中國電視產業普遍缺乏創造性
Chinese television series producers need to up the ante to ward off competition from South Korean soap operas.
Soap operas from South Korea have been popular in China for two decades now. So, it is not the first time domestic fare has paled in comparison. But this time, the one-two punch from The Heirs and My Love From the Star really hurts, ahem, our self-respect-to the point that it turned into a topic for chatter at the annual two sessions where policy-makers and top advisers usually discuss less fluffy issues.
A senior official freely admitted to being an occasional participant in the vast club of Korean soap watchers. It has also been reported that he follows House of Cards, an American political thriller that would understandably fascinate him. His remark opened the floodgate of kvetching about why we are falling behind in the creative industry.
Most seem to agree that, given some content restrictions, China's television industry is not capable of producing something like House of Cards, which is very dark and fraught with conspiracy. But there is a concern about our inability to make something as innocuous and entertaining as My Love From the Star, a Korean love story about a time-traveling professor and a tantrum-throwing movie star.
Korean influence goes deeper than shows that speak Korean. The biggest runaway hit in reality programming, Dad, Where Are We Going?, is not an original Chinese show. Its format was licensed from South Korea although not many in China are aware of that fact. The tentacles of Korean creativity go into every corner.
"I'm all for the easing of restrictions, but showbiz in China lacks the professional basis for making television series of this kind of quality," wrote Gao Qunshu, an outspoken filmmaker, in his microblog. He didn't go into details.
Personally, I don't see much difference in production values between, say, My Love From the Star and some of the top shows from China. Despite the genre of romance, the former does not feature steamy sex scenes, which might have made the show difficult to get past censors. It took 10 episodes for the lead couple to have an on-screen kiss.
The narrative element of time travel could be problematic because science fiction, like fantasy, is often viewed with suspicion in China. It is argued that viewers in less educated circles might not be discerning enough to infer the things portrayed on screen are not possible in real life and therefore should not be imitated at home. This could have been true half a century ago, but it seems condescending now that the whole nation enjoys a nine-year mandatory education and few adults, if any, would blur the line between fantasy and reality on screen.
Judging from Chinese shows in recent years, time travel is not strictly forbidden, but allowed when it is used as a background and handled with kid gloves. A spate of palace dramas is built on the premise that the female protagonist is transported from contemporary times back to antiquity, playing the game of a damsel in distress and a real prince coming to her rescue.
US and British television shows enjoy a somewhat exalted status in China, but their audience size is more limited due to their relatively unfamiliar culture and fast pace. Although there has been a sporadic effort to duplicate some of these shows, with a Prison Break wannabe a fiasco and The Love Apartment, modeled on Friends, a moderate hit, the scope in subject matter lies far beyond what Chinese showmen can reasonably yearn for.
This was borne out by the attempted airing in 2005 of a few episodes of Desperate Housewives on a Chinese channel, which garnered miserable ratings. When streamed, though, these shows get a far more urban and knowledgeable crowd. And they also enjoy much more latitude as they are self-censored by the websites rather than by a regulating body. When Charles Zhang, CEO of , the website that licenses many Western shows, said matter-of-factly that House of Cards, especially season 2 with its heavy Chinese content, had not run into censorship problems, the Western press was amazed.
Among industry insiders there is an implicit understanding that Western shows are to be watched, but not imitated. Even the wider public is not ready for a Chinese production of Breaking Bad or Black Mirror, with their morally ambiguous characters and complex plotting.
But we have a closer cultural affinity with South Korea. Shows from this neighbor seem to be only marginally better, with their plodding tempo and endless variations on the Cinderella theme. Yet they have created storms that swept across all social strata in spite of their female-oriented aesthetics.
One secret that has been deciphered is the blending of traditions and fashions. Korean soaps are very conservative in values and tend to promote the country's culture unabashedly. At the same time they often exude a sense of hip that connects with the young demographic. It is a hard act to pull off because the two strands usually go in opposite directions.
