Chapter 5 Title V Cruel Media

Wang Shuo: Popular culture is actually very harsh. Its things are basically traditional. That's all. No one can change it, not at all.Whether mainstream culture, pure literature or pure academics, they all have a kind of sympathetic connection with popular culture. Although they each hide behind a different topic, it would be ugly to become naked.I started out with a bit of a fantasy about mass culture, thinking that money was the cleanest thing, that it was a force that could destroy something.If it is possible to add something of its own to popular culture, its enormous dissemination ability will definitely be constructive.But as soon as I put it on, I found that it was also stiff, and I couldn't get it in, which was very strange.

Old Xia: Why can't we get in?With your rich experience in the film and television industry for so many years, what is the crux of your inability to get in? Wang Shuo: Later I discovered that it is actually subject to something, and its room for maneuver is not large at all. Old Xia: How to be restrained? Wang Shuo: Just don't offend me.After working hard, I understand this law, and I must obey this law. Only by obeying can I not make mistakes, and only by not making mistakes can I continue to mix and earn money.When I was writing novels, when I first got involved in the troubled waters of the film and television industry, I was censored, and others taught me how to be a "wrist, and a decent person" in this industry.After a long time, I got used to it, became numb, and taught others with an "old man" attitude.I also play the role of censor when dealing with young authors.I want to tell him: If you can’t do this, you will make mistakes.It's a disgusting feeling.I'm a victim of censorship mixed into a censor who teaches others a lesson.

Old Xia: The transformation of people by this mechanism is similar to shopping malls.From carrying bags to letting others carry bags. Wang Shuo: Yes.I found that in the end, I had no aftertaste, no standards, and no idea what was good or bad.The things that come out are quite satisfactory, and there is nothing real.Sleek things, exquisite things, and extremely flattering things that make people look like vulgar things have all become good things. Lao Xia: Various TV stations, especially CCTV's various variety shows and evening parties already have the outer packaging of Hong Kong and Taiwan.The large-scale landing of Hong Kong and Taiwan culture was actually in the 1990s. These things created an atmosphere of singing and dancing, and made the sweet, soft and fluttering things dissolve and melt dissatisfaction.The so-called "wrists" in mainland China, film and television, music, writing... have been scooped up by TV programs. Except for people like you and Cui Jian. If you want to stick to your own things people are outside the mass culture and the mainstream.

Wang Shuo: I think the real climax of popular culture has not yet arrived in China.It turns out that I think there is still a period of psychological adaptation for the climax of popular culture in our place, such as foreign culture.But looking at it now, we don't have any discomfort with things from Hong Kong and Taiwan. It doesn't need a period of adaptation, and it can directly resonate.Actually I think middle class.This kind of interest in a well-off society is common all over the world. In the past, there were some psychological barriers to foreign bourgeois culture, but not to Hong Kong and Taiwan, not at all.Popular culture is nothing more than to make you relax and comfortable, no matter how you do it, as long as you are comfortable.So as long as he let go of the hole, the orgasm is still behind.

Old Xia: The stars on Hunan Satellite TV and some local stations have already made their ratings almost equal to that of CCTV, which makes CCTV also seek reform.This is a good thing. The media hegemony gave way, the ratings dropped, and the advertising costs dropped accordingly, finally forcing it to rely on Hong Kong and Taiwan. Wang Shuo: Today's popular culture plays the role of an actor as a helper.In the 1980s when it was first opened, there was no distinction between mass culture and elite culture, and all cultures were one kind of culture. Old Xia: Yes, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Liu Xinwu was popular culture, "The Head Teacher" had a great influence, everyone was talking about it, everyone was excited, and any later popular products of popular culture were hard to come by. .At that time, the spiritual consumer goods of the masses, with a strong political color, had an authoritative and didactic tone, which contrasted interestingly with theories about truth discussions.They think that what they offer to society is true.Goodness and beauty are the unique social truth and the true meaning of life.There are also a batch of dramas that are also extremely sensational, such as Confession of the Silent Place.At that time, there was not much to see in the society, and the release of "Popular Movies" by the folk writers exceeded one million copies, and people went crazy watching it.But in the late 1970s and early 1980s, popular culture in Hong Kong and Taiwan was like Teresa Teng's songs and the movie "Three Smiles".Foreign popular culture such as the movies "Manhunt" and "Life and Death" also entered at the same time.Teresa Teng was still the bourgeoisie's melody at the time, and she listened to it eavesdropping, but her singing softened the soul of a generation, and the steel warriors during the "Cultural Revolution" were sung as sentimental boys and girls.People suddenly discover that life is not just heavy stuff, not just high instruction.

