User:Zhang Mengzhe

My name is Zhang Mengzhe and I am an English major student. I hope to further improve my translation skills by learning the differences between Chinese and Western languages and cultures. Although I took similar courses in my undergraduate study, I think the content in graduate stage will be more in-depth and rich. I believe this learning time will be very interesting, the new school year has begun!

==Oct 31, 2024 I took lessons today and it's very happy to know more about dumplings thanks to the presenter.

==Nov 1, 2024 No translation today! Having leisure time is also a part of life, I think. But I also went to teach a girl English as usual.

==Nov 2,2024 Since the beginning of this term, I have worked as a part-time English teacher to help some students in the Update from Junior College Student to University Student Exam. This time I prepared all the teaching materials beforehand as always, however, I got the date wrong! I thought the teaching day is Nov 3,but actuaccly it was today. On the way to the library about 9:05 in the morning, I received a message from another teacher in the tutoring center, which was said when I can arrived and the students had already waited, when I was enjoying my breakfast and planning what to do in the library. Oh, my gosh! I got off the bus immediately, and took the subway and then took a taxi to the tutoring center. The class time was originally 9 O'clock, but when I arrived there, it was past 10 O' clock. Thanks to the help of another teacher and students, I could finished today's teaching. What an amazing day! But It will never ever ever ever happen again, I swear!

==Nov 3, 2024 In the first half of the year, I went to Nanchang, Jiangxi Province to take the Shanghai Interpretation Accreditation Exam, but fortunately I failed. So when it comes to the autumn exam, I enter for it again. Therefore, getting prepared for the exam has been my main task recently. I hope this time I could be a lucky dog.

==Nov 4, 2024 It's so difficult to concentrate on study during the period, which may be the excuse I find for my laziness. Knowing English listening materials are talking about is so though, not to mention to interpret them in Chinese. Oh, who can rebuild the Tower of Babel for me so that I needn't to do translation and interpretation anymore.But if that happen, I cann't find a job anymore!

==Nov 5, 2024 Having literary translation course today makes me get the importance of tenses and verbs. Adoption of correct and vivid verbs allows the translation to be rich of literariness and idiomaticity, but unfortunately, I am not capable of fulfilling the principle because of my limited reading and poor vocabulary. There is a need to read more Chinese and foreign literary works, I think, especially for me as a language learner. Sometimes when I read some materials whether in English or Chinese, it's challenging for me to speak it out and repeat to others in my own words because the process of thinking and undering only happen in my mind. Hence,the fact is that I know what I want to say but I don't know how to say or just can't say. In these two aspects, more efforts should be made.

==Nov 6, 2024 Nearly overwhelemed by the tasks.

==Nov 7, 2024 English interpretation has become a routine, to be honest, I just do some listening exercises to improve my listening skills. As for the shorthand, its's another story. And maybe I need to review some marks of interpretation to help me write something important in the exam. Although the schedule recently is so full, it's alao an opportunity to enrich myself.

==Nov 8, 2024 Firday is always a good day as an end day of weekdays, and besides we have no classes today.

==Nov 9, 2024 When it comes to late night, my stomach always calls like: feed me some chocolate, chips or some else high-heat food. And then once fed, fat comes. It doesn't matter, only taking enough energy can help me go through the cold winter.

==Nov 10, 2024 I never thought that one day I could make a diary like this, and it's a good way to record my life even just several sentences everyday.

==Nov 11, 2024 Although it's 11.11, a shopping festival, I don't have a shopping plan because it seems like I don't need anything. In recent days, consumption downgrading triggers great attention and discussion on the Internet, it actually reflects people's consumption changes due to decreased income and negative anticipation for economic growth in the post-pandemic period. The public are increasing price-sensitive and begin to prioritize quality over price. I've discussed this issue with my friends, they all believed that we should buy ourselves some gifts we really want when got the salary but it should be within the price range.

==Nov 12, 2024 Talking with friends and uttering complaints have already been a routine, but as more and more friends come into workforce, our dialogues beome more about negative things, including the employment, salary, renting, commuting and so on. It's hard to find a time to travel together because everyone is busy with something. We have little expectation of the future, and just want to live in the moment. We have a deal recently, saving money for a foreign travel in 2025. Hope that it will come true.

==Nov 13, 2024 Changsha enjoys sunny days recently unlike its previous years, but next week is likely to welcome a cooling time. It doesn't matter because I really expect the coming of winter. The smell of cold air, blowing wind, whirling snow, sugar-coated haws, reunion in the Spring Festival, chats with families and close friends and so on, all these are my expectations.

