Recently, the most popular film and television drama is none other than " Meng Hua Lu ". In recent years, ancient puppet plays have emerged one after another, and "Menghua Lu" does not deviate much from the pattern of such traditional themes. So why is it so popular?
On the basis of the original structure and type, "Menghualu" adds some elements that are currently eye-catching, such as issues such as female friendship, female autonomy and struggle, which are of great concern. At the same time, the romantic and pure love between the male and female protagonists in the play also attracted many viewers. This gives the series many new ideas and eye-catching passages.
Stills from "Meng Hua Lu".
In the play, there are many traditional ancient puppets and many typical settings of this type of current love drama. Perhaps it is for this reason that "Menghualu" caused some controversy on the Internet just after the release of a few episodes. Among them, the discussion of the traditional love model and the issue of "double purity" attracted the most attention.
The so-called "double chastity" means that the male and female protagonists need to maintain a chastity standard for both sex and emotions. This point is both pioneering and conservative at the same time. How to understand the duality of this idea of chastity? This article starts from here, focusing on "chastity" to discuss the complex changes and contradictions in the concepts of love and sex before and after the "May Fourth Movement" and to this day. We can also see from this that the more we live in a changing society, the more people long for a "pure and romantic love."
How to understand the "double cleansing" norm in ancient puppet dramas?
For ancient puppets or story types with the love between handsome men and beautiful women as the core, they have strong contradictions almost from the beginning.
This may be compared through the two types of story patterns at the birth of modern Chinese literature. One is the widely popular popular love and romantic novels with a long history, such as the modern works of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School; the other is the free love of young people represented by Lu Xun's "The Sad Death". novel. Such novels often have the purpose of strongly criticizing and exposing social problems. The love between men and women at the core of the story often becomes a core field that expresses more complex serious issues such as society, family, and oppression. Both types involve the differences between young men and women's love. Xu Zidong once used a vivid example to distinguish the difference: "one man and one woman" are often popular romance novels, while "one man and multiple women" mostly appear in serious novels. in literature.
For this type of romance novels, they are somewhat conservative on emotional issues from the beginning. Or, more precisely, the "one man, one woman" pattern that leads to the core of such stories is, for the most part, exactly what typifies modern love. In the novels of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, the "one man and one woman" model represents each other's loyalty, purity and the greatness of love, which is different from the traditional unequal emotional relationship like "The Golden Lotus". It is precisely for this reason that we see in the May Fourth novels young men and women resisting traditional family oppression and feudal gender relations through free and exclusive love. At that time, popular romance novels combined this model with the story types under the traditional "chastity" ideology , thus laying the most basic story template for subsequent such novels.
Stills from "Meng Hua Lu", the picture shows Zhao Pan'er and Gu Qianfan.
"Menghualu" also inherits this traditional story style to a certain extent, and it is very vividly presented in it, which attracts the attention of the audience. Therefore, if we look at it from this perspective, we can better understand the requirements for sexual and emotional purity ("double purity") of the hero and heroine.
As some articles pointed out, the concept of "double purity" originally came from online literature, especially female-oriented story types, such as Danmei. Early Danmei literature was full of subversion and disintegration of the traditional heterosexual romantic love story template. As a result, many out-of-the-ordinary emotional relationships, character types and images appeared. Coupled with the focus on sex, imagination and creation, this genre Genuine stories often challenge dominant emotional and ethical models.It was precisely against this background that subsequent Danmei literature began to undergo an internal transformation within the story genre, that is, from the early days of scumbag men everywhere and rampant sex to a more exclusive and sexually constrained model. Requirements for emotional and sexual chastity arose, leading to what we now know as the "double chastity" norm.
Therefore, "double cleanliness" itself is a standard that appears in specific text and story types, and its appearance itself is not strongly negative, and we cannot even think of it as conservative. Because another important purpose of "Double Cleansing" is precisely to combat the different emotional and sexual moral standards for men and women in mainstream heterosexual romance novels. As Radway pointed out in his "Reading Romance Novels", traditional heterosexual romance novels imitate and reproduce mainstream gender/temperament differences. Men are often considered to be the initiators and protectors in love, while women are often considered to be the initiators and protectors in love. Most of them are portrayed as passive and fragile, passive people waiting for enlightenment and salvation by male knights.