Wang Shuo: In the mid-1980s, there was a big discussion about serious literature and popular culture.Many well-known personalities file their debuts. Old Xia: Wang Meng, Liu Binyan, Liu Xinwu, and Liu Zaifuquan came out to defend the impact of literature's sense of mission and responsibility on popular culture.After Qiong Yao's and Jin Yong's novels came in, like a flood that broke a dam, it swept across China.Those pope-level priest-level figures in the literary world immediately felt that their thrones and pulpits were in crisis, and they could no longer be the protagonists of the public.The teacher of the masses, the savior of the masses.So they lamented that the world is declining, people's hearts are not ancient, and vulgar things like Jin Yong and Qiong Yao are actually very popular.

Wang Shuo: It is indeed very mediocre, but the common people like it, and it is a new thing. The impact on the cultural mainstream was somewhat positive at the time. Old Xia: Not only romance and martial arts, in the mid-1980s, a group of young talents put forward the slogan of playing literature, and Cui Jian's "Nothing" also caused an impact. Wang Shuo: Those who play literature are Liu Suola, Xu Xing, and later Ma Yuan and Yu Hua, experimental novels, avant-garde novels, and hippie literature. Lao Xia: Gao Xingjian's dramas, Tian Zhuangzhuang's, and Chen Kaige's films were also avant-garde art at that time, and now it seems that they should be included in popular culture.You also belong to the master of literature.

Wang Shuo: I was still romantic at the time.At that time, there was an insulting name for me, "Mainland Qiongyao".At that time, when I wrote and wrote "Floating from the Sea", it was all about romance.All readers, tearful. Old Xia: It was only later that he showed his ferocity.You told me in the 1980s, we are a little bitch now, we need to build a big memorial arch; when we become a big whore, we will build a small memorial arch;The road from kitsch to authenticity is quite long. Wang Shuo: They were all poisoned by the "soul engineers". Lao Xia: Leaving aside your own creation and popular culture, let’s talk about other things first.In the future, I will torture your soul to see if you can really get out of your body.

Wang Shuo: I have already drawn a clear line with them. Lao Xia: The impact of Hong Kong and Taiwan at that time made everyone want to become the overlord of ideology.The situation of the dominator of the power of cultural discourse is a scourge.Some people say it is a "deconstruction" of mainstream culture, including your novels from the beginning.But I personally prefer to use the word "subversion", which has a good taste, chewy and enjoyable.Qiong Yao's softness.Jin Yong's beatings and killings suddenly wiped out those writers, big and small, who were still fighting for cultural dominance.Intellectuals are empty.The masses don’t look at them, they turn their backs to them, Hou Dejian’s decadent and empty face on TV, people don’t listen to Li Guyi anymore, they don’t watch love preaching like "The Position of Love", they don't watch "The Garland Under the Mountain" anymore In the wars in the movie, everyone went to watch the intimacy of boys and girls, and the fighting and killing of heroes and heroes, and listened to "Wine Dried If Selling Nothing". "Nothing".High school students and college students used to be the most loyal readers of Liu Binyan, but now they buy works by Quan Qiongyao and Jin Yong.From then on, there was a real distinction between popular literature and mainstream literature in the Chinese cultural market.Popular literature at that time was still non-mainstream, and some people came out to destroy it.China has gradually turned into a big market, a big playground, and a big construction site. Even university campuses have night lights, fountains, and small businesses like free markets.The common people like this kind of atmosphere, and the leaders don't hate it, so in the 1990s, popular culture became the mainstream.Its subversiveness has become flattering.

Wang Shuo: In the early 1990s, I was also kind of coquettish. Old Xia: Not only is she flattering, but her IQ has almost dropped to zero.By the way, I would like to ask, what self-expectations do you have for your sense of responsibility as a public figure? Wang Shuo: No, at least definitely not.I feel that writing has nothing to do with others, and being a public figure will not hinder my writing.I can say whatever I want.Of course, when you agree with everyone, there is no need to talk about it.That is, when I disagree with everyone, I think it is necessary to talk about it. Old Xia: Some people say that as long as everyone likes it, it is a good thing.