In addition, they have found a way to reconcile what is traditionally considered male and female qualities. Many of these shows have reversed gender roles by making the man an object of desire and the woman the pursuer. The objectification of the modern Adonis is not only making waves in the world of fashion, but the ripple effects are seeping into gender politics. For one thing, it has become a subconscious benchmark for many young urban Chinese women in their choice of dates or spouses.
This is not women asserting their sexuality as much as their right to dream. Some have interpreted it as an oblique comment that Chinese women have made on Chinese men. The male response? This is "pornography" for women who fantasize.
By default, Chinese couch potatoes should and would prefer locally produced content, as testified by a recent poll that puts the rate of preference at 53 percent. But a limited free market-with productions open to all but television channels monopolized by State entities-has created the strange outcome of quantity trumping quality, with some 15,000 episodes churned out each year but precious few winning the hearts of the viewing public.
Of course there are multiple reasons why Chinese soap operas have become the favorite punching bag. Other than overzealous censors and the bar of viewers' reception set by the lowest common denominator, the industry itself has never set right its mechanism for operation. The role of the creator, the most important job for American scripted programming and often assumed by the head writer, is vacant in China.
Writers are often considered dispensable for those who invest in Chinese soap operas, and unsurprisingly, denied parts of the compensation stipulated in the contract. Because Chinese television sprang from the film industry, few have realized that, unlike director-dominated films, TV is the art of the writer, which is accepted in almost all countries with highly developed television industries.
When the most crucial position in a creative industry is relegated to a hack, you can imagine what kind of product will ensue. There is no pride, only money, in the business. And people have little incentive to sharpen their skills when the money is numbingly intoxicating. So everyone involved treats it as a fly-by-night operation.中國電視劇製作人需加大籌碼以抵禦韓國肥皂劇的侵襲。
