First, the image of a saint awakened for love.
Under the mass consumption culture, those social phenomena that appear more and more frequently in real life and are constantly discussed by people, such as betrayal, betrayal, revenge, superior position, hidden rules and so on. , are realistically reflected in various TV dramas to meet personal material desires or interests. These storylines, which can stimulate the audience to spend and abandon moral constraints, are common in recent years.
The performance of female groups in this kind of drama presents a phenomenon of helplessness to compromise with the development of the times and market demand. In the TV series "The Secret History of Wu Zetian" starring Yin Tao, she plays the young Wu Zetian who has an affair with Prince Li Zhi from his sickbed, and uses her beauty and body to save herself, which powerfully interprets the bumpy reality.
This story originated in the early years of the Tang Dynasty. Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, listened to Tianshi's prophecy and thought that "the three generations of Tang Dynasty died, and the mistress Wu Shi took its place" and began to alienate Wu Meiniang. In order to save herself, Wu Meiniang had to turn to Cone Nu, who could give her the right to live in the harem. However, this purposeful love conclusion has not been recognized and endorsed by the audience, but only as a topic of chatting after dinner.
What is different is that in the 20 14 new drama "The Legend of Wu Mei Niang", the director and screenwriter closely follow the inner demands of the female group under the development of the times, and carefully create a modern independent female image that longs for love and is not demanding material desires. This role change in line with the law of market competition is more in line with the audience's aesthetic attitude and voyeurism.
Regardless of the East or the West, traditional culture gives women the meaning of life, which is to give everything for love and family. Whether a woman is valuable depends mainly on whether she is loyal to her husband, kind to her children, and willing to sacrifice everything to make a man happy in exchange for the stability and harmony of marriage and family, because the stability and harmony of marriage and family is an indispensable prerequisite for a man's happy life.
Even with the prevalence of consumerism and the increasingly entertaining and fast-food pop culture, people still insist that the ultimate ownership of women lies with their families and husbands. No matter how excellent, beautiful and capable this woman is, she can't shift the focus of life from men. Based on such an expectation of women's living conditions in the audience's field of vision, the screenwriter reconstructed the female image of Wu Zetian in historical materials, documents, picture books, operas and unofficial history.
This also makes a reasonable explanation for the TV series "The Legend of Wu Mei Niang" starring 20 14 Fan Bingbing under the background of mass consumer culture. In this "Wu Mei Niang Legend", Wu Zetian changed her usual rigid and sinister female image and turned into a modern literary woman who was recognized by the public and full of poetic life.
In this TV series, the writers and directors intentionally constructed the character Wu Meiniang in an aesthetic way, combining ancient and modern Chinese and foreign, and shaped her into an ideal social woman with both beauty and luck, resilience and courage. Of course, these characters are endowed with characteristics, which are all around her perfect love, not forced by interests or moved by power.
In this TV series, Wu Zetian's life is mixed with sorrow and joy, and several ups and downs are almost closely related to her love. The meeting with Tang Gaozong Li Zhi during Zhenguan years became a lifeline for her life. In order to achieve her goal of entering the palace and stabilize her position, she had to accept Li Zhi's vigorous love and throw herself into the arms of the man who could give her a reliable sense of security.
After more than ten years of harem, it took her centuries to release the Buddha statue. Such a clear memory and hard-to-give-up thoughts can't meet the eyes and pressure thrown by this world. Wu Zetian's heart is strong, strong enough to ignore all negative attacks, only love the people around her, only care about the man she loves now. However, her efforts have brought infinite returns, which actually proves the survival of women. In the final analysis, it is the male society that gives survival.
The struggle of women is also the struggle of men's right to speak in society. Foucault's theory of discourse power holds that discourse is both power and power plays a role in the cultural world and social system through discourse. Therefore, in the ancient harem, women's power was defined by their status.
All the women in the play, including Wu Zetian's sister, Mrs Han, Wu Zetian's niece, Mrs Guo Weifu, and Princess Gaoyang, the daughter of Emperor Taizong, are in a huge power network, and Li Zhi, who stands at the top, acts as the master of the right to speak. In the play, what makes Wu Zetian the master of the harem is a word and a gesture from Li Zhi, but the source of his voice is his deep love for Wu Meiniang, so in the traditional feudal society, only the salvation and love of men can push a woman to the peak of her life.
Judging from the creation of scriptwriters' texts, these are the re-incorporation of male-dominated culture into the suppressed humanity of women's gender. Women's efforts and success in love depend on men's alms and gifts. The love between middle-aged Wu Zetian and her husband gradually slipped away, but the responsibility still existed. When love came to an end, Emperor Li Zhi handed over the power of state affairs to Wu Zetian, and this ending still reflected Wu Zetian's great return and awakening to love. This is also a powerful proof that the dilemma under the protection of male power has been broken through step by step.
