People's daily life is closely related to the media, and TV programs are an indispensable way of consumption and entertainment for modern people. Idol dramas were only popular in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan Province Province at first, but later they opened their markets in China and Southeast Asia, and achieved great success and objective economic benefits. The audience who love watching idol dramas are more women than men, mainly teenagers. For adolescent boys and girls, infatuation with idol dramas reflects their yearning for a better life. However, it is not necessarily that idol drama is the patent of teenagers, because even women in their thirties are eager for idol drama and intoxicated with its romantic situation. Idol drama not only satisfies people's expectation of dreams, but also guides the audience to be incomplete from reality in the plot.
The early idol drama, Japanese drama, has been in Taiwan Province Province for many years, but in recent years, we often see one idol drama after another on TV. Why is this trend?
This probably starts with the iconic Meteor Garden adapted from Japanese comics. Meteor Garden has a high popularity in the comic book market. In addition, a group of new generation actors trained by the idol of the youth school drama "Spicy Fresh Teacher" put themselves into the performance of "Meteor Garden" and the media hype. Once broadcast, it will certainly cause a sensation, and the audience will become a hot topic after success. It is impossible for major TV stations not to follow up, so idol drama is not acceptable.
Idol drama is advertised as starring idols, hence the name "Idol Drama". But idol dramas are not only idols, but also handsome in appearance. If not, how can they be popular among teenagers? The most fundamental reason why idol drama attracts people is that it gives people a "strange aesthetic feeling": young and beautiful actors, light and romantic mood, eternal love, fashionable clothes and scenery, which makes people re-understand city life with a brand-new mood. Idol drama shows what young people care about and the life of modern people. They don't just live for love and work hard in big enterprises and consortia, but really think about the problems they encounter in life and the things that everyone cares about.
Since Meteor Garden became an instant hit, idol drama has replaced the "teacher's milk drama" in the flower series. Idol drama also provides the audience with another choice different from local drama and costume drama, and also gives the drama more room for development, instead of remaking the old script every few years, it can give the screenwriter more room for development and give new actors the opportunity to perform.
Second, the significance and origin of idol drama
Meaning:
What is an idol drama? It's just a TV drama theme, with the friendship and love of young people as the main line, which combines youth and fashion. Most of them attract the public with youthful breath and meticulous portrayal of young people's psychology and growth. They are well-made, with vivid characters, accurate emotional transmission, compact plots, beautiful pictures and beautiful music, and even some of them are cartoon-like.
Origin:
Since Chinese mainland introduced the original historical costume drama, Hong Kong deductive costume drama and post-modern martial arts drama have appeared one after another. In addition, Korean dramas, which are not divorced from the traditional family ethics and love line in essence, have completely replaced the previous eight-point fashion dramas and flower series dramas with exquisite creative performance and modern Korean flavor. This Japanese idol drama, which focuses on the love between urban young men and women, completely fills the gap in the domestic market for young audiences in the past. Until today, the outstanding representative operas in Taiwan Province Province are local operas.
However, after the unexpected success of Meteor Garden two years ago, a drama called Idol became a trend. In an instant, a drama that can compete with local dramas has taken shape, but this trend was quickly destroyed under the short-term strategy of "following Japanese idol dramas" advertised by the production and broadcasting system.
Japanese idol drama was originally a "trend drama" launched by wireless TV stations in prime time. Each drama is broadcast once a week, usually twelve episodes, which are broadcast in three months. It is called "trend drama" because most of the problems discussed in the plot are faced by modern people, and the people, things, places and things in the drama often reflect the current popular trends. After the introduction of this kind of program in Taiwan Province Province, it was renamed as "Idol Drama" for the convenience of marketing, and it was called as the idol of "handsome men and beautiful women".
Generally speaking, the popularity of Japanese pop culture in Taiwan Province Province is attributed to cultural proximity. However, if we study the media ecology and social and cultural background of Taiwan Province Province when idol drama was introduced, we will find that cultural similarity is not the only reason why it is popular in Taiwan Province Province. In fact, the historical origin, economy and urbanization of Taiwan Province Province and Japan have a decisive influence on the popularity of idol dramas.
Interestingly, there is no such name as "idol drama" in Japan. The current popular "idol drama" in Taiwan Province Province is the so-called "trend drama" in Japan. Its main purpose is to reflect Japan's social problems immediately and provide Japanese audiences with opportunities for further reflection. These trendy dramas, which discuss social issues, have been packaged by cable TV stations and record companies in Taiwan Province Province, and become the forefront reference indicators of protagonist worship and popular information.
