Source｜Gun draft (ID: QiangGaooooo)
Author｜Li Buyan
Head picture｜@山河令官微
The popularity of “Shanhe Ling” once again proves that martial arts is still the homesickness shared by the Chinese.
However, today’s martial arts is no longer the world built by Jin Yong and Gu Long. Female creators and female consumers are working together to rewrite the martial arts narrative, robbing men of the arena that once belonged to them only.
01. The beautification of martial arts
The famous scenes of “Shanhe Ling” basically appear in the passages where the two male protagonists Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu flirt and flirt. Whenever there is such a scene, the barrage is filled with cheers and screams one after another. .
And I can fully understand everyone’s love for these two handsome guys, after all, this is indeed the best part of the show.
Leave aside the overall quality of the series. From “Shen Soul” to “Chen Qing Ling” to “Shan He Ling”, it is clear at a glance that the audience is no longer satisfied with the brotherhood between men, but more and more The more I like to see men engage in ambiguous ambiguities, but they will not clearly express their sexual orientation.
It’s all about watching two handsome men drinking, eating, arguing, protecting cubs, and robbing babies. What I never expected is that even the relationship between the shameless male supporting roles has become weird.
Weibo netizens have already picked up the CP of the King Scorpion and the foster father
For example, in the story, the leader of the killer organization, Scorpion King, was like a concubine in front of his adoptive father.The performance of fighting for favor is really very different from his daily life of going out and killing people like cutting grass. But the screenwriter also has no intention of presenting the other side of the character’s lack of paternal love since childhood. He can only understand that it is to meet the psychological needs of the audience to consume abnormal male friendship.
What kind of audience has this kind of viewing demand? The answer is undoubtedly women, especially young women in their twenties.
The fact that the corrupt girls are trying to change the drama is actually due to the overall weakness of women on the social level, and they have obtained certain privileges from the bondage of the Tsunami.
The prevalence of Tanmei narratives is based on the gender pressure that women suffer in modern society and the workplace, as well as the anxiety caused by the increasingly narrow and tense gender public opinion field, which can be obtained from the support for Tangai dramas. Hidden release, and this release is (temporarily) acquiesced by the authorities.
At the creative level, women writing same-sex narratives (most of the authors of Danmei works are women) can also be seen as a resistance to the patriarchal political order, or a kind of revolutionary romanticism.
The novels such as “The Master of the Demon Dao” and “Soul Soul” have emerged in the online literature circle. The authors are mostly women.
At the same time, the improvement of women’s social rights and spending power has allowed them to gain more voting rights in the entertainment market. The beautification of martial arts stories represented by “Shanhe Ling” is actually the feminization of male narrative in this era when traffic is king.
However, it is worth noting that “Shanhe Ling” is a typical example. The two male protagonists are only ambiguous, but do not clarify the reason for the relationship. In addition to the review by the relevant departments, it is also because the vast majority of female audiences are The social situation of gays and their related narratives lack real attention.
“A night in the spring breeze”, “Who fell in love with him first”, “Uncle Uncle” and other real gay movies and TV shows, there are very few people who respond to it, but it reflects the popularity of male and male CPs by non-girl audiences, and more It is because of their fascination with the ambiguous nature of frantic probing on the edge of taboos, and once they are pointed out, all rosy fantasy will be pierced and become dull; the so-called “sweetness” will move towards reality neutrality The depression and marginalization of minorities.
In “A Night in the Spring Breeze”, conflicts between same-sex relationships and heterosexuals are the normal reality.
02. The decline of Wu, the retreat of Xia
From the novel “The End of the World” to the drama “The Order of Mountains and Rivers”, there is an interesting detail of the adaptation: In the story, the person who established the super secret agency “Skylight” has changed from the emperor to the rebellion.
The essence of this kind of thinking is to maintain the legitimacy and legitimacy of the supreme power. But don’t forget that the core spirit of traditional martial arts is alienation, suspicion, and rebellion against the power order. Unfortunately, this spirit seems to be intolerable now.
“Xia” itself represents a kind of spiritual ideal, which embodies the desire of ordinary people to transcend the world and resist order. Xia is an ordinary person, but more importantly, he must have principles and realms that ordinary people cannot. He can be a defender of Gangchang ethics, but more importantly, he is a rebel.
