Disney+ launched " Taipei Women's Picture Book ". Although it has the huge IP title of "Tokyo Women's Picture Book", it invited Gui Lunmei to starring, and there are also many well-known actors such as Wang Baijie , Zhang Xiaoquan , Feng Xiaoyue , Yang Jinhua , Tianxin and other famous actors to help, but their reputation has declined. The current Douban score has fallen below the passing line, with only 5.7 points, far lower than the original 8.6 score.
Most netizens who watched this drama are puzzled. At least, this is by no means the "Taipei Women's Illustrated Book" they are looking forward to. The root of this drama is that there is a problem with the narrative orientation of this drama - changing the original "desire narrative" into "love narrative", losing the spiritual core of the original version. The original version looks directly at women's desires and does not make moral judgments. The deviation in the idea of "Taipei Women's Picture Book" is precisely because of moral judgments and abandoning the precious female consciousness of this female work.
From desire narrative to love narrative
The Japanese drama "Tokyo Women's Picture Book" that triggered East Asia in 2016 tells the history of the struggle of the heroine Aya from Akita, Japan, to Tokyo. The starting point of everything comes from her dissatisfaction with life in a small city and her strong desire for big cities and material things. After graduating from university, Aya came to Tokyo as she wished. She does not have very high education or amazing talent. She relies on her ok appearance. Every boyfriend is her guide. Although they are using Aya's youth, Aya is also using them. Every relationship is the ladder that Aya climbs up. The place where she lives is gradually approaching Tokyo's rich areas from the civilian suburbs of Tokyo, and her work and income have also improved. However, although Aya got closer to her desire step by step and became an enviable Tokyo woman in the magazine, she never achieved emotional satisfaction, and even her desire itself was always one step away.
"Tokyo Women's Picture Book" presents a girl full of ambitions and desires without moral judgment. She is not an idol drama, nor a cool drama. In contrast, although " Beijing Women's Picture Book " and "Taipei Women's Picture Book" retain the original desire narrative to a certain extent, they also have essential changes, that is, weakening the heroine's desire drive, amplifying her emotional line, and trying to give the heroine a place to calm down in the end - going around and going through thousands of sails, they finally know that true love is precious and understand that true love is more important than desire.
In "Taipei Women's Picture Book", the heroine Lin Yishan (played by Gui Lunmei) is indeed eager for the prosperity of Taipei and has gone from Tainan to the north. Unlike Ling who has a clear desire for big cities, Lin Yisan is actually not very clear about what she came to Taipei for. Although she has a new relationship and a new boyfriend in every episode, most boyfriends have nothing to do with her desires, and the original "desire narrative" becomes a "love narrative". The men Lin Yisan met, some men are very honest, but they let their future life be seen at a glance; some men are very scumbag, they disappear when they get tired of playing, and finally break up with a text message; some men cannot ignite her passion, they cannot be satisfied or dissatisfied, and the breakup makes her feel more relaxed; some men are control freakish, who controls everything about her in the name of loving Lin Yisan; some men clearly cheat, and Lin Yisan also knows that she is a mistress but is indulging in this relationship; some men can let Lin Yisan enter a wealthy family, the price is to let Lin Yisan abandon herself...
The main line of "Taipei Women's Picture Book" becomes "Taipei Women's Love Picture Book". Lin Yisan has experienced various men and summarized various emotional patterns for modern people - this is what the vulgar urban romance dramas are doing today. Calling it a "women's picture book" is a generalization.
Moral judgment on female desires
Where does female desire go? Where did women's desire for material things and desire for climbing upwards go? In "Tokyo Women's Picture Book", Aya's emotional history is rich and important, but all of this serves Aya's desire. Ayan made her choice, and at the same time, this multiple-choice question was thrown to the audience in front of the screen: How would we choose?
The most mainstream judgment is to regard Ayan as a delicate egoist, a materialist and materialist, an unhappy person who gets it while discarding nothing left in the end. Therefore, Ayan is very controversial, she is the "evil girl" of the new era. "Beijing Women's Picture Book" and "Taipei Women's Picture Book" both tried to make the heroine more correct. They did abandon honest men who were suitable for their whole lives when they first arrived in a big city. Just like what the original version of Aya thought when she abandoned her first love boyfriend: Such honest men can be found in small cities. This kind of life that is easy to live in small cities can also be owned by small cities. Since she is in big cities, she should not be satisfied with this.
Such calculations run through Ling's entire emotional experience. When he arrived at Lin Yisan, in order not to let her be "snobbish" like Ling, and in order not to let her become the "evil girl" who uses her feelings, the screenwriter's strategy is: to amplify the weight of love in Lin Yisan's life and try to make Lin Yisan occasionally lose her mind for love. The logic is: a girl puts feelings first, which means she desires true love, which means she is not a refined egoist, and that she has a pure heart. Such a narrative strategy is essentially a kind of "self-castration": it is actually making moral judgments for Aya, believing that Aya is indeed a "evil girl" and Aya is not worthy of imitation, so people like Aya are not suitable to be the heroine. The improved Ling became Lin Yishan; the real carnival of female desires in the original version, and when they arrived at the Taiwanese version, they put on a false mask of pure love.