Third, the popularity of idol dramas
Why are idol dramas so popular? First of all, idol dramas are mainly aimed at young audiences. Teenagers are at the age of physical and mental development, full of energy and wide interests. Despite the competition from video games and computers, television is still the most important form of entertainment. In turn, teenagers are the main viewers of TV. Idol plays are beautifully shot and relaxed in style. Compared with the traditional TV works that are not too aesthetic, too ideological and slightly serious in style, idol drama can attract the attention of teenagers more.
Idol drama is about modern life, with young people's love and work as the theme, very close to young people's lives, making them feel very cordial and easy to arouse interest. The problems encountered by the people in the play are exactly the problems that teenagers are facing or will encounter, and they will certainly be willing to learn from them. Idol dramas first spread abroad, reflecting the mental outlook of young people in modern cities. Through them, young people can understand the life, behavior and personality of their peers in modern mainstream cities. At the same time, it has certain guiding significance for China youth in a rapidly internationalized and modernized society. For example, their elders are educational products before the transformation of the times, and their ideas and knowledge systems have been difficult to keep pace with the times. It is naturally more difficult to give young people any advice on various problems in today's society. In this case, young people in need will naturally turn to other channels for help, and idol dramas reflecting the lives of modern young people will inevitably be welcomed. Teenagers have little life experience and superficial thoughts and feelings. They are easily attracted by glamorous appearance and like people with outstanding image and personality. This is also the reason why the hero and heroine of idol drama are easily worshipped and imitated by young people. Of course, it also reflects the variation of modern aesthetics, values and traditions. It can be said that the success of idol drama is the result of the joint action of specific audience and specific times factors.
☆ For the popular TV series in recent years, a successful equation is as follows:
Love+background of the times+theme meaning+star+action = success.
According to the characteristics of love idol drama, this drama is designed by combining the above equations:
Love:
This drama takes love as a clue and reflects the love values and mentality of modern young people and modern middle-aged people through the love stories that couples care about, which is very attractive.
(2) background of the times:
The theme of Modern City is the story of young people around you.
(3) idols:
Famous actors from mainland China, Hongkong, Taiwan Province, the United States and Canada will be invited to perform with a strong cast.
(4) Thematic significance:
Every film explores a concept of love and wins the attention of the audience.
(5) Action:
The play is interspersed with many descriptions of young people's lives, and there will be many dynamic scenes. To put it simply, there are not only literary dramas, but also legionary teleplay, which makes the plot more tense and lively.
4 ● The influence of idol drama on society
How much influence does idol drama have on the hearts of the audience? Many teenagers are scrambling to imitate the plot in the play, and even think that there is no difference between real life and the play, and even their values have changed greatly. Girls are determined to marry into a rich family, while boys pursue romantic tricks that girls try to be funny. They think that girls are snobbish and only pay attention to appearance. These prejudices encourage the unhealthy trend of plastic surgery and make young people forget that inner beauty is far more important than outer beauty. After watching the idol drama, some young people become idolaters. These problems are a headache for parents, thinking that children will be infatuated with idols if they are not doing their jobs, deepening the generation gap between the two generations and belittling idol dramas.
Idol dramas have not only affected the ecology of entertainment circles in Taiwan Province, but also affected the shooting trend of youth idol dramas in Chinese mainland, and a large number of new people have joined the ranks, resulting in the dilemma that senior actors have no drama to play. In fact, in Japan, the actors in idol dramas often take senior actors as the leading role. Even so, they can still create good ratings. Although new faces can bring freshness, they should also have a certain level of acting skills. However, Taiwan Province idol drama is different from Japanese drama, and it can summon a fixed audience with a certain youth idol. Idol dramas in Taiwan Province Province need time, but the audience won't give much time. Whether it's Japanese or Korean dramas, if the idol dramas in Taiwan Province Province can't attract these overlapping audiences, Japanese and Korean dramas will still be far ahead. Of course, the ratings may not be too bad, but once the heat is over, you can't live. The idol drama in Taiwan Province Province is still in the early stage of development and needs to be mature. If we don't work hard on the theme content and characterization in time and overcome the weakness of blindly talking about love, it is inevitable that we will soon be left out by the audience in today's increasingly fierce competition.
