Text: McDull
Love is like a ghost, there are many people who believe in it, but few people who have seen it.
Ten years ago, this sentence was still the sincere words of many urban men and women at the wine table, but now it has become a joke. Now love is like a ghost, it has been disenchanted by technology, not only do few people believe it, but few people have seen it. Urban men and women no longer seem to be fascinated by love, and only want to engage in careers, and pure love warriors have become a minority.
In this era when the love brain is to be criticized, whether it is real life or realistic film and television dramas, pure love is becoming less and less, and more is shrewd calculation, fear of marriage, and anxiety about childbirth. The three movies released in the Mid-Autumn Festival are even called by netizens as a three-piece set of fear of marriage and childbirth, and the recent hit film and television drama "Half-mature Men and Women" is known as "Pure Love Warriors Watch Carefully".
So why has pure love disappeared in reality-themed film and television dramas? Where the hell did love go?
Shrewd and calculating modern love
Many people say that romance is no longer the main color of modern love, and the concept of love of Generation Z is rational first. But Guduo believes that people still crave romantic love, but they don't project this fantasy onto real human beings.
If a woman wants to feel loved, she can go directly to watch a sweet pet drama, and the sugar in it should not be too full; You can fall in love with a paper man, and you can find four husbands by playing an otome game. Men crave the feeling of being considerate, they can play interactive games, and it doesn't feel too good to be surrounded by beautiful women; You can read male frequency novels and open a harem. It is precisely because these love meal replacements are unreal enough that they are even jokingly called "science fiction films" by users, so that people can find the possibility of pure love in the fantasy world.
Many women would rather believe in the sincerity of the husband of the paper man than believe that there is a considerate and gentle normal man in real life. Many men would rather believe in the beauty in the game than believe that there is a pure woman in real life who does not want a bride price and only loves. Losing confidence in each other is the key reason for the disappearance of love in realistic film and television dramas.
Therefore, the love in reality-themed film and television dramas is always a chicken feather, calculating each other, with 800 hearts and eyes per capita, and there is no longer a firm choice of "the mountains are edgeless, the heaven and the earth are together, and only then can they dare to be with the king", everyone is constantly weighing between interests and emotions, making the audience feel that love is just another utilitarian game.
For example, in the recently hit "Mortal Song", the couple Xie Meilan and Shen Lei have been married for a total of 12 years from campus romance to marriage, but they finally lost to reality. If the direct reason for their divorce was because Shen Lei failed to help when Xie Meilan's mother had surgery, then the fundamental reason was because of money, one wanted a better material life, and the other was content with the status quo, no one was wrong, but "Love without material is like a plate of loose sand, you don't need to blow it, you can break up after two steps." ”
The love defeated by money is the most in realistic film and television dramas, followed by the love defeated by fear. "Predecessor 4", which was released last year, reflects the fear of marriage mentality of urban men and women, Meng Yun began to go on a blind date after reaching the marriageable age, and finally met the heartwarming girl Liu Liu, but because he was afraid of being disturbed by another person for freedom, he hesitated and finally missed love. "Your so-called freedom is nothing more than your own comfort zone, and if you don't want to go out, don't bring anyone else in," Liu said. ”
Behind this fear of marriage is that in the era of atomization, people are accustomed to one person's life and are unwilling to change themselves to adapt to another person, but too much emphasis on self-love will not last long. So a more free and loose "love" has emerged, somewhat similar to the now popular hitchhiker culture, where the traditional concept of love has been deconstructed and replaced by an unstable and unlong-term ambiguous relationship.
In "The Myth of Love", the emotional entanglement between a man and three women is like a game and a dream, the ambiguous relationship between Lao Bai and Miss Li is a temptation to leave, a one-night stand with Gloria, a short-term release of lust, and a half-life marriage with his ex-wife is a bowl of crucian carp soup in ordinary life, but he was cheated and knocked over the dinner table. Middle-aged people don't believe in any love myths anymore, those who believe in it have lost their breath, and those who don't believe in it are still rubbing hand cream. Such a light and restrained and somewhat petty emotion does not have too much moral baggage, but is more in line with the emotional outlook of modern people.
If you stand at the present and look back at the realistic film and television dramas 20 years ago, the love between Zhang Damin and Yun Fang in "The Happy Life of Poor Zhang Damin" will definitely be criticized now. Yun Fang, such a gentle and virtuous beauty, how could she marry a good man like Zhang Damin who has no ability, this kind of happy life for a family of eight crammed into a small bungalow, now people will only feel sad, but they can't see the kind of mutual tolerance and mutual understanding in their love, and the purity of not being shaken by materialism.