Wang Shuo: I disagree with this.Some things, I refer to the popularity created by mass culture, no matter how many people like it and cannot live without it, as someone said in defense of it, I have to say that it is not necessarily a good thing.I used to be in it, followed by coaxing, harming others and myself. Old Xia: Actually, no one will take this thing seriously, it’s all about laughing, crying, feeling sad and happy. Wang Shuo: Let me say a few more words about the topic of mass culture and the spread of mass culture.You think that if it has more readers, it will have great influence, and you think it can spread your things all over the world, but in fact it is just a fleeting cloud, and it will disappear as soon as it is blown. , stay away from you, and finally create a you that has nothing to do with you. Old Xia: Make people beyond recognition? Wang Shuo: I think there are two attitudes.One is a basic understanding of one's own life.In fact, I didn't understand this understanding myself at the beginning, but gradually clarified it through writing novels.This does not include the current people's views, or the current popular views are not high enough in my novels.I can't care too much about that thing, I can't overemphasize it, and I can't let it affect my creation.But people's opinions are spread out very quickly through the mass media, television, newspapers, especially those tabloids.This is the effect that can be obtained by using popular culture.But the fast and wide spread does not necessarily bring you all the impact on your score. Old Xia: Have you ever thought about this thing, mass culture, its spread has its own set of programs or mechanisms, and your things are spread through it, and you can't grasp what it will spread to you in the end.As you said just now, people are not ghosts or ghosts. It is you and not you, like you but not like you.Have you ever thought about it, it's these tabloids.television.Broadcasting, etc., will misrepresent you.Even completely against the original intention of your writing, your original intention. Wang Shuo: Definitely, this is the inevitable price of wanting to enter the mass media.It's a kind of tragic-sweet spread.I used to naively thought that it was a 100% or at least mostly true transmission, and the audience would not distort your meaning. Later, it taught me a lesson from the negative side: once it enters the mass media, it is impossible to preserve it. The whole body, if you don't make yourself bruised, you can't get by.Playing around, I accepted the transmission.That is, I think it is inevitable, predestined, and doomed for the audience to distort your original intention.If a certain word reaches the ears of a hundred people, it is a hundred different.Knowing that it is fate, one can feel at ease. Old Xia: Misreading and distorting by audiences is not limited to mass media, all audiences will misread or distort to some extent. It is said that there are one hundred Wang Shuo for every one hundred readers.This is something that, in theory, acceptance aesthetics has turned this misreading of communication into something commonsense.Some people even say that the history of literature is not the chronicle of original works or writers, but the history of reading and acceptance by audiences.History that does not join the recipient's reading experience is not real history. Wang Shuo: That is to tell me that distorting deserves bad luck, who asked you to write and let people read it. Old Xia: There are two kinds of misreading or distortion. One kind of misreading, especially in popular culture, is intentionally reading you as a joke, intentionally adding disgust to you, reading into evil, and reading from your text It will be happier and more lively when reading some anecdotes.But there is another kind of misunderstanding, which is creative misunderstanding. He accepts you and distorts you. He reads himself from your things, or in other words, your things awaken and stimulate his own inner inspiration. And creativity, he derives something else from your stuff.The real tradition is the gradual accumulation of creative misreading.If Nietzsche did not misunderstand the things of ancient Greece, there would be none. Wang Shuo: Is misreading in popular culture creative?I suspect. Lao Xia: Popular culture itself is a copy of reproduction, and its dissemination and creative misreading are two different things, and the kind of misreading that reads serious books is two different things.He directly confronts your work and is not affected by media hype. It doesn’t matter if he misreads it or not, it’s understandable.The only creative misreading of popular culture I can sanction is serious critical reading.This kind of reading does not follow the tastes of the public or the hype of the media, but has his own certain rules. No matter how fast the fashion changes, he has his own unchanging position. Wang Shuo: Popular culture also has its own set of genes, copying its own way of communication and reading.No one else can control it.It is a machine that runs according to the established procedures when a button is pressed. Whoever tries to try the method will be smashed to pieces. Old Xia: It has a set of mechanisms, which can be played around for you, so that you can't find an opponent if you want to get angry, and you can't explain it.Just like what I recently saw in the "China Reading News" about Wang Shuo's war with Jin Yong.Turning a normal criticism into a "war" is itself a common hype