Five ● The bubble crisis of idol drama
Since Meteor Garden became popular all over Taiwan, idol dramas have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. In just a few years, idol dramas have been started one after another, such as Kiss of the Toast, Lavender, Poor Gentleman, White Paper on Love, MVP Lover, Lover of Dolphin Bay and Love of Roses. If the trend of overproduction of idol dramas in Taiwan Province Province is not improved, it is difficult to guarantee that idol dramas will not become a flash in the pan and disappear into the TV ecology!
Crisis 1: The definition of idol drama is vague and narrow.
What is an idol drama? Inviting an idol to perform is called idol drama, and inviting a new person to perform is called idol drama. There is a common phenomenon in idol dramas in Taiwan Province Province, that is, it seems to be called idol dramas if new people and young people are invited to play them. But the definition of such an idol drama is too vague and narrow. Daqing Yang, the director of the White Paper on Love, once said, "There is no need to show idol dramas. Nowadays, the public in Taiwan Province Province always think that idol drama is an idol drama composed of a bunch of handsome men and beautiful women. In fact, it is also true that idol drama is very important to the personal charm of actors. It's natural to interpret him as superficial, but is this the only way? For many people, it is absolutely natural to look at the works of their idols. Such factors have led the production unit to naturally consider this point when casting. Unfortunately, apart from the actors themselves, has the basic quality of the play itself been taken into account? Perhaps many times these factors are put in a very backward position.
Crisis 2: Actors' acting skills are generally awkward.
Because idol dramas are all about finding new faces or young people to perform, some popular young idol singers, or unknown new faces, or singers with good faces, or new faces in TV dramas, or handsome young DJs are all arrested to perform idol dramas across the line, such as F 4, WEWE, S.H.E, Big S, Fan Zhiwei, Ambrose, Chen Yirong, Angela Zhang and so on.
Among the many new faces, although some of them are veterans with film experience, and their acting skills are handy, most of them are newcomers with little or no drama experience. Therefore, their acting skills are always a little insufficient, and their acting skills are crude and unnatural, and they can laugh, but their emotional drama is miserable, and the emotional depth they show is always insufficient, which makes people unable to move from the bottom of their hearts. However, it is worth discussing that some new actors' acting skills have made rapid progress and can get into the state more and more, so they can always get better and better, making up for the original shortcomings.
On the whole, one of the fatal injuries of idol drama is emotional drama. The emotional drama wants to be incisive, but it has to show the feeling of loving each other to the bone when you clearly don't love each other. An actor with poor acting skills can never show that unforgettable feeling.
Actors with good acting skills can always lead the audience into the plot, and the plot fluctuates with the emotions and experiences of the characters, while poor acting skills will only make people feel pretentious, so it is not only attractive in appearance, but also has considerable connotation.
Crisis 3: Idol dramas are flooding.
Since Meteor Garden, idol dramas have been released one after another, but in just one year, twenty or thirty idol dramas can be released. You can imagine how TV companies or communication companies rush to shoot idol dramas, and its content and quality can be imagined. In twenty or thirty idol dramas, you can count them with your fingers, except Meteor Garden. For example, the shooting of Meteor Garden is still very textured, such as plot, casting and soundtrack. They all taste like Japanese dramas. Although it is a bit out of place for Taiwan Province people to play Japanese, we can't deny the original intention of this play, but what about the next play? Kiss of the Toast is commendable for its unique style of idol dramas in Taiwan Province Province, but other idol dramas fail to see the truth clearly. The drama needs not only handsome men and beautiful women, but also the acting skills of these handsome men and beautiful women and the efforts of behind-the-scenes production units. Otherwise, don't just blame the malicious accusations and criticisms on the Internet, sometimes what they say is true.
Remember the long red record set by Wei John's "Flower Series"? "Flower Series" had been produced and broadcast for fourteen years before it officially came to an end. Why can "flower series" be popular for more than ten years? Except for the superb acting skills of the actors, every play is allowed to be released after a long period of preparation. After all, from producers, directors, scripts to actors, there are too many details to be prepared and discussed in detail. It is very important for a play to succeed.
If an idol drama is made just to meet the current trend, it will not be popular with the public. If the local idol drama can't proceed from the basic essence of the drama and only focus on attracting the audience with superficial things, the audience will soon recognize the facts and choose to turn their remote control to other programs.