==Nov 14, 2024 Taking the Chinese Language and Culture course offers me benefits, at least I've learned some expressions and cultural activities. So it's actually an enjoyment for me to take this course and meet the professor and classmates in the physical classroom every week. However, preparing for the interpretation exam takes me some time and efforts, but it seems like that little progress has been achieved. Whatever, the exam will come to me this weekend.

==Nov 15, 2024 Watching some English movies may be a good way to create a English-learning environment, therefore I choose the King of the Ring to watch.

==Nov 16, 2024 To take the interpretation exam, I come to Wuhan today because there is no testing centre in Changsha. The temperature drops sharply, and I am likely to have a fever. Oh, no, God bless me, Please.

==Nov 17, 2024 I book the train departing for Changsha at around 8 pm beforehand, so there is still plenty of time after finishing the exam. One of my friends who spent her undergraduate years in Wuhan tell me that having a walk to Hanjiang Road is recommended if I wanna have some snacks and have a view of Han River, hence I go there. The scenery is beautiful and impressive, however, the strong wind also hit me. A Chinese saying goes like, some regrets are left this time and then we have a reason and next chance to meet each other. So I think I can continue my exploration of Wuahn in the future.

==Nov 18, 2024 A day sets for resting alway gives me leisure. Nothing can be better than satying at dormitory, eating snacks and sunflower seeds and watching movies on a rainy day.

==Nov 19, 2024 The course of literary translation this term always gives me inspiration and insights into some literary works.

==Nov 20, 2024 It is so painful to write a proposal! There are a great amount of materials and researches at home and abroad, writing a literature review can be seen as a burden.

==Nov 21, 2024 Submitting the proposal of MTI Writing gives me a brief relief, and I will enjoy my weekend without worrying about assignment.

==Nov 22, 2024 After a whole-day staying at the dormitory, I took the metro to do tutoring. But there was no response when I knocked the door. Then I called the student's mom, and she called her daughter to find that she was having fun with her friends and has forgotten the class. So the class was canceled, and I came back to the hug of my bed again.

==Nov 23, 2024 The cold weather is the only factor that delaying my getting up and preventing me from sports.

==Nov 24, 2024 By teaching others, I could find my shortages in some English words and grammar. Sometimes I cannot explain exactly knowledge points to my students. Oh, it's such a shame!

==Nov 25, 2024 Nothing is better than getting good news from friends who stay far away from me. While being happy and proud of their achievements, I wish that I could make attempts to catch up with.

==Nov 26, 2024 Getting a plenty of time to rest over the past a few days, but I suddenly found that if I didn't do much work during daytime, I would have a bad sleep at night. So maybe the secret to a good sleep is keeping busy.

==Nov 27, 2024 It is almost the end of this semester, so many things need to be done recently including presentations, course thesis and so on. In the process of writing and translating, I realize that I go backward in language studies due to my frequent use of simple words and sentence structure. It seems like nothing useful is input into the mind.

==Nov 28, 2024 A sunny day itself gives me good moods, not mention to have a picnic.

==Nov 29, 2024 Be busy preparing for the presentation because the ahead of schedule

==Nov 30, 2024 Because of preparing for the presentation, I have a review of The Three-Body Problem.

==Dec 1, 2024 It's the first day of the last month of 2024, how time flies! But today is Sunday, so I do have a reason to rest.

==Dec 2, 2024 With the purpose of adding some fun to my presentation, I invite my roommates to join me to play characters in The Three-Body Problem and take a short video. I think it's also a good way to do language studies.

==Dec 3, 2024 Once body clock was disrupted it's hard to turn back into routines. So I'm too sleepy to study today.

==Dec 4, 2024 I set a timer for the preparation and it's about 10 minutes.

==Dec 5, 2024 I feel good after finishing the presentation. It's so interesting to get a feedback from the classmates and professor. But I learn no new words from Baicizhan App because it's too late when I get to my dormitory.

==Dec 6, 2024 Language learning is a life-long learning because I you quit it for just one day slipping will be witnessed.

==Dec 7, 2024 Teaching is also a good to find my shortcomings in language learning. Sometimes I just rely on language sense to comprehend while reading materials in English, but as a teacher I must explain explicitly the grammar to students. It's a big challenge to me. Today I made some mistakes of grammar and word useage when I taught students. Hopefully I could do better.

