Can rural love be made into a sitcom like I Love My Family?

This paper reviews five works, from the birth of the first real China sitcom "I Love My Family" on 1994 to the popularity of the sitcom "Legend of Wulin" at the end of 2005, but it took more than ten years. In recent ten years, although China's sitcoms have been living in the cracks, the number of products is absolutely beyond people's imagination, and China's sitcoms have also developed into a "regular army" on the battlefield of China's TV dramas. This type of TV series is not only familiar to TV viewers, but also cultivates a group of creative teams who have been engaged in sitcom creation for a long time. However, on the other hand, this imported TV genre, which has successfully realized the localization process, has been marginalized as a TV drama genre, and has never become the mainstream genre in China TV dramas, although there are many masterpieces such as I Love My Family, as well as outstanding works such as Sister Ma and Legend of Wulin. Even today, there are still most sitcoms. We can review the history of this American TV series in China through five representative sitcoms. I. Incubation-Story of Editorial Department The birth of China sitcom is closely related to the rise of "indoor drama". As two types of TV dramas with deep roots, the rise of "indoor drama" represented by "The Story of the Editorial Department" in China has laid a good audience foundation for the introduction of sitcoms. In the early 1990s, when the American sitcom Growing Pains was popular in China, the Beijing TV Drama Art Center began to shoot 24 episodes of the indoor drama The Story of the Editorial Department, which continued the success of Desire, the originator of China's indoor drama, and thus set off an upsurge of shooting indoor drama in the whole country. After the first broadcast on Beijing TV, the drama has been broadcast on TV stations in various provinces and cities all over the country, with a total broadcast volume and replay volume of 140 times, and won the second prize of the 12th Flying Award for Excellent TV Series. The story of the editorial department chooses a place where all kinds of human world are gathered-the editorial department as a specific situation, with several editors with different personalities and outstanding characteristics of the magazine "Human Guide" as regular roles. Through the experiences of Li Dongbao and Ge Ling in their daily work and life, we can see through various hot topics and phenomena in social life at that time, and satirize the contradictions and irrationality in social life through their mouths. Of course, this irony is kind and gentle, because as a TV series, the ultimate goal of the editorial department's story is only to make the audience "laugh once." The story of the editorial department is still relished by the audience for two reasons: one is to create six distinctive characters, and the other is to create the language of TV characters, called "KanShuan". The human guide magazine consists of six people with outstanding personality characteristics. Among them, the editor-in-chief Mr. Chen is calm, and the editors Ms. Niu and Mr. Liu are selfish but conservative. Li Dongbao and Ge Ling are typical modern young people, avant-garde and cynical. They are a little ambiguous, but they love to dig at each other. Of the six people, Yu Deli is the most bourgeois. The director concentrated all the hot topics that the audience cared about in a small magazine composed of six people, and expressed the life of the world with deformation and exaggeration. In addition, the story of the editorial department also created a kind of TV drama character language called "Kanshuan". For example, in the episode of "One Ruling", the magazine received the task of going to the streets to help maintain traffic order. Yu Deli strongly recommended Niu Dajie: "Niu Dajie is suitable! Strong sense of responsibility, turn your face and turn your face, unreasonable. If you put on a red hoop and stand on the road, you can take the lead at that time and don't even need training. " It is no exaggeration to say that the story of the editorial department is a comedy supported by humorous language. Without this kind of language that makes people smile, this TV series will be eclipsed a lot. At that time, The Story of the Editorial Department, which was called "the great series of indoor comedies" by the founders, was actually the embryonic form of sitcom. Even Ying Da himself said that the story of the editorial department was a typical sitcom theme. If he had given the play to him at that time, he would have made it into a sitcom. In addition to audience laughter, it already has several main factors of classic sitcom: "series", "indoor" and "comedy". The success of this series of indoor comedies prepared the audience for the birth of China sitcom. It can be said that without the success of "The Story of the Editorial Department", it is difficult for the audience in China to accept imported TV sitcoms in