Recently, a new drama was criticized by the whole network after it was launched, that is, an urban drama " Gentlemen of East Eighth District " with four men as the main characters. It is also a new work that combines producers, producers, screenwriters, and starring roles. As the male version of " only 30 ", "Gentlemen in East Eight" has been preparing for nearly 4 years. Unexpectedly, after the launch, Douban's score has dropped to 2.1 points, and it has successfully ranked as the lowest score for Douban's domestic drama of the year. The lines and plots in the play frequently have become hot searches, and there are endless bad reviews such as greasy, outdated, vulgar, and sexual harassment. What mistake did "Gentlemen of East Eight" make? Why does it also tell the story of several friends working hard, and the audience doesn’t buy it after the protagonist changes from a woman to a man?
Douban over 150,000 people gave 2.1 points ratings, with a 1-star ratio of up to 96%.
was scolded on the hot search, refreshing the lowest score
"Personization of Women" is the first crime
"Gentlemen in East Eight Districts" is a 40-episode urban love comedy directed by Xia Rui and starring Zhang Han , Wang Xiaochen , Du Chun , Jingchao , Huang Youming . It was jointly premiered on Mango TV and Tencent Video on August 31, 2022, and was broadcast on Hubei Satellite TV on . It tells the story of Tong Yu (played by Zhang Han), Guo Chong (played by Du Chun), Li Jiesen (played by Huang Youming), and Xiang Xiaofei (played by Jing Chao). Four college friends stayed in Shanghai to work hard after graduation, and are now in their thirties. Tong Yu is an artificial intelligence engineer, Guo Chong is an introverted "nerd" university teacher, Li Jason is a down-to-earth chef, and Xiang Xiaofei is a "playboy-like" luxury store manager.
After urban female group dramas became popular in the entire drama market and social media, urban male group dramas have almost no one in recent years. When this drama was launched, it was targeted at dramas such as " Ode to Joy " and "Thirty Only" that have been popular in recent years, and also planned to create an urban male romance light comedy. Unfortunately, after the launch of "Gentlemen in East Eighth District", Douban's score has been fluctuating below 3 points. As of press time, the number of people who scored has exceeded 156,000, and the proportion of one star is as high as 96%. Such scores not only set a new low for TV dramas of the year, but also successfully ranked as the lowest score for domestic dramas on Douban.
For a moment, this drama caused a group of ridicule among netizens. The greasy lines and plots in the drama frequently became hot searches, and they also successfully occupied the creative materials of various up owners and scissors hands. There were negative comments related to the drama everywhere. This drama has also become the worst time that domestic dramas have been "disgusted" by the audience in recent years. To summarize, most of the negative comments of major media and audiences on this drama are concentrated on the following aspects such as "materializing women", "too greasy", and "pornography".
First of all, what the audience is most dissatisfied with is that the scenes of "objective women" are everywhere. Including and not limited to: emphasizing that as long as men are rich and beautiful, women will throw themselves into their arms; promoting women's money-worship, love-braining, , belittling women's professional abilities; stigmatizing menstrual period , calling women "bloody creatures", etc.
Zhang Han combines new works such as producers, producers, screenwriters, and starring.
For example, at the beginning of the TV series, four male protagonists were the best men and attended a friend’s wedding in , Sanya . After the wedding, the wedding scene turned into a swimming pool party. Tong Yu, starring Zhang Han, only talked to foreign bridesmaids for a few words. Regardless of whether Tong Yu was interested or not, the other party took the initiative to send the room card. The other three foreign bridesmaids were all entangled with other male protagonists flirting hard, hoping to have a further relationship with them. When the four male protagonists sent messages to each other to talk about this, they called the act of flirting with foreign beauties "to win glory for the country." These scenes of objectifying women not only disrespect and offend the female group, but also label and stigmatize the vast majority of male groups.
greasy, outdated and pornographic edge
Official media gave "name criticism"
starring, lines and plots are too greasy and outdated, which is the second crime of the drama summarized by the audience.For example, Tong Yu (played by Zhang Han) and many (played by Wang Xiaochen) were having a meal and chatting, and suddenly many began to praise each other's handsomeness: "You man, you have a handsome face in vain." Tong Yu replied after a wicked smile: "So I should invite this meal, because you are a woman." The male and female protagonists called each other "man" and "women". A mysterious conversation made the audience feel embarrassed, but the screen was full of greasiness.
In addition, there are "This is what men should do", "As long as my Tongyu is still alive, I will never lose", "I don't like others drinking black tea in front of me"... This outdated earthy dialogue runs through the whole play, and is filled with the "domineering president-style" atmosphere that was popular back then. Many viewers said that for domestic dramas that have been leaning towards women's perspectives for several years, this can almost be called a regression. Just looking at the lines and plot, I thought this was a TV series from more than ten years ago, but I couldn’t tell that this was a TV series from 2022.