==Dec 8, 2024 A day for rest but with some assignment.

==Dec 9, 2024 I have began to write the final term paper but encountered some problems. For example, as for the topic I want to discuss, I read some materials on the CNKI and found there are so many different perspectives. These views are all worth exploring. But learning from the past experience, starting to write something will help one find his own way gradually. So I just started to write.

==Dec 10, 2024 No translation today, just read some English materials.

==Dec 11, 2024 More attention is paid to English listening recently because I am not good at it at all.

==Dec 12, 2024 All courses this semester are going to come to an end so its' time to concentrate on the paper writing. After all, early finishing means early getting going back home.Some translation materials have been given, I think, addressing problems in practices is much more fun than learning theories.As for the Chinese Language and Culture, I choose the Chinese Bossy Fections and dramas as a topic and learning some very fresh perspectives in reading correlative dissertations. At first, I am just aware of the gender inequality in these works. But some scholars think deeper and take economic and social capital into consideration as well. They believe the economic capital has a dominated power that could has a impact on the values presented in bossy novels and short drama, as a result, money becomes a code that is bale to solve all problems.

==Dec 13, 2024 I spend some time on post-editing today.

==Dec 14, 2024 Saturday is always my day off if there is no work, so I didn't do any translation.

==Dec 15, 2024 Finishing the main part of finial paper gives me a relief. Though there is still lots of translation that needs to be done, I feel less stressed.

==Dec 16, 2024 Today is free from translation but only a few new words.

==Dec 17, 2024 Today also belongs to post-editing.

==Dec 18, 2024 Sometimes when I do translation, I don't think I am a good language learner.

Chinese Bossy Fictions & Bossy Micro-Drama

Introduction

In recent years, with the popularity of short video platforms at home and abroad, the micro-drama featured shorter length, faster pace is catching more viewers' attention. As the product of the "vertical screen" development, micro-drama is born with the purpose of meeting phone users’ viewing demand in their fragmented time. And the number of episode of a micro short drama ranges from ten to dozens of episodes, and some is as long as ten minutes, but some as short as tens of seconds. The mania for micro-drama begins from China, with online short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou as the broadcasting channels. Having subject unitary and one-sided theme, the micro-drama always tells the love story of "a alpha male or a boss in other words". Subsequently, undergoing some localization and adaption, this kind of Chinese bossy stories are exported to foreign countries and prevail. Out of surprise, bossy micro drama in foreign version successfully capture a large number of foreign audiences on tiktok, ReelShort and other apps.

To know the reason of the massive popularity of this kind of “bossy micro drama”, firstly, we need to have a comprehensive understanding of its predecessor - Chinese bossy fictions. Currently, the majority of bossy micro dramas in China are adapted from bossy fictions, and the core narrative logic of both novels and drama is the same.Ke Qianting (2021) believes that the bossy fiction is a subgenre of romantic novels that grows up along with online literature. It mainly narrates the love stories between men and women in the city. The bossy fiction can be divided into two kinds according to whether the hero mistreats the heroine or not, one is abusive fiction and the other is sweet fiction. (Ke Qianting, 2021: 98). In the process of creating these literary and television works, the writer or screenwriter tends deliberately take conflicts and plots in stories to the extreme in order to form a contrast and satisfy the curiosity and viewing pleasure of readers or audiences. For example, the boss always behaves like a cold and heartless man in the early stage, but after falling in love with the heroine, he begins to express his kindness to others in a proper way and takes more smiles. Or the story goes like this: the boss puts on an indifferent face in the presence of others and only shows his gentility and considerateness to his girl. Liang Yi (2015) points out that one of the typical characteristics of this kind of literature and TV creation is the repeated use of the same plot motif. In other words, these works embrace fixed narration and homogenized content. The romantic story always begins with a handsome, successful but bad-tempered boss and an ordinary but motivated girl. They encounter in coincidence and then suffer from many misunderstandings and go though difficult time, and finally fall in love with each other and harvest a happy ending.

It is puzzling that although the bossy works and creation as fictions and micro-drama are full of such disgusting stereotypes as strong men and weak women, which run counter to the "equal rights and liberation" thought pursued by women in modern society, they still set off a great heat on the Internet. So what makes these works so appealing to female audiences? There are complicated reasons for this including culture, economy and society, etc.