Secondly, the screenwriter wants to highlight Lin Yisan's "occasional innocence", but once the boundaries of innocence are not grasped properly, Lin Yisan will become a "love brain" that depends on men. For example, in the fifth episode, Lin Yisan had sex with a married man with an open marriage. Lin Yisan was soon fascinated by his gentleness and consideration. She used many large bed scenes to reflect the unbearable desires of the two. Lin Yisan fell in love with a married man because of this, and even went to find his wife, hoping that his wife could divorce him... After learning from the other party that it was a married man who didn't want to divorce, Lin Yisan burst into tears on the way back. Regardless of the lack of beauty in those lust scenes, Lin Yisan lost her direction and lost herself in lust, which is like a collapse of her character. Ling always controls desires clearly. She just freely and freely; Lin Yisan was knocked out by lust. She has always been a passive person in this relationship, and at this time she also forgot her original intention of coming to Taipei in the past - this is also one of the confusions of the audience after watching this drama: What is Lin Yisan's desire to come to Taipei. Perhaps this drama has not clarified Lin Yisan's desire to come to Taipei.
Such a erratic character and inconsistent plot, but unfortunately Gui Lunmei's acting skills. She is obviously an actress who is very suitable for the Taiwanese version of Aya in the audience. She has a proud face and can fully afford the independent, confident and tenacious woman who keeps running forward for her desire. Unfortunately, women's desires have not been revealed. Even the love history of urban women is like a glimpse of fantasy and squandering account, wasting Gui Lunmei's face in vain.
Following the desire of women directly
After all, the collapse of the narrative and reputation of "Taipei Women's Picture Book" is that even the director cannot look directly at women's desires. How can it be replicated the original soul? In fact, the rejection and derogation of female desires is indeed the mainstream attitude in current society.I still remember that when the "Tokyo Women's Picture Book" was broadcast, the barrage was full of criticism of Aya, and regarded Aya as a negative example of a woman. Many people think that women should not have such messy ambitions and desires. Isn't it good to find an honest person to marry and live a plain life?
It is worth emphasizing that we do not agree with Ayan’s choice, but we must defend Ayan’s desire. Just imagine, if Ayan's gender was replaced by a male, many viewers would probably not feel too surprised, because in terms of literature and art history, the narrative of "ambitious men" has a long history and is full of great success. For example, the classic ambition man we are all familiar with, Rastignet in "Old Man Gao", Julien in " Red and Black ", and especially Julien has always been sympathized with a lot of sympathy. Many people agree that it is normal for a man to climb up, and it is likely that a man sacrifices love for his career because he has some difficulties. On the contrary, many people cannot accept that women have the desire to climb up. This is the male-centered and male-first thinking, and firmly locks women in the position of "the heroine"; if men fight and make a breakthrough, they should shine and heat up, and women should restrain their ambitions, take care of their husbands and children at home, and be good support for the virtuous. Therefore, the female character that most men praise is gentle, family-oriented, no desires, and suitable for the family. They reject women who are professional, ambitious, ambitious, and not limited to kitchen and parenting.
Naturally, they are full of vigilance for women like Yan. Once a woman has ambitions and desires, and when a woman wants to climb up, it not only means that men's competition becomes fierce, but also a challenge and threat to patriarchy - when women are economically independent and spiritually independent, and when women are no longer vassals of men, the patriarchy is in danger of collapse. Therefore, many people try every means to stigmatize women's desires, and their desires towards women are as if they are facing a great enemy. This kind of hostility has even become a subconscious of the whole society - it is not good for women to have desires, so they dare not look directly at them and dare not present them without moral judgment.
It is true that women's desire does not mean that it is the absolute truth, such as many of Yan's choices are also debatable. But considering the living situation of women, the most important thing is not to be busy judging and defining women's desires, nor to speak out loudly about how dangerous women's desires are; the most important thing is to face it and present it, and no longer regard women's desires as weird existences. Until some time, women's desires have been regarded as natural, and the audience will make moral judgments and appropriate guidance again, which is really targeted. Otherwise, they will just be a false target and kill women's desires in the name of guidance. Against this background, the film and television works on the market that face and illuminate women's desires are rare. Whether it is the British and American dramas "Sex and the City", " The Good Wife HTML ", " The Great Lady Madame 3", " My Genius Girlfriend ", "Good Luck, Rio Grande", or " Black Leather Manual ", " Paper Moon " and "Mist", they do not stigmatize women's ambitions, and the unique female image shaping makes more women in ignorance realize: there is such a way of living, and it turns out that women can also pursue such rights and freedoms.
A group of women awaken a group of women and gives them the courage to reorganize their lives and live out themselves. Don’t follow the trend and become the next one, but face your desires, pursue it openly, control it, become yourself, and achieve yourself.