From the “Three Heroes and Five Righteousnesses” and “Water Margin” that only opposed corrupt officials and not the emperor, to the new martial arts schools that deny imperial power, the evolution of the legend of chivalry is actually the gradual opening of the wisdom of the Chinese people.
Back to today’s era of online culture and martial arts, most of them are still stuck in the vulgar routines half a century ago, and unfortunately, they do not have the depth and thickness of the martial arts stories at that time (the best Such as the pungent political satire in Jin Yong’s “Swordsman”).
Gu Long’s later work “Happy Hero” focuses on the friendship and humanity of ordinary characters other than martial arts heroes, Instead of portraying the legend with great pen and ink. The picture shows the makeup photo of the TV series adapted from the original book directed by Shang Jing.
At one time, new school martial arts authors rebelled and abandoned traditional chivalry forms and content (such as Gu Long “Happy Heroes”, etc.), but today’s generation, perhaps the biggest innovation is to “beautify” these stories. The friendship between the two is blurred into a dual emotion of friendship and love.
Nevertheless, as history and cultural traditions are fading away, the clan system continues to disintegrate and family relations are atomized today, “watching martial arts” is still an important way for the Chinese to relive their nationality, and is to build the so-called nation. One of the best ways of community awareness.
However, in an era of pan-entertainment, while the audience was discouraged from the voluminous history, they were also tired of the outdated forms of martial arts that are connected with history not enough to escape from reality. Chivalry and fantasy diverge, and the market for hard-core martial arts is getting smaller and smaller.
An example is that the current martial arts films have become online dramas and online dramas, while martial arts movies have completely fallen. In the past ten years, there are only a handful of influential martial arts works in the scope of Chinese-language movies.
From “The Legend of the Sword and Fairy” and “Xuanyuan Sword” to the recent “Chen Xi Yuan” and other domestic dramas, the fairy tales’ gorgeous visual effects and free design The feeling of addiction brought about by certainty is constantly invading the living space of traditional martial arts
Pictures are from “Sweet Honey as Embers as Frost” (2018)
Or it can be said that “Wolf Warrior 2” is the real contemporary martial arts film. Leng Feng, a knight, relied on his outstanding martial arts, doing the cause of punishing rape and eliminating evil that all heroes are passionate about. While he is free and free, he is not subject to political and legal sanctions.
Because he is in a foreign country, he proudly displays his chivalrous nature to do whatever he wants. (This sentence is slightly modified from the original text)
03. Martial arts films and martial arts dramas
From the perspective of China’s cultural roots, perhaps martial arts narratives should not have prevailed.
Because we have a tradition of emphasizing literature and despising martial arts since ancient times, Han Feizi directly used the famous sentence “Knights are forbidden by martial arts,” and the knights were determined to be criminals. In the six to seven hundred years of the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were official prohibitions on armed forces in the world.
It’s just that when the society is in turmoil and the country is in crisis, people will quietly move their butts to the opposite side of the tradition, and begin to emphasize martial arts and literature. Especially more than a hundred years ago, when China experienced great changes unseen in two thousand years, domestic and foreign troubles, life and death, so the rise and prosperity of long-length martial arts novels occurred.
When Roosevelt was in power, the US government encouraged film workers to create works that aroused American national pride. Only then did the western movie have its glory. In the same way, in keeping with the Chinese people’s urgent need to establish national self-esteem, martial arts films and martial arts dramas are “western films” that only the Chinese can shoot and understand their connotations.
The cowboy image of the western film and the epicization of the development of the western region condensed the national character and moral ideals of Americans
The picture shows a still from the classic Western movie “The Burning Years of Love”
However, as an extended work that also originated from martial arts novels, martial arts movies have had their ups and downs, but martial arts dramas have been selling for a long time.
In the Republic of China, the story of martial arts has been put on the screen many times. In the 1960s and 1970s, Zhang Che and Hu Jinquan were in the Hong Kong film scene and synchronized with Jin Guliang the new school of martial arts. In the 1990s, Tsui Hark, Cheng Xiaodong, Yuan Heping and others pushed their martial arts reputation to the apex. After that, martial arts films have gradually declined in the Chinese film system.