"Reading Romance Novels", Author: [USA] Janice A. Radway, Translator: Hu Shuchen, Edition: Yilin Publishing House, July 2020
Therefore, the emotional and sexual moral standards of both parties It is also different: men's rich emotional and sexual experiences can often become a plus point for their masculinity and identity, but women are always restricted to the category of chastity. Their emotional and sexual ignorance is often tied to their character and femininity in equal measure to their moral evaluation in love.
How to understand the subjectivity of traditional prostitutes?
We almost never see a woman with rich emotional and sexual experience as the protagonist in romantic novels or TV series, but such a male protagonist is almost the most popular character in all kinds of literature or film and television works. It is precisely in order to oppose this unequal emotional and sexual moral standards that Danmei novels written and read by women emphasize "double purity" and believe that both parties in love must be subject to the same emotional and sexual moral standards. A truly beautiful love emerges.
According to Su Chengjie's monograph "Sex, Law and Society in Late Imperial China" (tentative translation, English name: Sex, Law and Society in Late Imperial China), there was an important change in sexual moral standards during the Qing Dynasty. While universalizing female chastity, it also began to restrict men’s sexual experience. Sex between husband and wife became the most core, legal and recognized model, and other sex would be subject to corresponding restraints and even legal sanctions. But even so, whether in so-called serious novels or popular popular stories, there are always differences in emotional and sexual moral standards between men and women. This ideology is widely inherited and reproduced repeatedly by romantic love stories. Although there are differences in different historical periods, this fundamental structure has never been shaken.
Stills from "Meng Hua Lu".
This ideology may be seen to some extent as a legacy of the modern "May Fourth Movement" historical perspective. We can refer to Gao Yanyi's classic monograph " Boudoir School Teacher " "Introduction: From the perspective of 'May Fourth Movement' women Viewpoints in "Restarting Historical Views". In Gao Yanyi's view, the "May Fourth" historical view was restricted by the specific social and era background at that time. Especially under the crisis awareness of Western invasion, intellectuals' understanding of traditional China was highly radical. For example, the "female oppression theory" shown in women's history believes that Chinese women from all walks of life in the traditional imperial system were oppressed by family and politics, and were a type of submissive "rentiers." This ignores the many nuances and differences that may exist in the long history, especially the erasure of female subjectivity and consciousness that has far-reaching consequences.
's understanding of traditional prostitutes is also in the context of the "May Fourth" view of women's history. They were regarded as the lowest and most oppressed group in feudal society. It is precisely through them that the dross and darkness of feudal society are revealed.
"Girl School Master: The Culture of Talented Women in Jiangnan in the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties", author: [American] Gao Yanyi, translator: Li Zhisheng, version: Jiangsu People's Publishing House, May 2022
However, this judgment was made in the 1980s and 1990s It was generally opposed by Western sinologists, especially feminist historians such as Man Suen, Gao Yanyi, Wei Ailian, and He Xiao. From this, there emerged subsequent research on various types of women in traditional society, especially their own subjective consciousness and practices, such as talented women, housewives, and prostitutes. In He Xiao's "Dangerous Pleasure", she shows us the complex phenomenon of prostitution in the tradition, as well as their life, emotions, autonomy and resistance in this situation.
"Dangerous Pleasure", author: [American] He Xiao, translator: Han Minzhong/Sheng Ning, version: Jiangsu People's Publishing House, May 2022
In "Menghua Lu", Zhao Pan'er repeatedly emphasized that she was guilty of her father's sin ( There is no such plot in Yuan Zaju ) and how to maintain his innocence after becoming a prostitute, while Song Yinzhang spared no effort to escape from the humble status, or to show that he is different from those prostitutes who sell their appearance. In fact, we can see that this internal division of women into three, six, and nine classes appears repeatedly in romantic dramas.
Stills from "Meng Hua Lu", the picture shows Song Yinzhang.
