How the workplace disappeared from workplace dramas
——Talking about a recent batch of workplace dramas such as “Ladies’ Law”, “Dress Up” and “Win and Lose”
When we click on a TV series with the “workplace” label, what do we expect? Maybe we want to gain some practical workplace survival rules, interpersonal strategies and promotion tips from a “rookie to master” workplace story; maybe we want to borrow This is to understand those unfamiliar workplaces that are far away from your own professional vision, and use an immersive drama-watching mode to compensate and enrich your dull life; or maybe you just want to pass the time and have fun and relax your body and mind, after all , Workplace stories naturally contain fierce conflicts and confrontations, continuous wins and eliminations, and a tense atmosphere condensed in the air that makes onlookers feel more exciting and satisfying.
With such expectations, the recent popular dramas “Ladies’ Law”, “Dress Up”, “Perfect Companion” and “Win or Lost” were opened, and the expectations were basically failed. “Perfect Companion” has almost no “legal” tone. The marriage and love life of middle-aged people is its theme. The professional identities of the protagonists’ securities lawyers and securities dealers are probably just to make them “rich, leisurely, and elite”. A functional setting for which the setting can be established. When I just watched the first few episodes of “Ladies’ Law”, I was a little excited and thought that I had finally encountered a good conscience drama, because I finally saw the court trial scene in a local legal drama. However, the subsequent development of the plot quickly proved that I was thinking too much this time. The highlight of the two female lawyers is that they change into beautiful clothes in one scene. The most outrageous thing is that the male lawyer actually acted undercover beside the client. Before the trial, a lawyer actually made a moral trial and a presumption of guilt on his client… And the ups and downs of the fashion circle presented by “Dress Up” can’t be justified in terms of plot settings and character settings. After “The Devil Wears Prada” in 2006, it seems that our film and television imagination about fashion and fashion circles can no longer get rid of the basic plot and character settings it gives, and it is inseparable from “The Devil” and “The editor-in-chief” . The public relations industry drama “Win and Lose” is even more so that the plot and characters are suspended to a certain level. Various workplace experiences and common sense of life under the theme of salespersons and business warfare are flawed. For example, a company’s ace sales actually passed the competition company The ace sales were forcibly locked in the storage room to win the deal, so that some netizens left a message, “Please ask the screenwriter of this drama to find a class.”
So, what exactly is workplace drama?
Workplace drama is a typical typed narrative in contemporary popular literature and art, and typed narrative has obvious characteristics of crowd differentiation. As one of the categories, “workplace” has not been very mainstream and very popular in our literary scene. , unlike many ancient stories that can be easily traced back to the beginning of Chinese narrative literature, such as romance, martial arts, and case facts.
For today’s mainstream audiences of film and television dramas, many people’s basic concepts and imaginations of workplace dramas are described by “Court No. 1”, “Confirmation Record”, “Benevolence of Hands”, “Negotiator”, “Ambition of Fire” and “Legal Blonde” “The Good Wife”, “Doctor House” and “Mad Men” were inspired by series. The kind of industry display that goes deep into a certain occupation and a certain field of work, and the shaping of characters with a professional sense and professionalism, as well as the drama and story that runs through the parent’s shortcoming, love and hatred, forming a “professional style” and universal. The unique charm and visibility of the natural fusion of human and human love stories.
The emergence and popularity of mainland workplace narratives stems from the comprehensive establishment of the market economy since the 1990s and the rise of urban white-collar consumer culture in China’s social transformation. From the movie “Miss Orpheus” in the 1990s to the beginning of the new century. “Du Lala’s Promotion” and “Ups and Downs”, etc., the workplace dramas at this stage are mostly about the workplace survival, office politics and business war stories of large modern enterprises such as foreign companies and state-owned enterprises, and the characters are mostly white-collar workers from foreign companies. The professional roles in typical modern enterprises, such as sales, human resource management, etc., have a direct and clear echo and follow-up with the “success theory” widely popular in the whole society in the theme and values-reflecting the specific During the period, people’s general understanding and basic imagination of “workplace”.