However, since TVB and ATV began to adapt martial arts novels in batches in the 1970s and 1980s, martial arts dramas have always been popular dramas. Today, when the mainland film and television industry is prospering, the momentum has never diminished.
There are roughly three reasons.
First, most martial arts stories have many characters, complex plots, and long lengths. TV dramas can reproduce these elements by virtue of their huge capacity. It is difficult for films with insufficient space to do this.
Secondly, compared to TV series, the media attributes and viewing conditions of movies require higher and stronger empathy, and more need to be highly compatible with collective emotions; and TV series that can be watched at any time can provide more audiences A sense of companionship. Obviously, martial arts films that have been clamped down by censorship and mainstream ideology have been unable to produce this kind of spiritual strength enough to make the audience empathize, and in TV dramas that mainly give a sense of companionship, the audience will not care that the martial arts spirit in the drama is Adulterated.
In recent years, there are ancient costume dramas with martial arts elements that have aroused heated discussion, but their core has deteriorated.
Third, movies seek change and TV dramas seek stability. The movie is more like a vanguard. It is born with a sense of exploration and adventure. It needs continuous self-innovation and development to broaden the audience’s existing aesthetics; TV dramas are closer to a daily necessities, such as towels, shampoo, and breakfast. Milk is just needed and needs to be safe and stable. No matter how it is arranged and combined, it is always changing the soup without changing the medicine.
The content of the TV series is that we, like Snow White’s stepmother queen, ask the magic mirror who is the most beautiful every day, and hope that the magic mirror’s answer is our own desire. This kind of desire is so stable, and the TV series rarely change—at least in domestic dramas. This is the case within the category.
Thanks to the constant nature of the media of TV dramas, the martial arts narrative was left out of the movies, but it was preserved as a certain fossil landscape in the container of the TV drama, and even allowed people to carry it on its old base. Mini-carving experiments with self-destructive risks-such as Dan beautification.
04. How can there be martial arts in the era of internal scrolls
The best-selling movies ten years ago are quite different from the best-selling movies now. In 2010, “Let the Bullets Fly”, a “bandit movie” with a face full of words, “I am willing to smash the emperor, dare to pull the emperor off the horse.” Can become the hottest movie phenomenon at the time, and now the mostThe top sellers are “Wolf Warrior 2” and “Li Huanying”.
What’s interesting is that the hottest TV series ten years ago have not changed qualitatively from the hottest TV series now. Ten years ago, the drama king was “Zhen Huan”, and the target was the 18 year drama king. “Strategy of Yanxi Palace”.
“Strategy of Yanxi Palace” piles up many exaggerated rebellious plots, but it is still basically an identification and attachment to the power system
If “Zhen Huan Biography” is still trying to use a historical filming method, trying to lead this Gongdou drama from the personal narrative to the grand narrative where the historical figures in the play are located, then “The Story of Yanxi Palace” is not only completely Abandoning this effort, he confidently believes that there are only two things in this world, survival and climbing, and indulged in the pleasure of clinging to imperial power.
Unfortunately, TV dramas are often a direct presentation of the operating principles of the real society, and clinging to orthodoxy and dancing with power are the main themes and trends of this involuntary era. From this perspective, each of us is living in a super-large palace fight drama.
The disappearance of the imperial power in “The Order of Mountains and Rivers” and the fact that Jijidu is backed up is the result of this clinging and dancing together. When the martial arts dramas that entrust the Chinese people’s ideals of freedom have to move closer to the mainstream value system that represents power, then how can martial arts come from?
Jin Yong had planned to write 33 series of novels based on “Thirty Three Musketeers”, but he only finished one “Yue Nu Sword” and stopped writing. One of the reasons may be that the second protagonist of “Swordsman”, Qiu Yanke, is a martial arts master in the Tang Dynasty, but the strict family clan system from the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty is incompatible with the freedom, equality, and rebellious spirit of martial arts. The beardless guy wanted to be the emperor in the troubled times, but only because he looked at Li Shimin in the crowd, he felt that he was the true emperor, and he gave up before he was beaten, and he has no chivalry style.
It seems that we today are all mentally bearded people.
This article is from WeChat official account:Gun draft (ID: QiangGaooooo)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Li does not talk, author: text stooges, movies disciples, rational partisan