至今，韓劇已在中國風行了20年。因此，這已經不是第一次國產劇與之相比大爲遜色了。但是這次，遭受《繼承者》和《來自星星的你》接二連三的打擊確實傷害了我們的自尊心。這種打擊嚴重到成爲一年一度的兩會議題。而兩會通常是人大代表和政協委員們商討大事的地方。
一位高級官員坦率地承認自己偶爾也加入韓劇迷大軍中。據報道，他同樣也在追《紙牌屋》。他被這部美國政治驚悚劇所吸引也是可以理解的。他的言論也打開了人們抱怨的閘門：爲什麼我們在文化創意產業方面如此落後。
大多數人似乎認爲，鑑於一些內容的限制，中國的電視產業不能夠製作出像《紙牌屋》一樣，充滿黑暗與陰謀色彩的電視劇。但是，人們同時對中國電視產業的無能表示擔憂：中國爲什麼不能製作出一些像《來自星星的你》一樣既無傷大雅又娛樂大衆的作品。這部電視劇講述的是一個穿越時空的教授與一個脾氣火爆的電影明星間的韓式愛情故事。
韓國對中國的影響遠遠不只韓語電視節目。熱播的真人秀節目《爸爸去哪兒》不是中國原創。它的版權是從韓國引進的，儘管很多中國人並不知道這一事實。韓國的創意觸角伸向了中國的每一個角落。
“我很支持放寬限制，但是中國娛樂界缺乏製作這種高質量電視系列節目的專業基礎。”高羣書，一個直言不諱的影視劇導演，在他的微博中寫道，但他並未細說。
在我看來，《來自星星的你》和中國某些熱播節目製作價值差別不大。儘管是浪漫愛情題材，但前者並沒有出現難以通過審查的性愛場面。男女主角的屏幕初吻也是在第十集的時候纔出現。
穿越時空的敘事元素可能成問題，因爲在中國，像奇幻片這樣的科幻作品常常遭到人們的質疑。有人認爲，受教育程度低的觀衆可能不具備足夠的辨識能力去判斷屏幕上塑造的東西在現實生活中是不可能實現的，因此不能在家中模仿。這在半個世紀前可能是對的，但現在這麼說的話似乎過於貶低自己。現在全國都實行九年義務教育，即便有的話，也是極少數成年人才會分不清屏幕中的現實與虛幻。
從近幾年中國的電視節目來看，穿越題材並未被嚴格禁止。把它當做背景並謹慎處理時是被允許的。一系列的宮廷劇就是以女主人公從現代穿越到古代爲基調，講述一個落魄少女與一個英雄救美的真命天子之間的故事。
美國和英國的電視節目在中國享有相對尊貴的地位，但由於其相對陌生的文化和快節奏，他們的觀衆數量不多。儘管有些人嘗試模仿其中一些節目，如收視率慘淡的《越獄》山寨版和相對熱門的《愛情公寓》（《老友記》山寨版），但是這些節目的尺度遠遠超過中國演員能夠合理追求的範圍。
2005年，中國電視上試播了幾集美劇《絕望主婦》，但收視率極低，這恰好證實了這一點。然而，這些節目卻得到了許多都市知識分子的追捧。而且這些節目的尺度要大的多，因爲他們只需通過網站的審查，而不受監管部門的控制。搜狐網就引進了很多西方節目。其首席執行官張朝陽坦誠地說，《紙牌屋》，特別是其第二季涉及沉重的中國話題，但並沒有遇到審查問題。對此，西方媒體也感到很吃驚。
業內人士間默認：西方的節目是用來欣賞的，而不是用來模仿的。實際上，廣大觀衆也沒有準備好接受中國版的《絕命毒師》或者《黑鏡》類的作品。這些美劇角色道德模棱兩可，情節錯綜複雜。
但是我們與韓國的文化較爲相通。從這個鄰國產出的節目的情況似乎會略微好些。他們的節目節奏緩慢，主題總是圍繞灰姑娘式的愛情故事。雖然這些作品更符合女性審美，但是它們卻贏得社會各個階層的狂熱追捧。
他們能如此成功，其中的一個奧祕就是傳統與時尚的融合。韓劇在價值觀方面很保守並且不加掩飾的推崇本國文化。但同時，他們通常富有時尚感，迎合年輕人的口味。而這恰恰是很難做到的，因爲兩者通常是背道而馳的。
此外，他們已經找到了一種協調傳統意義上男女特質的方法。很多作品都通過女追男的方式改變固有的性別角色。對現代美男子的形象塑造不僅引領時尚潮流，而且其連鎖反應正滲入性別政治。可以肯定的是，這已經成爲很多中國城市年輕女性選擇約會對象或者配偶的潛標準。
這不是說女性像主張她們幻想的權力一樣主張她們的性徵。有些人認爲這是爲中國女性對中國男性的不公正評論。男人們的反應又是什麼呢？他們認爲，這是女人們幻想的“色情”。
一般情況下，中國的電視迷應該更喜歡國產電視節目。最近一項調查也證實：53%的人更喜歡國產劇。然而，中國市場還不完全自由。雖然作品面向大衆，但是各電視臺均被國有單位壟斷。這導致了只重數量不重質量的奇怪結果。儘管每年製作出約1.5萬集電視劇，但卻極少作品能夠虜獲觀衆的心。
當然，對於爲什麼中國肥皂劇會成爲公衆的出氣筒這個問題，其中包含多種原因。除了過度審查和觀衆本身素質外，產業本身也從未真正定位準確其運行機制。創作者，這一角色在美國的編劇工作中佔有舉足輕重的地位，而且通常由首席作家擔當。然而，這一角色在中國卻是空缺的。
對於那些投資中國肥皂劇的人來說，編劇常常被認爲是可有可無的。所以他們得到的報酬比合同原定的少也不是什麼奇怪的事。因爲中國的電視產業是從電影產業發展起來的，幾乎沒人意識到：電影以導演爲導向，然而電視不同，它是創作藝術。而這種觀念已被幾乎所有擁有發達電視產業的國家所認可。
當把創意產業最重要的位置交給一個粗製濫造的職業寫手時，你可以想象這會產生什麼樣的作品。在這唯利是圖的交易中，沒有自尊。而且當人們沉醉於金錢的時候，很少人會有動力去提高他們的技能。因此，從事這項工作的人都把它當作一錘子買賣。
