Recently, a well-known scene experience stage play "See Pingyao Again" has recently caused trouble.
In order to advocate the culture of Jin merchants, promote the local characteristic drama of Shanxi, which seeks roots and asks ancestors, and shows benevolence, righteousness, etiquette and faith, "See Pingyao Again" has been publicly performed for 10 years since 2013.
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As a cultural symbol with unique regional characteristics, it has always been valued by the local community and loved by tourists.
The immersive experience of the picture and set, both lingering and tragic sound, light and shadow, superimposed on the crowd of exclamation and cheers, most of the audience who have seen the scene is difficult not to praise: "shocking".
Even viewers who have a preconceived notion of the core of this work of art find it difficult to find fault with it aesthetically:
"Except for feudal dross, everything else is so exciting!"
"It's really, full marks for everything except values. ”
Yes, everything is good, and the bad is bad in values.
Because of the gimmicks such as "public selection of concubines" and "bathing before departure" that are suspected of insulting women, and the stench of objectifying women in the plot setting, "See Pingyao Again" was "out of the circle" on the Internet and set off a heated discussion.
The two most controversial scenes focus on the same Jin Shang story.
Out of morality, the only son of the Zhao Dong family of the dart bureau took hundreds of dart masters to Tsarist Russia, gambled on business reputation, and risked his life to save the only son of his own semicolon king.
This charity touched the local people, in view of the danger of this trip, there is a high probability that there will be no return, so everyone has dedicated their unmarried sisters, daughters, and gathered together to choose a wife for the unmarried young owner who is about to go on the expedition.
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Although if you think about it, it doesn't feel appropriate:
Why do you make decisions for the female dependents in your family and hastily set an unhappy marriage in which others are likely to be "widowed for life"?
But people not only have to offer their daughters, but also this group of yellow flower girls who have been pushed out have to be strictly screened, fiercely compete for posts, and be selected sharply.
How to choose?
Unlike everyone who goes to the palace for the draft, the poems are used to read the literature, and the questions and answers are examined, but it is like "visiting the Qinglou kiln style to choose a concubine".
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The actresses took off their tops and only wore belly pockets, their waists were soft, and their bodies bewitched to show their hands, feet, shoulders and neck, buttocks, and navel to show: the palms are blessed if there are no broken lines, and the three-inch golden lotus has a slender gait and a large buttocks......
The sound effects and light and shadow of the flesh and the fragrance and provocation have a kind of domestic version of the "Crazy Horse Show".
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So many viewers at the scene took pictures of this scene, uploaded it to the Internet and hinted in a profane tone: give some benefits to men.
Benefits, what benefits?
What is the difference between using women's erotic flesh as a gimmick, this kind of large-scale drama of "cultural inheritance", and the small cards stuffed into the cracks of hotel doors, and the drainage of beautiful women with half-stripped pictures on men's frequency websites?
Of course, in addition to the sensual eroticism of women, the undressing of male actors was also arranged in this performance.
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Hundreds of strong men bared their chests and abdomen, bathing in the transparent bathtub, and their momentum and abdominal muscles caused onlookers to scream.
But soon, each dart master was arranged to have a maid who washed her feet and served her, rubbed her feet and wiped her head, and then was picked up by the other party...... A final physical consolation before leaving.
Did you find out?
It seems to be an equal mix of male and female colors, but the fine products are completely different-
The male color is only for showing off his skills, which is like a peacock opening the screen, and the male bird is a song and dance for courtship;
The beautiful women lined up for people to watch and play with are beautiful, but they are full of the tragic sense of sacrifice of "I am for fish and meat".
One has to ask:
When the young master and the dart master bear their fame and set off in the admiration of everyone, what will be the ending of those girls who have been fortunate?
The huge wife selection show, selected a 16-year-old girl who had good conditions in all aspects, and believed that "a husband is a wife", and believed that "it is my blessing to be able to give birth to a son for the Zhao family", and was quickly sent to the cave room, with the commentary:
The cave room that night, the seed was left that night.
This "lucky" girl, who went through N standard N processes and was brutally selected and eliminated, was successfully conceived and was happy to conceive Lin'er, but unfortunately died in childbirth, and left such last words before dying:
"I have been born all my life, and I will die when I die. ”
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It is as if a woman is a fetal organ and only has the only "function" of reproducing offspring. Once a child is born for her husband's family, the value of women is realized, and there are no regrets about dying.
And in that seemingly majestic "pre-departure bath", in the ambiguous and charming atmosphere, the maids were reduced to a reward and sweetness used to comfort the dart masters.
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Some viewers were shocked after watching it:
They only saw the promise of the Jin merchants and kept their promises, and felt that the local clan consciousness was strong, and they built temples for their ancestors, and they did everything possible to maintain the same clan and the same surname, which was very yearning for this.
But the silence of others was equally deafening:
I saw the righteous thin clouds, but I also saw the blood and tears of women.
They defend the same clan and the same clan, they defend the male clan, build tombs and temples for their ancestors, and pay tribute to their male ancestors, and spread the branches and leaves the roots and seeds, and extend the blood of their husbands.