In the era of rapid economic development and increased atomization of science and technology, there are more people who pick up sixpence, but there are few walkers who look up to the moon, and the death of pure love has become an inevitability.
Growing gender antagonism
In addition to the influence of the times brought about by the economy and technology, feminism also has a great influence on the creation of love with realistic themes. With the popularization of feminism in China, women's awareness of awakening is getting stronger and stronger, and they have begun to rebel against the unequal gender oppression in the past, pursue the right to have a voice in the public sphere, and work hard like a man, and love has become an inconsequential little thing.
Moreover, the development of contemporary feminism has brought great challenges to the existing patriarchal society, and many conservative men feel offended by women, and of course, some extreme feminists will provoke a scolding war. As a result, male and female audiences have begun to divide their positions, and the phenomenon of gender antagonism has become more and more serious. Many male directors' film and television works have been labeled as insulting women, and many female directors' works have been criticized for scandalizing men, and even the name of a TV series "Mr. Nightingale" will be scolded on the hot search.
When the two genders are divided into camps and are prejudiced or even hostile to each other, the likelihood of love being born becomes less and less, and it becomes more and more difficult to make a love work that pleases the audiences of both camps.
So some creators simply don't do this thankless task and go straight to creating work that is specific to a specific gender audience. The top two box office "Hot and Hot" and "Flying Life" during this year's Spring Festival are one that focuses on female narratives and the other focuses on male narratives.
"Hot and Hot" tells the story of a fat girl with low self-esteem, she looks forward to love at the beginning, but disdains the scumbag at the end, such a big heroine's growth narrative won 3.46 billion yuan at the box office, of which 77% are female audiences. and "Flying Life 2" is the Spring Festival movie with the highest proportion of men, and this middle-aged man's hot-blooded fairy tale has received a box office of 3.398 billion yuan. To avoid gender controversy, there isn't even a major female character, let alone love.
And last summer's explosion of "Disappearing Her", even more suffered the dividends of gender antagonism, this movie itself is based on the true story of the Thailand pregnant woman falling off the cliff, with the phoenix man's deception and killing of Bai Fumei's wife, which inspired the strong anger of female audiences against the male group, and some female viewers appeared and said to their boyfriends, you men don't have a good thing! This kind of display of the ugly side of extreme intimacy will also exacerbate gender antagonism in the fermentation of public opinion, making it more difficult for people to believe in love.
As a result of the increasingly serious antagonism between men and women, realistic dramas without love scenes are more popular with the audience. "News Queen" was once on the hot search because of "workplace dramas without emotional dramas", the women in it are all careeraholics, and falling in love with men is just a small dish to adjust life, only if the workplace can't go on, will they "find a man to marry". This also reflects the mentality of many women today, career first, love can only stand aside.
When the pure love of heterosexual people in reality films and television gradually disappears, the pure love in LGBTQ works is more and more, and it is more popular with the audience. It seems that men and women become enemies, and the same sex becomes true love. Taiwan's popular same-sex movies "The Name Engraved in Your Heart" and "The Thing About Me and the Ghost Becoming Family" have all earned hundreds of millions of box office revenues. Their feelings are often on the verge of being discriminated against in society, so the kind of love that breaks taboos and is desperate is closer to the kind of pure romantic love that people crave.
No matter how the times go and go, people's desire for love has never disappeared, but it has changed to more forms to fill their inner hunger. If you can't find it in reality, you can find it in the fictional world; If you can't find it in the opposite sex, you can find it in the same sex; I couldn't find it in humans, so I simply fell in love with AI. But behind all these desires is people's dependence on intimacy, the hope of unconditional love, and the pursuit of the eternity of love.
Gu Duo still remembers a realistic romance film "Mo Di" that particularly touched him, the heroine Mo Di and her husband are not perfect people, even people who are rejected and ridiculed by this world, but they have become each other's dependence because of love, warming each other in this cold world, and never leaving each other until death separates them.
This kind of pure love that transcends secular evaluation, many people may no longer believe in it, and may have disappeared in the real theme, but the spirit of pure love is like the moonlight above the head, purifying people's hearts and remembering the original appearance of love - "Love, the waters cannot be extinguished, and the waters cannot be drowned." ”