The hot new year drama "Hurricane" has ended for many days, and the public's discussion on the number one villain in the play, Gao Qiqiang, remains unabated.
Growing from a fish peddler to a tyrant in Beijing, he is devoted to his family and ruthless to his opponents. The experience and temperament of this character make people grit their teeth and embarrass themselves.
It’s not just him. In recent years, the popularity of villains in many popular dramas has been rising all the way. From Tao Yinghong in "The Beginning" to Ye Wenjie in "The Three-Body Problem", they have earned enough love and tears from the audience. , It even made many people blur their sense of right and wrong, express sympathy for the mistakes and crimes of the villains, make excuses, forgive and understand their extreme behavior, and have produced adverse social reactions and public opinion guidance.
This cultural phenomenon should arouse the attention of all circles.
Taking stock of the villains favored by the audience, it is not difficult to find that, apart from bonus points such as appearance and acting skills, these characters are both three-dimensional and complex in shaping: they have a more complete life trajectory, each character's "bad" "You can see clues from many factors in her growth environment. For example, Tao Yinghong was originally a middle school chemistry teacher loved by students. Because her only daughter died in a car accident and the truth was buried by cyber violence, she was mentally stimulated.
Even if some characters use darkness as the background color of human nature, there will be mottled "light spots" flickering.
Just like when Ye Wenjie was being interrogated, she had no remorse for leading the way for the Trisolarans to invade, but she still thought of the stone tablet at the Red Bank Base to remember the past she abandoned.
And Gao Qiqiang, if the police hadn't arrived in time, he would have decided to risk his life for his adopted Huang Yao.
In the past, the villains in my country's film and television dramas could only play the role of "plot booster" and "contradictory machine" conscientiously. In life, I pursued "I oppose everything the protagonist supports, and I obstruct everything the protagonist wants to do" concept.
Today, the villain is no longer black and white, but a rich layer of gray between black and white.
This not only gives the actors more room to display their acting skills, but also gives the audience more room to substitute their personal emotions.
For example, the Gao brothers, Lao Mo, etc. in "Hurricane" kill people like hemp, and do all kinds of bad things, but their affectionate and courageous side has also been fully displayed. The image seems to be more three-dimensional, and the personality is more plump.
It is true that the three-dimensional creation of villains is a subversion of the original narrative structure of binary opposition.
With the change of the concept of the times, the binary values of black and white are gradually withdrawn, replaced by an open and inclusive attitude towards diversity.
The increasingly rich cultural life has also promoted the continuous upgrading of the audience's aesthetic taste, forcing creators to explore more possibilities for the authenticity and diversity of character creation at the human level.
However, to create a three-dimensional villain, remember to grasp the scale.
Some creators deliberately exaggerate the sadness and warmth of villains, harvest tears and topics, but seldom think about the effect of this behavior on the theme and artistic value of the work, especially the impact on young people.
In this way, one extreme of facial profiling has gone to the other extreme—downplaying the subjective psychology and emphasizing the objective conditions. All mistakes are forced by the times and forces by the situation. All evils must be extreme love and hatred. , Ask for nothing.
At this time, the ideological value of the villain will be deconstructed to pieces, and such a "deviating" villain image is destined to fail to develop artistic depth and spiritual height, and eventually become a market tool to attract attention and stimulate public opinion.
What needs to be more vigilant is when the three-dimensional villain is more popular than the relatively flat front character, when the audience is addicted to the "eye-catching points" such as the villain's strength, calmness, and determination, and when the audience is pushed by fate to the villain. In the process, seeing the familiar sense of powerlessness, you will have emotional substitution for the villain, thus arousing sympathy.
Excusing the villain has even become an excuse for his lack of morality and responsibility.
In this way, it is easy to blur the concept of good and evil, and the concept of right and wrong. Once it radiates to real life and real events, the public may easily forgive the cunning and slick villains in reality, or take their own wrong behaviors seriously, resulting in extreme big negative impact.
Therefore, don't overcorrect to get rid of the flatness of the characters, and you must grasp the proportions in the three-dimensional shaping of the villains.
Any character is a polyhedron. In the specific shaping process, we should uphold a firm view of right and wrong, a clear view of good and evil, and use a character axis throughout, presenting different aspects of the character in the ever-changing environment and complex contradictory relationships. , Different levels, so that the characters can be vivid and three-dimensional, and the positioning of the characters will not be ambiguous.
Guangming Daily Author: Ye Yihong, a media professional