In the long history, women have been completely objectified as "fertility/sexual resources" and "property" like livestock under the naked objectification of looking at the old and the young and looking at the palm prints of their faces.
Behind the heroism of men who have been chasing fame and fortune for thousands of years, eager to be celebrated and remembered, are thousands of women who have disappeared into the dust in silence.
Warriors go out to fight, and the king is defeated. Those who have succeeded have been given the title of marquis, women are rewarded like things, and the defeated have fled in disarray, and women and children have been humiliated and reduced to the resources of the confiscated army.
In vain about the rise and fall, women are objectified private property, selected bed partners, and used to pass on the ancestry.
Of course, there are also viewers who defend this:
Although this set of values that objectify women is pedantic, "See Pingyao Again" is based on the feudal era, and it is just a reproduction of history, what's wrong?
Just like "Mother's Road" back then, it also caused a controversy over whether "historical works are only objectively restored" is reasonable.
In order to inherit the lineage for her husband's family, the heroine gave birth to N daughters and still did not give up, even if she disemboweled her life, she had to give birth to a son for her step-ancestor.
Photo source: "Mother's Road"
At that time, some people were respectful: presenting the scene of feudal decay was also criticizing bad customs.
But the fact is that the presentation does not represent criticism, and it may also be a display of self-pasting as the essence of traditional culture and folklore.
The selection of different materials in artistic creation, and the different interpretations of the same material, are all in the lines and texts, and the gaps in the images reveal the creator's intentions.
If we talk about traditions and Xi, women who lost their virginity in ancient times were considered unclean and were to be burned and sunk.
But in the TVB costume drama "Fire Dancing Yellow Sand", which was launched in 2005, Yan Jiapu, standing in the yellow sand, is a miniature patriarchal society.
The spring equinox of the girl's family born in this yellow earth has been regarded as "ominous" since she was a child because of the broken palm prints, and her mother also told her to "accept her fate".
She also wanted to survive, but because of the fortune-telling conclusion, all the local disasters tried to push her to blame; after marriage, she wanted to be a good wife and mother, but she put on a husband who "couldn't act", in order to cover up the fact that she was incompetent, she forced her to borrow sperm to have children, and she was burned to death as an adulteress when she was pregnant;
Photo source: "Fire Dancing Yellow Sand"
Later, she was rescued by luck, but she was coerced by horse thieves and forced to the cliff. Either accept the humiliation, or die to make your will clear. In a desperate situation, the spring equinox looked back on the first half of his cowardly and cowardly life in the manipulation of unknown signatures.
She scratched her palms and decided not to succumb to fate, but to rise up and resist, waiting to verify whether fate was really what it was;
She tore off her clothes, no longer obeyed the moral education of women, and gave up the stupid way of giving her life to keep the absurd archway of chastity.
"Why should we die for chastity in the eyes of men, I've had enough. ”
Photo source: "Fire Dancing Yellow Sand"
Chastity, in the final analysis, is for the sake of the husband, and the clear will is also a moral discipline for women.
The women in "Fire Dance in the Yellow Sand" are so resistant to secular pressure to stand up and fight for a breakthrough in feudal etiquette.
If you want to talk about tradition and Xi: in ancient times, when a single man died early, he needed to buy a bride for a funeral.
In 2020, Guangxi University of Finance and Economics participated in the street dance competition, and the choreographed situational song and dance drama "Martyr" became a hot search. Its poignant and glamorous "Chinese-style horror" still makes countless audiences shudder.
Festive music sounds, and the bride-to-be is full of anticipation for her new life, shyly dressing up in the mirror, unaware of her upcoming fate.
She was already sold by her father for money and married to the underworld, she put on a wedding dress in joy, was controlled by the man in black and couldn't move, and her helpless screams resounded throughout the audience, and she came to an end in despair and despair.
After the song, whether it was the audience judges on the scene or countless netizens who saw this work through the screen, they were all shocked, amazed, and amazed.
It is also a depiction of a vulgarity, a reality: "Martyrdom" does not use the bloody violence endured by women as a selling point, and does not focus the camera on her forced arms and the close-up of the hue that she has to betray as a spectacle.
Instead, it uses a kind of empathy to show the tragic fate of them who were sold to the underworld.
What is restoration, what is praise, and how is it criticism.
It's obvious to all.
Not all traditions have to be inherited, not all folklore has to be accepted, and even if it is reasonable to exist, it is not necessarily right to always be so.
Literary and artistic works need to change customs and promote new trends.
If a story written by modern people, acted by modern people, and watched by modern people, it is too hard to seek a sword if it has to be put into the perspective of the dregs of thousands of years ago, and force the viewers to recognize the ignorant and uncivilized customs of the ancients.
Photo source: "Fire Dancing Yellow Sand"
Sitcoms like "See Pingyao Again" have been performed for 10 years.
But fortunately, in the face of similar plot arrangement, in the past 10 years, few people have felt that it is inappropriate to raise objections;
Today, 10 years later, although I realized it later, it was not too late, and finally some viewers came back to their senses-
Even being humiliated and treated as a resource and a tool has been the predetermined fate of ancient women for thousands of years. But we who are about to arrive in 2024 should not accept this setting calmly.