On June 28, the Magnolia Award at the 29th Shanghai TV Festival was awarded, and Zhou Xun won the Best Actress for "Imperfect Victim", and the second Magnolia was the queen. In the background of Magnolia, Zhou Xun responded positively to the complaint of "The Legend of Ruyi" by the whole network in an interview: "I think this era is like this, it doesn't matter, anyway, this space is what everyone wants to do, just be happy." ”
More than two months ago, "The Legend of Ruyi" was widely ridiculed because it was reinterpreted, and Zhou Xun's character of "people as light as chrysanthemums" no longer seemed convincing, and many voices began to question Zhou Xun's acting skills. Just when everyone was curious about how Zhou Xun would carry out "crisis public relations", from May 28th to June 28th, Zhou Xun won four Best Actress awards in a month, all of which were weighty professional awards.
The audience's criticism of "The Legend of Ruyi" reminds every actor: works and roles accompany actors for life, and actors must be responsible for their own works and roles; In the next month, Zhou Xun's consecutive awards also proved that acting skills are the best way for actors to respond to controversy.
The "Legend of Ruyi" controversy: the change of the audience's perspective
Because of the top IP of "The Legend of Zhen Huan", "The Legend of Ruyi", which is the same as the original author, has attracted much attention since the announcement of film and television. The production investment of "The Legend of Ruyi" can be called luxurious, with a total investment of an astonishing 300 million yuan, and the crew carefully selected Zhou Xun and Huo Jianhua to play the starring roles, adding more topics and market appeal to the play.
Unfortunately, at that time, due to the preemptive strike of "Yanxi Raiders", the broadcast volume of "The Legend of Ruyi" was defeated, but the word of mouth had the upper hand. Even so far, the Douban score of "Yanxi Raiders" is 7.1 points, and the score of "Ruyi" is 7.5 points. At the end of the hit period, the two dramas were removed from the shelves one after another, and many viewers also lost the opportunity to watch them again.
Stills from "The Legend of Ruyi".
originally thought that the show was over, and it was taken off the shelves, and the matter was over. Unexpectedly, in July last year, a game UP master of station B used the game platform of "The Sims 4" as a virtual scene, complaining about the unreasonableness of the plot, which was refuted and even attacked by fans. Several game UP owners were dissatisfied, and began to complain about "The Legend of Ruyi" in a series, and became popular at Station B, and the reinterpretation of "The Legend of Ruyi" also began.
In 2018, "The Legend of Ruyi" was mostly praised, but since last year, it has been ridiculed by the whole network, and not all the audiences in 2018 have lost their eyes. On the one hand, some flaws in "The Legend of Ruyi" have been highlighted, such as the strong "Yiwu flavor" of costumes and headdresses, the lengthy and no substantive advancement of some bridges, and whether Zhou Xun's performance accurately conveys the role, etc.; On the other hand, and for a more fundamental reason, the audience's position on evaluating this drama has changed.
Stills from "The Legend of Ruyi".
In 2018, more viewers were substituted for Ruyi's perspective.
Ruyi's prototype is the successor of Emperor Qianlong, a woman whose hair was cut off due to disobedience to the holy will in historical records, which caused Qianlong's feelings to cool sharply, and was finally sent back to Beijing after being abolished. Based on this, the series explores a woman's choice between power, love and self within the walls of a deep palace.
Ruyi did not follow the routine of traditional palace fighting dramas and used scheming and means to climb to the pinnacle of power step by step, on the contrary, she was unwilling to become a tool of palace struggle, nor was she willing to sacrifice her principles and emotions for power. The drama tries to convey that Ruyi remains independent in the deceit of the deep palace and has never given up the purity and truth of her heart.
However, when the audience in 2023 is more from Wei Yanwan's position, what they see is a completely different side of Ruyi.
Stills from "The Legend of Ruyi".
The audience realizes that Ruyi can stand on the moral high ground of "people are as light as chrysanthemums" and disdain to fight, and can pursue loyalty, integrity and fairness because she is from a prominent family, and there are always loyal servants to do the dirty work for her.
From Ruyi's point of view, Wei Yanwan and other concubines from humble backgrounds, their efforts and struggles are "low-level" and "vulgar". But from a broader class perspective, her attitude towards Wei Yanwan and others is inevitably mixed with class prejudice, of course, including inequality and discrimination, and her ignorance and indifference to the reality of survival at the bottom. Ruyi's way of maintaining the dignity of the individual is essentially maintaining the structural stability of a hierarchical society.
Under such a change of perspective, Wei Yanwan, as a character from a humble background who gradually changed her destiny through personal efforts, has become a symbol of some young people pursuing their dreams and breaking through class barriers. The plot of Wei Yanwan's counterattack satisfies the audience's deep desire for fairness, opportunity and equality, and they see their own shadow in Wei Yanwan and have a strong sense of substitution.
Stills from "The Legend of Ruyi".
On the other hand, Ruyi has become the embodiment of vested interests, and her so-called "people are as light as chrysanthemums" (often "ministers and concubines are speechless" or "the wall immediately looks at each other from afar, and when they see the king, they will break their intestines"), which is simply a kind of "why not eat minced meat".
Criticism of Zhou Xun: "People are as light as chrysanthemums".
But from criticizing Ruyi to criticizing Zhou Xun himself as an actor, how did this happen? Looking back at the timeline, in February 2024, some videos complaining about "The Legend of Ruyi" were complained about and taken off the shelves, which stimulated the rebellious psychology of the UP master and netizens: Isn't Zhou Xun "as light as a chrysanthemum" in and out of the play, how can he not even tolerate reasonable doubts?