The third point is that this drama frequently plays pornographic edges. Some of the words and deeds are very inappropriate, both in the play and outside the play, and these have become points that anger the audience. For example, the male protagonist Tong Yu accidentally entered many rooms of the heroine. When the two woke up in the same bed, they first looked at each other's height, weight, and measurements; and the vulgar and boring lines such as "My mother told me since she was a child that she looked good in thinness and fatness are easy to use", "I can eat spicy food, how hot your figure is", etc. The most popular clip of
is that many heroines accidentally fell down. When the hero Tongyu Hero Jiumei reached out to help her, she actually grabbed her underwear belt and pulled it hard. The camera still had to rotate 360° gorgeously without blind spots. There is another story where Tong Yu, played by Zhang Han, obviously put his hand on the girl's breasts when he hugged many of Wang Xiaochen's roles. This indecent action caused heated discussion after the series was broadcast, and netizens called him "a stingy man in the workplace" and "sexual harassment". Faced with such a low-quality and eye-catching scene, the comment section asked why this drama was "passed"?
For a time, content such as "How good are the gentlemen in #East Eight District" and "The gentlemen in #East Eight District" frequently became popular searches. Many netizens denounced this as sexual harassment and shouted that they hoped to remove such vulgar dramas as soon as possible. " People's Daily Comments" (the official Weibo of the People's Daily Online Commentary Department), " China Women's Daily " and other official newspapers have successively published articles "Where is the "sincerity work" that has been polished for ten years? 》《The "Missing Confidence" of "Gentlemen in East Eight" is too outdated" criticized the indecent and vulgarity of this drama.
Domestic TV series can’t tell the stories of urban men well?
Compared with the popular urban female group portrait dramas in recent years, urban male group portrait dramas do not produce any masterpieces. According to statistics from reporters, the urban male group dramas that have been discussed more frequently in recent years include: " Lin Shen Jian Lu " (Douban 4.3 points), " Chasing Love Family " (Douban 5.2 points), " Mr. Love " (Douban 5.9 points), "Beijing Youth" (Douban 6.5 points), "Men Gang" (Douban 7.4 points)... In this case, except for "Men Gang" directed by Zhao Baogang , the score of the other Douban is more than 7.0 points, the score of the other Douban is between 4.0 and 6.5 points. Why does it also tell the story of several friends pursuing true love and working hard, and no one loves to watch the protagonist after changing from a woman to a man? Why are the adaptability of men in domestic dramas so low to urban dramas? If you want to answer this question, you may have to return to the creative logic of female group dramas.
It can be said that before this, when viewing such urban dramas, the audience rarely applied and thought from a gender perspective. For example, in the earlier Zhao Baogang drama "Struggle", although multiple female characters were portrayed, the story basically starts from the perspective of several men. The play includes: multiple women with outstanding conditions love a man at the same time, rich girls love a man without any return, ex-wife kneeling down to beg for remarriage, etc., which rarely happens in real life. In fact, these are dramatic contents with a male perspective fantasy.
In this way, the emergence of film and television works from a female perspective is a product of the development of the times, which is related to the background of the times and the progress of social thoughts. In urban female group dramas such as "Ode to Joy" and "Thirty Only", the characters of many heroines have increased more female psychological expressions, especially after the various difficulties faced by women in work and life are solved little by little by little by the protagonist, which makes more audiences feel immersed. Since the audience and protagonists of urban dramas are mostly women, how male characters can reasonably stand and exist and meet the vision and psychology of female audiences, these requirements greatly increase the difficulty of urban male group dramas.
It can be said that almost all film and television works that have successfully created male group portraits have outstanding career settings. For example, "Police Honors" has received a lot of praise this year, but strictly speaking, this is considered a workplace drama rather than a urban drama. The lack of workplace workplace work has also become the reason why "Gentlemen in East Eight" feels vague and unearthy. After the series was launched, gentlemen in East Eight did not need to work well, and there was no crisis in life: Tong Yu and many people often talked about personal emotional problems in the company and resolved emotional conflicts; the university office became a place for Guo Chong and Teacher Cui to push and pull emotionally, rather than a place for learning; female real estate developers booked a store to buy luxury goods, and the store manager Xiang Xiaofei was surprised and followed a very unprofessional sentence, " Men do need some punishment sometimes, but don’t do it.”—Women who spend a lot of money to buy things are connotated by spending men’s money to vent their anger; and Li Jason has not studied any dishes except for making cakes on the spot to solve the crisis in the store...
Originally, the series hopes to show everyone’s mutual support and common growth by showing the lives of four men facing different crises, and ultimately gain love and career, and become a better self. However, the workplace line with loopholes has become a slim line in "Gentlemen in East Eight" in "The Gentlemen in the East Eighth District". The audience did not see the men's crisis and the different problems that everyone needs to solve in their lives, but only saw men who were confident and charming. It can be said that the creators of domestic dramas have not yet found the fit between "urban" and "male", so they can only fill in the drama with some boring and boring content.
New Yellow River Reporter: Xing Yuan
Editor: Liu Dan