a completely strange situation; On the other hand, the success of "The Story of the Editorial Department" inspired the long-suppressed comedy feelings of the audience in China, and the China audience's thirst for comedy and the extreme lack of comedy in the TV market at that time made the introduction of sitcoms just in time. Second, the background-"I love my family" 1992, "The Story of the Editorial Department" has not caused the craze in the past, and Ying Da, who returned from studying in the United States, is already planning to shoot a real sitcom in China. He partnered with Wang Shuo, one of the writers of The Story of the Editorial Department, and Liang Zuo, a crosstalk writer who is famous for his comic dialogue "Escape" and "Thief's Companion". The first idea of this platinum group is a sitcom showing ordinary families in China, named "I Love My Family". The following year, the first 40 episodes of this film began shooting. The play received a good response overseas. A Hong Kong TV station bought the first broadcast rights at a price of 6.5438+0.400 USD, and then some provincial TV stations bought the broadcast rights one after another, and filmed the last 80 episodes at 654.38+0.994 and 654.38+0.995. The creation of "I Love My Family" is deeply influenced by the American classic sitcom "AllintheFamily". In fact, many of Ying Da's sitcoms can be found in American sitcoms, and it is an important way to learn from similar American excellent works directly. I Love My Family not only adopts the strategy of reflecting the changes of the times and ideas through a family, but also creates a conservative and talkative old Fu image in Family. Like Archie, Lao Fu is extremely dissatisfied with various phenomena and concepts in real life. He also likes to make some inappropriate remarks, and he is complacent about his eternal correctness. He should also learn to live in peace with children, which is equally lovely and unforgettable. It is almost recognized that the image of Lao Fu is the most successful image portrayed in I Love My Family, and it is also the key to the success of this drama. In the setting of the relationship between characters, I Love My Family originally borrowed directly from The Family Size, and set Zhiguo as the son-in-law of Lao Fu. Later, just to increase the heroine's scene, the role relationship between them was adjusted to Weng Xu's relationship. Although I love my family based on a China family, in essence, the overall family atmosphere is not owned by the traditional China family. The independence of the characters in the play is obvious. Dialogue between characters and humor in language are essentially challenges to the serious, rigid and pecking order of China families in the past. What we feel is an ideal family that is free, active and full of humor and happy atmosphere. Just as the ending song of "I love my family" sings in a hymn-like tune: "My family is really lovely, clean, beautiful and peaceful, my brothers and sisters are kind, and adults and children are healthy." It expresses the dreams and expectations of ordinary people in China for family life. The comic effect of I Love My Family is mostly achieved through casual discourse, which often subtly makes the discourse break away from the established context, unexpectedly making people escape from the established discourse cage and fall into the absurd context. In this play, the surface semantics and deep semantics of language often form an ironic relationship, with nobility and insignificance, beauty and ugliness, seriousness and banter, elegance and vulgarity, sadness and joy intertwined. When they are pulled to the same plane, the meaning of traditional values is dissolved. This worthless state accords with the pleasure psychology of little people surpassing the existing discourse order, and constitutes the possibility of subversion of orthodox discourse characterized by central authority and hierarchy. "I Love My Family" is an important way to create humor through the characters' language and the weaknesses of their own personalities. For example, in the episode of "Destroying My Dad", Lao Fu was beaten and injured, and three perpetrators sang praises to Lao Fu, which immediately made Lao Fu happy. Lao Fu, who was seriously injured, immediately said to the perpetrator, "I'm fine, you go", but when he got home, he straightened up. There is a very interesting situation: when the first 40 episodes of "I Love My Family" were broadcast on some local TV stations at 1993, the evaluation of public opinion was not high, even quite low. In an activity organized by Chengdu Evening News 1994 to select the worst TV series, I loved my family and was unfortunately selected, although I did well in ratings and audience attention at that time. However, in the later years, people's evaluation of this drama is getting higher and higher, and it will be replayed on various TV stations almost every year. Now it has been recognized as the first classic of China sitcom, and it is also a standard to evaluate other sitcoms. It can be said that as soon as the sitcom appeared in China, a work representing the highest artistic achievement of China's sitcom was born, which is still difficult to be surpassed by the latecomers. 