surpassed Hong Kong and Taiwan dramas in an all-round way (because censorship, realism and many themes are still pain points, there is no way).
We still have to affirm the TV series of the current era, and there were earlier TV series in the 90s, although there were fine products, but most of the TV series at that time were produced within the system, such as CCTV's "Four Masterpieces".
For example, the opening animation of the Chinese TV drama production center in the last century, this kind of production is basically made by administrative order, regardless of the market production method, most actors and producers have little return, so this method is simply unsustainable.
Although this production method is all boutique, it does not have much meaning in essence, because the literary and artistic products of the "planned economy" era are certainly not the same thing in the market products of the "commercial era", to put it simply, the output of literary and artistic products at that time was too small.
Let's look back at the 80s and 90s, basically replaying and replaying non-stop, often changing many channels to broadcast the same show, why is there this way?
Although the early TV series are very classic, but the main reason is that the number of TV series is too small, simply not enough to broadcast, the current TV series are certainly uneven, but because of the huge output, the number of fine products per year is still far more than the 80-90s, but the artistic level is far from enough.
It is probably that there are many commercial film and television works now, which can meet the market, but the artistic pursuit is poor; In the past, the number of works was small and could not meet the needs of a large audience, which was the high pursuit of art.
In addition, the narrative rhythm, art aesthetics, production level, and special effects level of many domestic dramas have all risen. It is no longer the kind of TV series in previous years where two big heads talk to water for one episode, and the special effects are five hairs and lasers. However, TV series have been produced by TV stations themselves, to the more advanced separation of production and broadcasting, and then to the current era of online platforms.
THERE IS A RETURN TO THE BACKWARD PRODUCTION AND BROADCASTING INTEGRATION, IYUTENG'S DRAMAS ARE ALL THEIR OWN PRODUCTION AND INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING, THIS BACKWARD MODEL IS A FIGHT WITH THE 90S, OBVIOUSLY THE NETWORK PLATFORM BUT DID NOT LEARN NETFLIX AND APPLE TV SUCH A MORE ADVANCED PLATFORM TO PRODUCE TV SERIES MODEL, YOU LEARNED A LITTLE MONOPOLY FUR.
What does that mean? There is no problem with this essence, but it still depends on the ability level of the individual director team.
The vast majority of online drama directors and screenwriters are at the level of online writers, and in recent years, domestic boutique dramas have been more involved in the production of traditional film and television companies, such as "Great Rivers", "Mountains and Seas", "The Age of Awakening", "Nengwen Nengwu Li Yannian", "Police Honor", including this year's "Three-Body Problem", "Furious Race", "Thirteen Years of Dust", etc. are old-school creative teams.
There are very few high-quality TV series broadcast exclusively on the online platform, and the benchmarks this year are only "The Long Season", "Daming under the Microscope", "Moses on the Plain" and so on.
From "The Wandering Earth 2" to "Crazy", from movies to TV series? Why did domestic film and television break out this year
I once thought about why those TV dramas were so popular when the artistic achievements of serious dramas in the mainland were so high, and it was clear that there were not many mainland audiences with education at that time. In addition to the works created by old-school artists "in the service of the people", it is suitable for all ages. Later, I learned that this also has the relationship between a single cultural media and too little cultural content.
Facts have proved that as cultural media platforms began to become rich, the mature commercial film and television dramas of Hong Kong and Taiwan entered the mainland market at the end of the 90s, just like Hong Kong and Taiwan pop songs, Hong Kong movies, Taiwan idol dramas, and martial arts novels. These are clearly liked by both general audiences and younger audiences.
At the end of the 90s, serious dramas in the mainland declined like Cui Jian rock, official folk songs, and fifth-generation director literary films.
The revival of Chinese film and television culture in 2023 is only the revival after the development of the first two years, that is, after Wu Jing's "Wolf Warrior 2" in 2017 and then to "The Wandering Earth" in 2019, this wave of revival after the outbreak (interrupted by the three-year "epidemic"), behind this is the development of China's economy, national strength, science and technology in the new era.
When the economy develops to a certain extent, science and technology rise, and popular culture will rise.
The domestic film and television dramas that will return in 2023, although there are still rough scripts, poor rhythms, and small fresh meat acting problems left over from the "traffic economy". But in the breakthrough of the subject matter, then to the breakthrough of the technical level of film and television, and then to the entire content, and even art, etc., great progress has been made?