Crisis 4: the subject matter is narrow and meaningless
Anyone who has seen Japanese dramas knows that Japanese idol dramas have rich themes, such as love between brothers and sisters, love between teachers and students, and so on. There are also professional dramas such as lawyers, judges, hairdressers, flight attendants, teachers and chefs; There are also some romantic films. Japanese idols are dreamy, realistic and have a sense of social strangeness. Japanese dramas are good at digging out ordinary but intriguing plot trends from daily life. The actor's lines in the play always arouse the audience's "Me too". However, this is the realm that the idol drama in Taiwan Province Province has not reached.
Doze Niu, director of Kiss of the Toast and Come to My Home, once said that the plot tension of some idol dramas in Taiwan Province is not enough. Japanese high-quality dramas are not only excellent in plot, fantastic in plot and true in emotion, which are the main reasons for the popularity of Japanese dramas. Cai Yuexun, director of Meteor Garden, also said that beautiful scenes and actors are only two elements of idol drama. If you want to be noticed, you still have to have solid content and theme.
Some people say that the idol drama in Taiwan Province Province gives people a feeling of uncertainty, which is always "inexplicable and too dreamy". The plot is not solid enough and there is no clear theme. After watching the whole play, I still don't know what I'm talking about, just because the scene is beautiful and the protagonist is beautiful. These comments point out that the fatal injury of idol drama in Taiwan Province Province is that the plot is too extravagant and the theme is not clear enough. In fact, idol drama does not have to be based on love, nor does it have to be dreamlike. The theme is clear, the plot is tense enough, the content is solid, and even the short stories in daily life can cause emotion!
Six possible trends of idol drama in the future
Under this wave of idol drama craze, the ecology of Ju Lian has been reconstructed and brought many positive effects. I only hope that this upsurge will gradually promote the quality of more local dramas, and then adapt local comics from the current Japanese comics into self-made idol dramas, thus driving more comic creation and talent training in Taiwan Province Province. It didn't just disappear with a whish, but it passed like an egg tower!
VII ● Conclusion
Idol drama has been popular in Taiwan Province Province for some time. I think when it first appeared in front of Chinese people, its fashionable handsome men and beautiful women, noble cars, luxurious houses and winding and lingering love really made TV viewers, especially young viewers, feel refreshed and fascinated. However, with the increasing number of idol dramas on the screen, especially the introduction of original idol dramas from Japan and South Korea, the attitude of today's TV viewers towards idol dramas has long been from curiosity, novelty and a quick glance. At this time, the problems hidden under the gorgeous appearance of idol drama are gradually revealed. For example, in dealing with people, most of the handsome men and beautiful women in idol dramas have a hidden "arrogance" and "prejudice" that cannot be ignored.
Some people may think that as young men and women who are not deeply involved in the world, they should have little influence on "arrogance" and "prejudice", so they should not care too much and will be forgiven. But in fact, the real question is not whether the idol drama expresses these "arrogance" and "prejudice", but how it expresses these "arrogance" and "prejudice", and what attitude the directors take in the process of expression, whether it is deliberate appreciation or well-intentioned criticism. Regrettably, most directors of youth idol dramas have a hidden "arrogance" and "prejudice".
Now the protagonist of idol drama is getting more and more arrogant. Either introduce something new today or realize something new tomorrow. Moreover, the new move is bound to shock the world and attract many opponents, while the protagonist remains unchanged and stubborn; The new achievements will inevitably attract the attention of the whole world, which can give the original opponents a loud slap to prove their shortsightedness, thus disproving the hero's vision. ...
If most of the early youth idol dramas focused on unforgettable love, now youth idol dramas pay more and more attention to things other than love, and many of this attention is carried out with colored glasses. In other words, under the tenderness of youth idol drama, naked "prejudice" has drifted from the stage to the dining table. Some people compare idol drama to modern urban fairy tales, which should be less secular and more artistic. Imagine: If the relationship between "Prince Charming" and "Snow White" encounters academic problems for a while and career problems for a while, it will be disappointing. Of course, these naked "prejudices" are artificially set. In the eyes of the director of idol drama, it may be to create contradictions, create conflicts and make the plot look better. But what will the actual effect be? Perhaps, from the public's perspective, by repeatedly strengthening the rendering of contradictions and conflicts outside these loves, the plot is there, but the beauty of idol dramas may be gone.
In a word, if the protagonist of today's idol drama does not have that kind of arrogance and stubbornness, it may be called no character. But in real life, we have to make a big question mark about whether this naked "arrogance" is tenable.