3. Exploration-The success of Chinese restaurant and I love my family has strengthened the confidence of Ying Da and his colleagues to continue to create sitcoms. 1995, "Shi Ying Film and Television Art Company" was established in Ying Da, and the newly established Shi Ying Company also successively launched Waiting Hall (1997,40 episodes), New 72 Tenants (1997,40 episodes) and Psychological Clinic. In this series of sitcoms, Ying Da made a lot of explorations on the theme and style of sitcoms, especially the China Restaurant produced by 1999. This work is the second sitcom with a live audience after I Love My Family. The American blueprint for China restaurants is Cheers, which was all the rage in 1980s. This is the first time the story happened in a foreign country. It tells the story of a group of China people studying in a China restaurant in Los Angeles. In the first episode "Taking Office", a Chinese restaurant named "Sichuan Garden" in Los Angeles, USA, encountered a crisis. This restaurant is on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor management and long-term losses. In order to change the poor management of the restaurant, the board of directors decided to change the manager, and the story came from this. Different from the previous TV series that reflected the life of overseas students, this drama broadened its horizons to all aspects of overseas Chinese life. Taking a China restaurant as the stage, people of all colors appear on this stage. These China people from Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan Province and Hongkong, as well as foreigners born in the United States who love China cuisine, staged a hilarious comedy in this China restaurant. Among them, there are both the change of coaches in restaurants and the misunderstanding of AIDS, both the ridiculousness of rich people and the embarrassment of old couples, both the glory of casinos and the hardships of restaurants. The play brought together the most powerful sitcom team in China at that time, which was written by Liang Zuo and Liang Huan, directed by Ying Da and starring Yang Lixin, Ji Wang, Liu Jinshan, He Bing and Li Qi. Moreover, this is also a sitcom that Ying Da has invested the most and meticulously after I Love My Family, which can be seen from the production methods of the play. No matter the audience, the media or Ying Da himself have high expectations for the play, but after it was broadcast, it did not achieve the expected success, but there were constant criticisms. One of the reasons for Ying Da's failure is that he is too far away from the life of ordinary people in China. Indeed, for the comedy audience in China at that time, this kind of life on the other side of the ocean was too far away from them, and it was difficult to cause a * * * sound. Of course, it also lacked the exoticism and tension of Beijingers in new york, and it was not very interesting. But there is also a very important reason, that is, the film has been abridged too much during the review, and many wonderful places have been cut off, so that some plays can hardly be connected together. China's restaurant experience is a bit particularly dramatic. When the play was first reviewed, the overall feeling of Beijing Radio, Film and Television Bureau was quite good, and it was considered as an excellent comedy since the founding of the People's Republic of China. However, just as 1999 was about to start broadcasting, on May 7, a major incident occurred in which the US-led NATO bombed China's embassy in Yugoslavia. In this case, a large number of contents and languages in Chinese restaurants that positively represent American society, such as those related to social prosperity and civilized development, suddenly become very sensitive, which may cause public dissatisfaction in China. Therefore, Yahuan Company (not Shi Ying Company), which is responsible for arranging the broadcast of 630 Theater, can only make another big abridgement before the broadcast. Almost every episode was deleted for about 5 minutes, and it was not broadcast until June 30th. Of course, the Chinese Restaurant, which meets the audience, has changed beyond recognition. Fourth, the turning point-"Idle Man Ma Dajie" entered the China sitcom market in the new century, no longer unique to the British, and began to show the trend of a hundred schools of thought contend. On June 5438+065438+ 10, 2000, Guangdong TV station launched its own Cantonese sitcom "Local Lang, Foreign Daughter-in-law", which pioneered the creation of sitcoms entirely in dialects. In 2002, The Story of Cooking Squad, jointly produced by Air Force Television Art Center and CCTV Film and Television Department, was broadcast on CCTV 8. As the first military sitcom in China, the play won unanimous praise from the audience and critics after