"The Wandering Earth 2", "Deep Sea" and "The Long Season" are breakthroughs in domestic production technology. The sci-fi of "The Wandering Earth 2" and "The Three-Body Problem", the gangster drama of "Crazy", the costume drama of "Daming under the Microscope", the soft sci-fi nostalgia comedy of "Breaking Elite 2", etc., these are the breakthroughs of the theme type.
And "Moses on the Plain" and "The Long Season" obviously have a great breakthrough in television art, which was rare before.
After the rise of these new era pop culture works, there will be the "cultural export" that domestic netizens have been talking about, which is a passive skill, and "tide", "cool", "handsome" and "beautiful" are the mainstream of pop culture export.
"Cultural export" relies on this popular culture product, tall works of art are only a small part, you like American movies, Japanese anime, Korean wave, not like American traditional culture (the United States has no traditional culture), Japanese geisha, Korean kimchi, Italian opera or something.
Cultural output is to compete with whose software system is stronger, why is Chinese culture not hard? It is because after we have been tested in practice, we have long been upgraded to the primary version beyond the hard one, and our software version has long been based on the core goal of better mutual collaboration, seeking common ground while reserving differences, and common development.
I believe that in the next step, we will show the resilience and compatibility of Chinese pop culture step by step on the international stage, and release the power of our culture in a short time later. For example, "The Wandering Earth 2" already has this standard, as well as a cultural core.
Everyone looks at strength, and before we show excellent strength, they will doubt, they will hesitate. Don't worry, I think in another 10 years, the absolute superiority we have shown will make the audience around the world put aside all doubts and embrace the Chinese culture in the new era.
In 2023, the "Korean Wave" will be defeated, and the "Chinese Wave" will rise in an all-round way? Can't be too happy yet
In previous years, including now, many netizens still envy the export of Japanese and Korean culture, in fact, their kind of pop culture output is weak output (Japan is better), Chinese civilization cultural output has always been gentle and drizzling, is a regular output, do not need to deliberately output what to emphasize the cultural symbols.
The so-called "admiration and flattery" is a kind of psychology of poor and backward envy of the way of life of developed countries, and the same is true of culture.
It has been the strength of Chinese civilization for thousands of years, and you can see from some Western literature, when European courts used to wear Chinese costumes and use Chinese porcelain.
It's just that the humiliating history of two hundred years ago has made us lose our status, and the most successful cultural export of the West is science and technology and various standards, as well as ideas and theories; Scientists from all over the world have to submit papers to those Western journals and write and publish in English. The language that monopolized the most useful knowledge, the various units of measurement and standards, had to go for Western standards.
This is the strongest cultural export and assimilation, never popular literature and entertainment milk music.
If the cultural export of Japan and South Korea is so strong, why has the Western world never been anxious (Japan had it at its peak), and South Korea really never has, because the entertainment exported by South Korea is "skin changing nipple music", so when the Chinese space station uses Chinese, many countries will have a greater response.
At this time, why is the West not tolerant, didn't the United States still let the Korean boy band enter the White House?
It is very different whether culture exports knowledge and standards that others cannot replace, or an exotic entertainment culture that can be selected and consumed. No matter how good the output of Japan and South Korea is, it is entertainment, it is nipple music, to put it bluntly, it is a cultural commodity, and it is useless.
Is South Korea's cultural export stronger than China's? What does not exist, how many people will "blush" in 2023
Finally, cultural export is mostly not an active skill, but a passive skill that is attached to most of the time export, and only after entering the global era, Europe, the United States, the Soviet Union and Japan used it as a weapon and forcibly operated it to turn it into an active skill!
Culture has always been a manifestation of national strength, and when the country is strong, then cultural export will be a natural thing, otherwise what do you export? You said that the culture is very advanced, and your life is the envy of other countries? Something so deep in culture, it is not clear at a glance, but it is a glamorous life, tall buildings, developed science and technology, and a powerful country at a glance.
If you have these, then naturally someone will explain why these things exist!
So, Chinese film and television dramas, games, animations and more in 2023. Domestic dramas in 2023, as well as the rise of Chinese pop culture, are only a small cultural spillover derived from the development of China's economy and national strength at this stage, and it is far from a rise, let alone a comprehensive revival.
At least like Magnolia's "County Party Committee Compound" is not as good as "In the Name of the People", and "The World" is not as good as "Crossing the Guandong".
This is still a serious drama that specializes in winning awards and mainstream support, popular popular dramas in this market like "Crazy" and "The Three-Body Problem", the latter itself has many problems, the former is also deeply affected by restrictions, the real trinity seems to be only "The Long Season", but it has no awards.
Domestic dramas, Chinese pop culture, have a long way to go.