[literature and art watching tide]
China has a vast territory, vast territory and abundant resources, and different geographical, climatic and historical factors have nourished different local conditions and customs. In recent years, in the creation of TV dramas in China, rich and colorful regional culture has become a bright color. Minning Town showed the customs of Xihaigu in Ningxia, and many viewers learned the northwest dialect with the characters in the play. The Awakeing Age’s writing about the changing situation and brilliant stars in Beiping a hundred years ago made many young people yearn for it. The Shaanxi flavor of "Loading Taiwan" is like a bowl of oily noodles with strength; The Shanghai flavor of Heart Residence is like a local dish intertwined with sweetness and saltiness. Even younger and idolized works such as You are my glory and Twenty Don’t Confuse introduce certain regional cultural elements, which clearly outline the sense of space and times of the story.
The integration of rich regional elements into TV dramas not only adds layers and changes to the visual space of TV drama art, but also adds thickness and strength to the realistic texture of TV dramas. More importantly, the culture with regional characteristics has also been strongly spread with the help of TV dramas.
Typical characters still need typical environment.
In the creation of some realistic themes, urban landscapes are similar, often appearing as pseudonyms and similar high-rise buildings, and many regional spaces have become a kind of cultural "enclave", which is denounced by the audience as "suspended drama". This is not unrelated to its pale regional spatial expression. In fact, in the tradition of Chinese TV dramas, regional culture was once an important feature. Especially when there are no satellite channels in many provinces, or provincial satellite channels have not yet had national influence, and TV stations in various provinces and cities rely on self-production and self-marketing, the content of programs broadcast by local TV stations is mainly to serve local audiences. Teachers Fool, Armed Forces in Mountain City by Chongqing TV, Miss Public Relations by Guangdong TV, Fences, Women and Dogs, Wheels, Women and Wells by Dalian TV, etc., often take the local area as the location of the story and take local stories as the main content, laying out the local social outlook and life details.
Later, provincial satellite TV gradually became the most important broadcasting channel among TV stations in various provinces and cities. With their influence gradually covering the whole country, their operation orientation has changed from the previous pursuit of local characteristics to opening their eyes to the whole country. The threshold for non-public capital to enter the radio and television program production industry has been lowered, and the separation of production and broadcasting in the film and television industry has become popular. The film and television companies specializing in program production should serve the program needs of national television stations, and put the priority of finding the cultural commonness of the national audience in front of excavating regional elements when creating and producing. After that, commercial elements such as IP and traffic stars were introduced, and the production cost of some film and television dramas was more inclined to the copyright fee of big IP and the pay of traffic stars. In order to save costs, some works focus the shooting scenes on a few simple indoor spaces, resulting in the absence of real regional landscapes. The complexity of different cities has been simplified into sample rooms or offices, and the geographical space of TV dramas has gradually become a simple stage for carrying stories.
Engels pointed out: "Realism means that in addition to the truth of the details, we must truly reproduce the typical characters in the typical environment." Regional culture is a complex system of meaning, including not only the natural environment, manners and customs, daily habits, but also the world on top of it. For a period of time, the simplification and simplification of geographical space expression in TV plays brought a cultural, aesthetic and meaningful void to the creation. This phenomenon has aroused the concern and deep thinking of practitioners.
Local accent evokes emotional resonance
Industrialization and urbanization cannot cut off the local accent. In recent years, "nostalgia" has been repeatedly mentioned in literary and artistic works. Specific to the field of TV dramas, creators pay more and more attention to the use of regional characteristics. From Beishangguang to the northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest, it has become the geographical space described by the works, which evokes the audience’s different "homesickness".
Beijing, as the capital, has always been the focus of TV dramas on regional space. In recent years, Beijing-style TV dramas such as Sesame Hutong and Hairy Side is Not Begonia Red have taken pickles and Peking Opera as the core images of their works, consolidating people’s impression of Beijing’s historical changes and cultural accumulation. Also a work with a sense of the times, The Awakeing Age expanded the spatial presentation of TV dramas to old Beijing. In the works, historical landmarks such as the Red Mansion of Peking University, Changxindian and Taoranting frequently appear, and even the earth of Dashilan, the wall brick of Jiangan Hutong and the grape shelf in Chen Duxiu Courtyard are carefully arranged, trying to restore the original features. And TV series such as I’m fine in a foreign land, Little Joy and Shichahai have shaped a Beijing today. It contains both traditional Beijing flavor and modern atmosphere of metropolis. Chinese from all over the world gathered here, interweaving from different levels and dimensions to write the spiritual outlook and cultural details of Beijing at present.