it was broadcast. The stories of cookhouse squad and foreign daughter-in-law add two bright colors to the development of China sitcom. At the same time, another sitcom, which attracted wide attention and received wide acclaim, quietly appeared on the screen. This is the Idle Sister Horse, which was broadcast in 2002. The drama won the National TV Flying Award "Best Series Drama Award", which is the first sitcom work to win the national government award. Sister Ma, an Idle Man, is a program specially produced by Shi Ying Company for its national hit TV series 630 Theater at the request of Yahuan Film and Television Company. The original creators are still director Ying Da and screenwriter Liang Zuo, starring Cai Ming, who is very popular in comedy in recent years. This is a pretty powerful combination. However, Ying Da didn't particularly like the play at first, because parents and mother-in-law were generally absent. Who knows that after it was broadcast on dozens of TV stations across the country, the response was quite enthusiastic. Not only Beijing and the vast northern audience like it, but even the southern audience who have always been uninterested in Ying Da's Beijing-style sitcom has a good response. Shortly after the broadcast, the audience rating of the drama reached about 7%, and it broke through 10% when it was high. Inadvertently, Sister Idle Horse, which was initially neglected, became the most successful work in recent years, with 280 episodes broadcast for three consecutive years. "Idle Man Ma Dajie" selects the daily life of an ordinary laid-off female worker Ma Dajie, her family and neighbors as the material. Sister Ma was only 50 years old and retired home. She lives an ordinary life with her husband, who works as a doorman in the office, and her daughter, who goes to high school (and later works). She lives in a narrow apartment building with a public kitchen, which is a typical family of lower class citizens in Beijing. However, Sister Ma has not been idle. She is warm to her relatives, friends and neighbors. She also makes trouble at home from time to time. In addition, several neighbors who love to make trouble but care about each other, especially Pan Daqing who likes to brag and pretend to be rich without a serious job, have formed a colorful picture of street life. The appearance of Sister Ma, an Idle Man, can actually be regarded as a return of English comedy. The environment in which the story takes place has returned from the station, Chinese restaurant and psychological clinic to the most primitive and suitable family environment of sitcom, and the objects of performance have also returned from fashionable young people and the middle class with psychological problems in the city to the ordinary citizens. However, this kind of regression can not be regarded as a simple movement to return to the original point, but a breakthrough and innovative regression. Previous sitcoms were all set in a specific environment or industry, such as stations, families, restaurants, troops and so on. They mainly tell stories between people in these environments. It can be said that the story is the first and the characters are the second. Of course, such excellent works as I Love My Family are not excluded. While telling good stories, they can also successfully create such typical figures as Lao Fu and Heping. On the other hand, Sister Ma, an idle person, does the opposite. As far as the creator's subjective purpose is concerned, the primary purpose of creating this drama is to create a typical character, Sister Malik, so the whole drama is centered around such a core figure. The most typical character of Sister Ma is embodied in the word "leisure". When Sister Ma was laid off, she was "idle" and her heart was even more "not idle". Sister Ma, who has been idle, began to work enthusiastically in the neighborhood. Her enthusiasm brings a lot of embarrassment to herself, her family and her neighbors from time to time. The result of things often runs counter to the original intention of kindness, resulting in a comedy effect. In addition, it is precisely because Sister Ma is "idle" and has no fixed professional status that she can keep looking for a job, be a nanny, be a special care worker, be an extra actor, learn debate, learn calligraphy and so on. And constantly change her identity. It can be said that Sister Ma is nothing, so she can be everything. This can cover all the interesting stories that happen to many people. 