strategy of the mass media.Most of this article does not talk about whether it is reasonable for you to say that Jin Yong is the "Four Great Customs of Hong Kong", but to say: First, no one reads Wang Shuo's stuff now, you can't bear the loneliness of being a trendy kid , I want to find new excitement by playing Jin Yong.These people also disgust you by boasting, saying that Wang Shuo is really smart and knows when to pick which target to attack.It is said that you have a good grasp of timing, and you are also skilled in picking targets. You know, hitting this target at this time is exactly the same, and the target is hit with a hundred shots.Second, someone said that Wang Shuo had exhausted his talents, and then combined your criticism of Jin Yong with the preface you wrote for a novel by a man named Aidan, saying that the reason why you wrote the preface for Aidan was to find The heir of his own writing, so that his novels can be passed down from generation to generation.It seems that as long as someone who has been wading through the muddy water in the popular culture suddenly wants to run away and withdraw from the popular culture, it will not be so easy, just like it is not easy to become a popular star in the popular culture.Now that we have become the wrists or stars of the public, you can’t do whatever you want, and the popular culture will create another set of disgusting rhetoric just like when it praises you, such as what I just mentioned, saying that you fired yourself again Say you are exhausted and so on.There is something vicious in this set of rhetoric. Wang Shuo: I think what we said is not contradictory.This is caused by the mechanism of mass culture itself. I think this is the audience. The audience I believe is like this, and they all think they are smart.He feels that he has sharp eyesight, piercing your nature with a glance like a screw, but in fact he is making wild guesses, and even intentionally using this method to set a trap for you.I have used this method before, it is the kind of low-level method of reductio absurdum.Don't talk about what just happened, but talk about it from afar, and talk about things with irrelevant things that are extrapolated.Just because it is a mass media, it will push any statement to the final place step by step in this way-making you have to explain or justify yourself.There are more unreasonable things to say than this.That is to say why I did this, to beat Jin Yong.There must be an ulterior self-interest behind it.Mass culture communication has two characteristics: it is very interesting to spread, and it seems to be a little more primitive when it is spread one by one, sticking to the score and not messing around too heresy.Then there is the second propagation.Secondary communication is all distorted, but only through this kind of secondary communication can the communication of mass culture be truly completed and become a real mass media, otherwise it will not be the communication of mass culture.Once it is distorted, coupled with all kinds of gossip and hearsay, it will start to turn from works to events to various speculations about you. First of all, he is the first to speculate on your motives, which can provide the public with room for imagination, and then it spreads the things obtained by guessing and imagining into various kinds, which makes those things become "music" that everyone talks about after dinner. Son".In this way, it expands layer by layer, so that this kind of thing keeps creating topics that it automatically replicates.I think this thing is very interesting. Thinking about it carefully, it has infinite meaning. Old Xia: Can you be more specific, take a certain topic as an example, or simply make fun of yourself. Wang Shuo: Let’s talk about the topic you mentioned just now. Let’s take the case of me and Jin Yong as an example.If this topic is limited to whether Jin Yong's novels are good novels?Because I wrote this article for such a purpose, I think Jin Yong's novels are not good novels, they are one of the representatives of popular culture in Hong Kong and Taiwan.However, there is not much to talk about in the dissemination of popular culture on this topic alone, and the talk is not long. It is impossible to allow a long debate on the topic of good or bad Jin Yong's novels, let alone academic debate. .Then, it starts to change the topic, so that it can continue to talk, and the audience will have a lot of fun to watch.Well, let’s switch from the topic of Jin Yong’s novels to the next topic: He said that you accused Jin Yong’s novels of not being good novels, so is your novel a good novel?You say that Jin Yong is not a good novel, it is one of the four major vulgarities in Hong Kong, and yours is not a good thing, nor is it a good novel, and it is also one of the few major vulgarities in mainland China.In fact, my article is only about Jin Yong's novels, and by the way, Hong Kong and Taiwan culture.I never thought of using my own novels to make comparisons, saying that others are not good things, but myself is good things. Isn’t this too base?At least I wouldn't do that.Then talk about the topic change of mass communication.His second topic was that you said that others are not good things, and you are not good things yourself, and then there was a third topic: your kid said that others are not good because you can’t write good things anymore. Jiang Lang is exhausted.It is precisely because you, Jiang Lang, are exhausted that you make the last jump