Since the hit of “The Legend of Zhen Huan” in 2011 opened the era of the “big heroine” TV series, “Women Are Not Strong”, “The Age of Entrepreneurship” and “The Translator” have also opened the “cool” era of workplace dramas. The work is frequently complained, mainly focusing on the heroine’s professional growth performance and professional personality shaping. Compared with Du Lala’s stubborn and subjective professional struggle, what we see in “The Translator” is the old-fashioned story of the super “Mary Sue” and “the overbearing president fell in love with me” that has been told repeatedly. The workplace dramas broadcast in recent years such as “Elite Lawyer”, “Entrepreneurial Times” and “Perfect Companion” have obviously fallen into the stereotype of “idol drama” and “romance”.
Now look back at “Du Lala’s Promotion”, a series of workplace novels that began to be published in 2007. As almost the most popular and best-selling novel readings of that year, it was all the rage and appeared on various book lists. It has been republished dozens of times and has been successively adapted into film, television, radio and stage plays, becoming a phenomenon-level text. My own interest in domestic workplace literature also came directly from this novel. The heroine, Du Lala, is a typical middle-class representative. She has no background, is well educated, follows a regular path, and relies on personal struggle to pursue and obtain success in real interests and life values. Discussed purely from the perspective of literary and artistic quality, the story structure and artistic shaping of “Dulala” are actually flawed, and the story is not told tortuously and vividly enough, especially the third and fourth volumes are slightly lacking in literary sense, but it is in the aesthetic sense. The charm and attractiveness of the works probably come largely from the “positive energy in the workplace” that is shrouded and transmitted throughout the works. “Du Lala’s Promotion” focuses on describing Du Lala’s personal career growth and workplace struggle when she takes up a position in human resources in a multinational company, including office politics and interpersonal entanglements, as well as love and emotional life, but the author Li Ke did not choose one. This kind of “big heroine”-style stereotyped plot and character design does not deliberately highlight the female gender and emotional experience of the protagonist Du Lala, but focuses more on her business ability, professional quality and other more generalized majors. Personality, this kind of personality instead emphasizes the self-subjectivity of professional women in the new era, from body to heart, naturally and calmly publicizes the female consciousness in the workplace; what the author is interested in and highlights is not the experience and struggle philosophy of “thick and black” , but from a professional perspective of a modern enterprise, all the difficulties and obstacles in the promotion process of Du Lala are reasonably explained and explained, so that readers can feel a modern corporate culture and professional psychology. I can feel the freshness of professional experience and the excitement of workplace values. “Du Lala’s Promotion” also presents a very realistic workplace ecology and workplace group portraits, as well as a person’s real personal growth in his career.
The literary and artistic works on the theme of the workplace have developed all the way to this day. The popular “Win and Lost”, “Perfect Companion”, “Dressed Up” and “Ladies’ Law”, which have been aired since 2022, seem to have finally gotten rid of the right in terms of plot advancement and characterization. The protagonist “Mary Sue” depends on the physique, but it seems that he has not found a new enough convincing and logical plot and character strength, and failed to interpret the most charming and tense things in the theme of “workplace”. The common problem of current workplace dramas is that in the strong dramatic rendering of dog-blooded plots and multi-angle relationships, the professional sense of the characters is more and more diluted intentionally or unintentionally, and the work field in which the story unfolds is more and more suspended, and the “shuangwen” mode Continue to bless and increasingly form narrative path dependence. Someone once joked that Tang poetry, Song poetry, Yuan music, Ming and Qing novels, and contemporary TV dramas – this seems to be a mockery or even a denial of contemporary culture. But when you think about it, TV dramas, as the most popular contemporary literary and artistic model, have the widest audience and the greatest influence. They indeed represent and present the collective unconsciousness and the general inner anxiety of people in an era. And subtly shape people’s aesthetics and values. Specific to workplace dramas, we look forward to seeing the unique Chinese workplace environment and culture, as well as complex entanglements, twists and turns, hardships and waves in the process of China’s modernization process and social transformation, the rapid development of the market economy and modern enterprises. The presentation of more realistic and professional professional beliefs and workplace values in the conflicting stories. They should and can be better and better looking.
Kim Hyuk-nam
Source: Wen Wei Po
Article source: Wen Wei Po
Author: Jin Henan | Editor in charge: Yu Ying