Being both first-tier cities, TV plays give a completely different presentation to the regional characteristics of Shanghai. One kind is the old Shanghai in Hidden and Great and Old Chinese Medicine, which is a spy battlefield with an open gun and an open back, a colorful ten-mile foreign exchange, a fireworks atmosphere in the neighborhood of Lane, and a historical atmosphere of Shanghai that is shared by Jiangnan culture and Huangmei rainy season. One is today’s Shanghai, which is a trendy city with commercial flavor. In Ode to Joy and Settle Down in Nothing But Thirty, it is a dream place for strugglers, a showcase for fashion culture, and a display screen for daily life of different social classes.
In addition to the changes of the times reflected by the metropolitan landscapes of Beijing and Shanghai, the broader regional shaping in the TV series presents a differentiated story of China, depicting the scenery of China. When it comes to Northeast China in TV series, people often think of "Country Love" series. In fact, the presentation of TV series to Northeast China has already surpassed the level of rural comedy and developed in multiple directions. I don’t want to be friends with you. There are steaming bathhouses in the northeast. In the Old Pub, there is the boldness of "being brothers, why should we be flesh and blood". In The World, there are sincere feelings in the joys and sorrows of the northeast family. The TV series has both the warmth and charm of the northeast. From "White Deer Plain" and "Full Moon in that Year" to "Installing Taiwan" in Minning Town, the scenery of the Loess Plateau in the northwest and the 800-mile Qinchuan flowed in the TV series, which touched the audience with both the bitterness and sweetness of the village in Xi ‘an in "Installing Taiwan" and the vicissitudes of Xihaigu in Ningxia in Minning Town. In "Everything is Fine", Suzhou pingtan sounds gurgling, and in "The Sky of Wind Dogs and Teenagers", Chongqing people climb the hill and climb the ridge, giving the audience a unique sense of freshness in audio and video and a sense of closeness to the regional culture.
The recovery of regional culture in TV plays is inseparable from social development. With the increasing mobility of Chinese residents in work and life, coupled with the development of tourism and the convenience of the Internet, for the audience, the scenery of many foreign countries is not only unfamiliar and estranged, but also more novel and appealing. When the TV series with dialect accent arouses the audience’s interest in learning dialects, and when the shooting place of specific TV series becomes an endless stream of punch-in attractions in online celebrity, we feel the audience’s love for TV series combined with regional culture and the people’s eager feelings for the motherland.
Artistic value and cultural value complement each other.
The rise of regional culture in TV plays first reflects the high-quality improvement of TV plays in the visual arts. With the improvement of the industrialization level of Chinese TV dramas and the increasing demand of the audience for high-quality TV dramas, the visual enrichment of TV dramas has become a symbol of the refinement, specialization and quality of TV dramas. This refinement is not only the improvement of computer special effects or lens language, but also the information content of the picture itself. Art comes from life, and TV series is a kind of media art that is highly close to daily life. China’s vast territory itself brings "thousands of miles of different styles and customs", which is a treasure house of rich pictures and diverse visual elements. The display of regional culture in TV series provides more differentiated and novel contents and details for the spatial landscape of TV series, forming a rich level of visual aesthetics.
In addition to being a visual spatial landscape, regional culture can also be the source of auditory effect. The lines and dialogues of TV series are seasoned according to local dialects, and authentic colloquialism and cordial local accent are integrated into the auditory system of TV series, which not only enriches the words in TV series text, but also increases the audience’s sense of hearing. And regional musical elements such as local operas have also been requisitioned into the sound system of TV series. Every time Suzhou Pingtan in "Everything is Fine" appears, it not only conforms to the mood of the characters, but also infiltrates the Suzhou flavor. The Awakeing Age matches the paragraph of Peking Opera "Pulling the Pulley" in the plot of leaflets distributed by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, which not only sets off the story atmosphere, but also renders the mood.
Regional culture is also a rich library of story materials. There are too many places worth writing about in the history and culture of our country. Yiwu in "Chicken Feathers Fly to Heaven" and Xihaigu in Minning Town are all like a history book, which records the years passed by Chinese sons and daughters. In addition, food, clothing, housing and transportation, as another symbol of regional culture, have also added a lot of flavor to TV dramas. The frozen pears in "I don’t want to be friends with you", the Chinese hamburger and the hot soup in "Putting on Taiwan" all made the audience’s appetite move and their hearts yearn for it.
Generally speaking, regional culture not only makes TV plays richer, more delicate, more authentic and more grounded in art, but also plays a positive role in promoting rich cultures, increasing cultural exchanges and inheriting cultural traditions in various parts of China. With the help of TV drama communication, regional culture can strengthen people’s spiritual connection with their hometown, region and country, thus establishing a deeper cultural cognition and emotional connection. At present, there is still a lot of room to explore and improve the presentation of regional culture in Chinese TV dramas. I believe that with the deepening of creation, there will be more masterpieces using regional culture, telling more real and vivid stories of China and conveying more rich feelings of China.
(Author: Yang Hui, lecturer in the Department of Cultural Industry, College of Literature, Capital Normal University)
(Source: Guangming Daily)
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