and struggle to die. It doesn't mean that you are still in the heart, but that you are in the end.Then the topic of Jiang Lang's talent is exhausted, and it is said that you wrote the preface to other people's novels in order to find an heir, and to maintain your reputation among the public, maybe you can create a new situation.This is not over yet, he wants to change the subject again, and let’s talk about what personal grievances you and Jin Yong may have, using the public’s public tools to take personal revenge, etc... Anyway, the hype of popular culture is automatic. Copy out countless topics, and that's about it.Its mechanism is particularly obvious. In any case, it must maintain this thing and keep a constant fresh gaze. As long as it can attract the attention of the public, it doesn't care how outrageous or hurtful the spread is.The cruelty of the spread of popular culture is also here.Superficially lively and joyful, hidden vicious murderous intentions, superficiality and frivolity can kill people. Old Xia: This viciousness doesn't just kill a person's creativity.Uniqueness can also destroy you mentally, and even destroy you physically like Ruan Lingyu. Wang Shuo: It can be passed on like gossip.Why gossip spreads the fastest, because there are too many possibilities here, which can not only satisfy the vulgar interests of the public, but also vent the viciousness of human nature, the viciousness of spectators, and the viciousness of those who gloat. Lao Xia: The thing about popular culture is its self-replication, and its audience. Self-replication is to please the audience.It turns out that people say that for a beautiful and lofty ideal, we can do whatever we can, even if it is to create a hell on earth.Now, the mechanism of popular culture is for kitsch, extremely low purpose, and it will use any means, even if it burns people's internal organs.Today's mass culture, China's mass culture has only found its ideal - money. For this ideal or purpose, it can use any means to kitsch. You Wang Shuo was one of them. In the course of its dissemination, it will not seriously analyze and responsibly say what is going on with this matter.It's very unreasonable, it doesn't say anything, doesn't need any evidence, and it will make a conclusion for you first when it comes up, and the more sensational the conclusion, the better.Let’s say you’ve run out of talent, say you’ve picked the most notable prisoners from the concentration camps of the masses, and say you want to use this to support the popularity you’ve gained.So you find such a popular star as an opponent to attack.In fact, that is to say, the logic of popular culture just muddies the water without any logic at all.Booing, it doesn't reason with you, because once it is reasonable, it will stop being lively and exciting.For example, you say that Jin Yong's novels are not good, but he says that your novels are not good either.It does not take into account that one man's criticism of another man's novel has nothing to do with his own.Strictly speaking, there are two positions.And it immediately pulls these different illogical things together to talk about things.If you tell it this truth, it will say that in your subconscious mind, you, who can't write novels well and are at the end of his talents, have no right to make unreasonable comments on Jin Daxia.It said that the thing you wrote is worse than bullshit, just to set fire to make others pay attention to yourself.It attacks your novels, speculates on your psychological motives, and talks about other irrelevant topics. Its purpose is to attract the attention of the audience by disgusting you. .You are a bad person just because you write such stinky things and dare to make irresponsible remarks. What right do you have to make irresponsible remarks.In fact, I think from what you just said about the spread of popular culture, it is a very conceited and arbitrary thing, leaving no room for drawing conclusions for a public figure, and driving you to a cliff, with an abyss in front and behind, and you have to follow its self Copy away, and finally you yourself become a part of its self-replication. Wang Shuo: That's right.In the end, it will definitely come to personal attacks, and it will never stop until it achieves its goal.It is approaching you layer by layer, first talking about your works, then talking about your psychology, then talking about your exhausted talents, and finally finding out your physical defects.This kind of personal attack, our topic is concentrated within the scope of popular culture.In fact, I see that people in the past few years are full of cultural enthusiasm.During the period of academic fever, they were very energetic and tense. It was an academic debate, but in the end they also came to personal attacks.Because some of the discussions at that time did not involve the public very much. They were all well-known authors and critics, and they were all so-called intellectuals and small intellectuals.As long as they come into contact with each other, once they spread the word, even in professional journals and newspapers, after a long time, they all follow the trend of popular culture and turn into personal attacks.This is the same as mass culture, only when it reaches this stage can it appear lively and interesting, the smell of gunpowder will become stronger, and the camps of all parties and factions will be clearly defined.In theory there is me in you and you in me, but in fact you are you and I am me.