Modern women are gradually becoming more confident, enterprising and daring to pursue novelty, and at the same time, they are closer to in-depth exploration and closer to the double-layered desire of combining spiritual level with material desire. In the decades after Wu Zetian grew up from an ignorant girl to a generation of emperors, the floating dust of Wu Zetian's fate in the harem because of love in the TV series "The Legend of Wu Mei Niang" is related to her stubborn persistence in her initial heart and persistence in love. This TV series completely subverts the image of a femme fatale who abandoned everything for power and self-interest, whether it was family, love or friendship. Its success lies in awakening the hearts of women blinded by illusory interests in real society for the satisfaction of material desires, and this TV series is therefore very popular.
Second, the image of women with women's independent consciousness
Since the 20th century, the palace historical drama with the theme of Wu Zetian's personal biography has been constantly innovating. The feminist court drama Da Ci, directed by female directors Li and widely praised by the public, can be said to be a TV art work with novel and unique complex layout and accurate portrayal of female roles and characters in similar TV dramas.
With all kinds of rich and three-dimensional female characters coming into people's field of vision, in order to meet the audience's viewing needs in the consumer market environment, Wu Zetian, a timeless classic female image, has been constantly put on the screen and has undergone multiple changes. These changes are influenced by the development of some western feminist theories, but they do not completely follow these theories for artistic processing and creation. As the most influential communication carrier in popular cultural media, TV series originated from people's daily life, and at the same time it is not limited to simple realistic documentaries. The artistic expression of TV plays is largely reflected in the portrayal and construction of characters, as well as the mapping and reflection of the social environment in which characters live.
This has led to the current situation that women are eager for their social status and gender identity to be gradually changed, which has laid a theoretical foundation for women to engage in and carry out their own careers reasonably and legally in order to obtain their own value proof.
In the TV series before the broadcast of Da Gong Ming Ci, Wu Zetian was initially portrayed as an innocent and ignorant girl, and the development and evolution of her life track unfolded step by step in the drama. Whether it's The Secret History of Wu Zetian, which shows the image of a queen with supreme power, or The Legend of Wu Mei Niang, which shows the image of a saint who awakens love, the original intention of the plot evolution is to tell how a woman experienced hardships and triumphed in the ancient court society where feudal autocracy prevailed.
However, the uniqueness of the poem Daming Palace lies in that on the one hand, it focuses on how to deal with family and social relations rationally when constructing Wu Zetian's female image, on the other hand, it abandons the plot bridge of women's workplace inspirational which is badly written by the majority of film and television dramas. In this play, we can't see a simple and kind girl image when she first entered the palace, nor can we see a shadow full of passion and imagination in court life.
From the beginning, the plot directly cuts into the mature female image of the intellectual harem after all kinds of sinister and cruel intrigues and intrigues in the court struggle. However, in order to safeguard his own interests and stable position, and adapt to the survival law that may change at any time in the palace, the director did not hesitate to portray the unique female image of Wu Zetian in the new era.
As the female directors of the play, Li showed the audience a brand-new female image with aggressive and even aggressive masculinity. On the screen, a completely different woman, Wu Zetian, was born in front of the emperor's funeral and former ministers. On the one hand, it is a gentle and virtuous female role around the emperor, and on the other hand, it is a male role who is good at using strategic means and calm and courageous in the harem struggle. This complex and slightly distorted female image with changeable personality and myriad images seems to be more in line with the modern society under the mass consumption culture and the audience's visual expectation for the female image design in TV dramas.
In the past, viewers often saw that women were the protected party in TV dramas. They are innocent victims and have been attacked by others. They need the shelter and salvation of men like their fathers and husbands, such as Xia Ziwei in the TV series Princess Zhu Huan, Wang Yuyan in the Eight Heroes of the Dragon, Chun Er in War and Beauty, and Meng Ping in The Rain is Pouring.
Although the female role in the harem in the poem "Daming Palace" is also in the situation of being hurt and re-protected by men, the creation of Wu Zetian, a unique female image, broke the conventional mode of growing up under the protection of male power, and in turn made her passively forge an "aggression" in the dangerous harem life because of her self-help personality nature, breaking through the cage of gender consciousness and fighting for her due rights and interests.
Gui Yalei, the actress who plays Wu Zetian in the play, plays a plump woman brilliantly. She is full of warmth and love, wisdom and courage, with brilliant maternal and virtuous characteristics, and dares to break the feudal shackles of the old system. One of the highlights of the play is to describe Wu Zetian's accomplished life with memories of his daughter Princess Taiping. The awakening of Wu Zetian's gender consciousness is highlighted through the narration of a woman who is the same as Wu Zetian and is full of independent female consciousness.
Text/Cheng Fei Reading Historical Life