5. Breakthrough-After the publication of Legend of Wulin by Sister Ma, an idle person, the sitcom market in China was silent for some time. Except for some dialect sitcoms, such as "The Native Lang of the Foreign Daughter-in-law" and "The Family Rushing Forward" in Hunan, there is no sitcom that can have a wide influence in the whole country. By the end of 2005, this situation was finally broken by CCTV-8' s costume sitcom Legend of Wulin. According to Caishen Ning, the screenwriter of the play, Legend of Wulin looks at the world from the perspective of Guo Furong, a girl who just entered the Jianghu. Born in a famous family, I am eager to join the Wulin and become a generation of female Xia. But she was kind-hearted and helpful, and finally she was awakened by the owner of Tongfu Inn and worked as a handyman in the inn. The proprietress Tong Xiangyu is kind and affectionate, but extremely stingy. Her husband just passed away, so she shouldered the heavy responsibility of raising her sister-in-law Mo Xiaobei. Her relationship with Beckham is more like mother and daughter than menstruation. In addition, Bai Zhantang, a waiter who has an affair with the proprietress, Lv Xiucai, a bookkeeper who has read a lot of books but is pedantic, and Jiang Dazui, a chef, all interpret various stories in Tongfu Inn where people come and go every day, which makes them friends in China. The Legend of Wulin is a complete China sitcom in both form and content. Formally speaking, American sitcoms, such as Friends and Sinfield, all take more than 20 minutes to run 3-4 plots at the same time. Stories are often very simple, and sometimes they are not even stories, but a meaningful little sentiment and fragment in life. In the past, China's sitcoms used one or two episodes to tell a complete story. Wulin legend seeks a breakthrough in form. It is different from the classic foreign sitcoms and the previous sitcoms in China. Instead, it draws lessons from the style of China's classical novels, telling two main stories in one round and two related short stories in one episode for 40 minutes. Of course, this story may be complete, or it may just be a small fragment in life. Even the title of each episode borrows the style of Zhang Hui's novels, such as "Joining the Beggars' Sect, Lao Xing loses his official position, is promoted to be the head catcher, and plays an official position". Previous sitcoms always brought laughter to the audience, whether it was recorded live or recorded. Ying Da even thinks that whether a TV play is a sitcom or not is the most important criterion. There are 20 audiences at the recording site of Legend of the Wulin, and the lines, plots and actors' performances can be adjusted at any time according to the audience's reaction. However, unlike the usual sitcom, this drama did not bring laughter to the audience from beginning to end, but was replaced by vivid music with elements of national instrumental music. This is a bold move for China sitcom, which has been learning from foreign sitcoms. The Legend of Wulin selected China's unique martial arts as the theme, which is unique in the development of China's sitcom. Although it is a sitcom with the theme of martial arts, it actually only looks at the society through the shell of martial arts. Although there are many Wulin experts in Tongfu Inn, such as the legendary "stealing saints", the head of Hengshan Sect and heroes in related fields, they are actually just ordinary people like you and me. In the final analysis, Tongfu Inn is a microcosm of the current China society. Many stories in Tongfu Inn are actually projections of the realistic problems in contemporary China. There are not only the education problems of minors, the pressure of exams, but also the problem of domestic violence, and even vicious business competition is reflected in it. Nonsense lines are an important feature that distinguishes this sitcom from foreign sitcoms and domestic previous sitcoms. In the past, sitcoms used to draw nutrition from the traditional art of cross talk, but this drama did the opposite and boldly followed the development pulse of contemporary China pop culture. In fact, this is also the most important reason why many young audiences who grew up watching Stephen Chow movies are strongly sought after. For example, Lv Xiucai's classic lines "Zi Zengyue", Tong Xiangyu's "My God" with Shaanxi accent, "I'll put on my makeup first" and Guo Furong's "Must Be Must" all have a strong affinity for young audiences who are familiar with popular expressions in China. In addition, a strong sense of collage is also an important factor for the success of this postmodern style sitcom. In this play, tradition and modernity, East and West, humor and warmth, deconstruction of postmodern style and teaching of realism, irony of martial arts and promotion of chivalrous spirit are all wonderfully mixed together, including online language, pop songs, advertising jokes, variety shows, current affairs news, fashion information and so on. It is also mixed, and all these elements are integrated into one, and this "China sitcom" is collaged. It has been more than ten years since the introduction of sitcoms in China. In the past ten years, China's sitcom has experienced the glory when it was born, the dullness in the exploration period and the re-emergence in recent years. With the increase of broadcast platforms, some excellent creative talents have gradually joined the creative team of sitcoms, and sitcoms are no longer unique among the British, and the overall level of their works is also rising.