Screenshot of the complaint video webpage of Station B about "The Legend of Ruyi".
The controversy continues to escalate, and some people's criticism of "The Legend of Ruyi" is no longer limited to the series itself, but has expanded to criticism of the starring actor Zhou Xun's acting skills and personality. By April and May this year, this criticism, which was originally aimed at "The Legend of Ruyi", turned to Zhou Xun and became a hot topic on the whole network.
First of all, some UP masters turned out the documentary of "The Legend of Ruyi", and intuitively saw that in the crew, everyone respected Zhou Xun very much, and basically revolved around Zhou Xun. Needless to say, if the coffee position is big, the power is greater (even greater than the director), this completely unreasonable phenomenon does not only exist in the crew of "The Legend of Ruyi".
If critics reflect on a general crew ecology through the "The Legend of Ruyi" documentary, it may still be a powerful transformative boost to the industry. There is a lot to discuss, such as whether "The Legend of Ruyi" is because of Zhou Xun's excessive involvement in the script, resulting in Ruyi's portrayal more with Zhou Xun's values? But the discussion did not move in this rational direction, and on the contrary, some commentators followed the trend of criticism and began all kinds of misinterpretations. For example, a widely circulated screenshot shows Ruyi's indifferent face when her father, mother, son, daughter and others died.
Stills from "The Legend of Ruyi".
This interpretation even extends to Zhou Xun in reality, ridiculing her for being as "in love" as Ruyi. But as long as the audience re-watches the drama, they will know that the screenshots are completely taken out of context, Ruyi has many crying scenes in the play, and the pictures of indifferent faces are deliberately chosen. What's more, tears have never been the only criterion for measuring the depth of emotion, and the handling of emotions such as grief can not only be reflected through crying, but can also be taken in a more restrained and deep way.
In order to enhance the disgust towards Ruyi/Zhou Xun, some commentators also glorified Wei Yanwan to the fullest. For example, when the UP Lord reinterprets Wei Yanwan, he only focuses on some of her positive behaviors, including not mentioning her dark side of unscrupulous means to achieve her goals, such as being ruthless and careless of human life. There is a short video that outrageously mentions the CP pair of Wei Yanwan and Jinzhong, it won't tell you: After Wei Yanwan flew Huang Tengda, she ordered someone to strangle Jinzhong alive.
In short, the criticism of Zhou Xun gradually became absurd and entered a state of network polarization, from criticism that was originally limited to the plot, and then to imaginary, one-sided, and malicious voices became dominant, and changed to emotional catharsis.
The actor's turnaround: only with acting skills can you have confidence
The audience has the right to reinterpret "The Legend of Ruyi", and Zhou Xun is not a "god" who cannot be criticized.
When many people were curious about how Zhou Xun should respond to the turmoil, Zhou Xun remained silent and did not respond positively until Magnolia won the award. In fact, after the turmoil, in just one month, Zhou Xun won four Best Actresses in a row.
Zhou Xun won the Magnolia Award for Best Actress
In "The Eleventh", which will be released nationwide in 2021, Jin Cailing played by Zhou Xun has a hot aunt curly, her skin is not modified, she is wearing fancy clothes, and she is full of various jewelry, completely detached from her previous delicate and smart image. Whether it is in the face of the fatigue and helplessness of ordinary life day after day, or the perseverance and gentleness in family disputes, Zhou Xun has a good grasp of it, showing the strong plasticity of an actor. This role helped Zhou Xun win the 2021 China Film Directors Association Annual Award Actress (rescheduled in 2024).
Stills from "The Eleventh".
In the TV series "Imperfect Victim" broadcast last year, Zhou Xun not only showed Lin Kan's professionalism and self-confidence, but more importantly, expressed the vulnerability and pain behind the role, so that the audience could empathize with Lin Kan's difficult balance between professional ethics, gender stance and personal trauma, and create a character image full of contradictions and struggles. Zhou Xun also won the Best Actress at the 2024 TV Drama Directors Conference and the Best Actress at the 29th Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Award for this role.
Stills from "Imperfect Victim".
In "Wading Through the Angry Sea", released last year, Zhou Xun played a mother Jing Lan who faced extreme difficulties. When her son's evil deeds escalated, Jing Lan was forced to face the cruelty of reality, and her emotions changed from initial resistance and luck to complete collapse and despair. Zhou Xun vividly shows this process, allowing the audience to deeply experience the inner world of the character, which makes Zhou Xun the 2024 China Film Directors Association Actress of the Year.
Stills from "Wading through the Sea of Wrath".
Within a month, Zhou Xun won four awards in a row for three different roles, showing that her acting skills are not accidental, but based on stable and high-level performance.
This is not to say that Zhou Xun won four awards in a row to show that she also had a good performance in "The Legend of Ruyi". The audience has the right to reinterpret any film and television drama, which is the part that the creator must bear; Actors also need to be mentally prepared to face the controversy of the role, after all, every role is a part of the actor's career.
Stills from "The Legend of Ruyi".
But I still think that if you are dissatisfied with "The Legend of Ruyi" and dissatisfied with Zhou Xun's studio complaints, it is untenable to deny Zhou Xun's ability as an actor in an expanded way.
This is not only because, when the outside world questions her acting skills, she can make the most direct and powerful response through her works and awards; is also because when we criticized and boycotted those traffic stars in the past, the core of criticism was often that they brought too many things unrelated to business into their works in addition to acting, which affected the healthy development of the industry. If we treat other productions and actors in the same way now, how does that help us expect to see something better?