What was once emphasized in the "May Fourth" literary model was the opposition to patriarchy and strict class distinctions through the love of young men and women, as well as the emphasis on individual independence and freedom, but in subsequent romantic love stories , we have repeatedly seen that love seems to only happen to characters of specific characters, classes and even bloodlines, while those who are considered lowly, common, or ordinary-looking are not worthy of romantic love and a kind person. character. Why is the
"Double Clean" standard being used more extensively?
Many people are surprised by the "double purity" and hierarchy revealed in "Menghualu", but at the same time, it also reflects the changes in concepts within the young group who are its largest audience. This point has appeared repeatedly in popular literature, film and television works that have emerged in an endless stream over the years. There may be a subtler social psychology behind the emergence of the
"double clean" standard and its expanded use. We will find that the mainstream audience of "Menghualu" is still a group of young women who are currently active in the consumer market, and many of them are also loyal readers of various online articles. Therefore, the demand for the "double clean" standard still maintains its original purpose to a certain extent, which is to use it to constrain the emotional and sexual experiences of the male protagonists in romantic love stories.
From this point of view, it is not so much a conservative reaction, but rather a constraint and shaping by young female viewers of this type of story that is traditionally dominated by male discourse. They no longer seem to like the swingers and complicated emotional patterns they once had, but they always maintain their expectations for the more vacuum and pure love patterns in stories like Danmei.
Stills from "Know or Not".
We can compare it with another drama "Knowing or Not Knowing" which is also set in the Song Dynasty. In this drama, the male protagonist played by Feng Shaofeng had rich emotional and sexual experience before marrying the female protagonist. Such a character image may be more "realistic" and more in line with the background of the times, but it can also be made by This once again reinforces the unequal emotional and sexual moral standards in traditional love stories. Love models like
tend to be more "adult" and conform to the mainstream heterosexual love model, but it is also exactly what is opposed and expected by ancient idols such as Danmei or "Menghualu". For the latter Generally speaking, the male protagonist must also be "double pure" emotionally and sexually, otherwise this romantic love must be impure.
Why do contemporary people long for "pure and romantic love"?
Many female readers and viewers have used this to twists and turns to dismantle the power structure problem in traditional romantic love, and attempt to establish a new, more equal emotional model. But this model itself also has corresponding problems.
In addition to the audience's secret confrontation between emotions and desires, we will also feel a general anxiety in such phenomena that emphasize "double purity" or repeat the old isomorphism of love and social class, and this One anxiety stems from the disappearance of the sanctity of traditional love. Although the birth of modern love is closely related to enlightenment, its transcendence still plays an important role in the current secular world. In many literary and film and television works, the praise of love gives it a lot of mysterious and mysterious power, and it is also considered to have some kind of repair in the face of the spread of modern nihilism , atomization and other phenomena. The sacred thing of sex. Therefore, "pure and romantic love" will always have a place in popular culture. However, as its closure and solidification may lead to further conservatism, it may also be colonized by many outdated ideologies.
In an era that is increasingly complex, chaotic and impure, people desire, imagine and pursue pure things. And in a modern society where emotions are gradually fragmenting and sex is becoming increasingly casual, love seems to be declining rapidly. It seems that it is becoming more and more difficult to get close and connected with a person, and intimate relationships seem to be no longer possible. Therefore, the beautiful memories of traditional "romantic love" have given these idol dramas and love dramas a huge dream market. "Menghualu" creates a pure love model for the audience, and behind it is the audience's imagination of love relationships.
Stills from "Meng Hua Lu".
Behind this, we cannot ignore the invisible hands of the market and consumption, which create the purest and most beautiful love dream for the audience. There seems to be no impurity in it, but in fact it still hides the gender power and the closed nature of the myth of traditional "love" itself. The complexity behind this background should also be taken into account when imagining love myths.
Those who are humble and are not humble, and those who are innocent may not be truly independent and autonomous. This seems to be a complexity that appears again and again in discussions of romantic dramas. It is not only through love with men that women can gain independence, success or salvation. Their self-free existence itself is already independent. This is not restricted by their gender, emotional or sexual experience, nor should it be restricted by class, economic or social status.
text/Chongmu
editor/Zouzao
proofreader/Zhao Lin