I Male and Female Images Constructed in Bossy Fictions & Bossy Micro-Drama

First of all, literary and artistic works as bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama tend to exaggerate the gender characteristics of men and women. For example, when it comes to male image construction, such words as “lofty”, “imperial” , “heroic”, “large and tall”, “muscular”, “broad shoulders”, “physically fit” and so on will be used to highlight the superior body shape and masculinity of the hero. In contrast, when introducing the heroine, she is often depicted as a woman with a “petite figure”, “slender fingers” and “delicate waist”, having no female energy.

Secondly, as a bossy, the male protagonist is portrayed as a good-looking, rich and powerful man who possesses profound economic basis and always uses his “bankability” to solve all problems in life. Additionally, the bossy is usually violent, untalkative, indifferent, and sexually continent. But everything would change once the bossy fall in love with a girl. He would become single-minded in a relationship, and even take extreme measures to restore a lost love, for instance imprisoning her in his luxury villa or on his private island. Reversely, the heroine in bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama embraces a completely different disposition and development growth environment from the hero. Being brought up in an ordinary family, the heroine never abandon her innocent and simple nature and remains a positive attitude and kindness towards life no matter how hard it is. The typical beginning of the story is that, trapped in financial difficulty, the heroine is forced to sign some terminable agreement with the bossy or sell herself as a bedmate to him. Whereas, when the agreement is about to expire, the bossy suddenly finds he has already fell in love with the ordinary girl and wants to keep her round. But the girl just doesn’t agree and are bent on going away from him. In the circumstances, the man opts to prison the girl in an isolated place and forces her to have sex with him. In the course of captivity and abuse, however, instead of hating bitterly, the girl falls in love with the abuser because the softhearted girl finds that all his grumpiness and testiness can originate from his miserable original family or some emotional trauma caused by past failed relationship. At the end of the story, in the appeal of love, it is certain that the bossy becomes gentle and understanding, and the couple live a happy life.

Some people think that such image construction of characters and narrative logic are in line with women's imagination of their ideal partners in the commercial era to a certain extent, that is the perfect husband should be rich and uxorious. In bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama, having a romantic relationship can not only harvest emotional comfort, but also be satisfied the girl’s material needs. Therefore, women who fail in pursuing ideal love and marriage in real life turn their eyes to such novels and short videos to seek solace (Huang Liqun, 2017:32). Some scholars argue that the reason for the popularity of such works is that they satisfy women's psychology of pursuing unforgettable love and their subconscious dependence on men through the ages (Wei Jiarui, 2017:46).

However, the oppression and abuse from male power in bossy works completely violates the basic principles of respect and equality in a romantic relationship. Abuse is not love, nor does it develop into love. Violence cannot be glorified either. In addition, although there is a gap between men and women in terms of physical structure, such works always portray women as weak and inferior, which is not only a stereotype, but also a weakening and dwarfizing of women. More importantly, the story of bossy using money to help the heroine solve various problems, and finally holding the beauty back actually reflects the manipulation of materialism and commercialism on emotions. Money seems to be the currency that is able to to buy love.

Ⅱ Female Desire Expression

Different from serious literature and TV drama, bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama are transmitted through mobile phones, so that they belong to completely personal and private watching enjoyment. In other words, such works create an independent space for audiences, in which the information they receive is private and doesn’t need to be shared with others (Ke Qianting, 2012:104). And It is the feature that bossy works has precisely satisfies the two hidden and unuttered desires of Chinese women.

The first is the desire for materials. From the perspective of traditional Chinese outlook on love and marriage, a ‘good girl’ should not be greedy for materials and enjoyment, and only pure love without taking wealth into consideration is worthy of praise and admiration. For example, in a Chinese folk love story whose main characters are Wang Baochuan and Xue Pinggui, although Wang Baochuan is the daughter of the prime minister, she never despises the poor and flatters the rich, and finally marries the beggar Xue Pinggui. However, in modern society prioritizing individual survival, materials serve as necessary conditions for a person's subsistence. The purpose of people participating in activities and production is to obtain materials that could support their life, in turn, all human activities carried out by people also need material support. Forming romantic or marital relationships is also a part of social activities and similarly requires material support. Nevertheless, if a woman mentions her material demand in a relationship, she will be labeled as a ‘gold digger.’ Therefore, the unreasonable prejudice gives rise to the fact that even if a women has requirements for a man’s income level just out of consideration of her later reproductive costs or other realistic factors, it is difficult for her to discuss the financial issue under such heavy pressure.

But in bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama, talking openly about money is no longer a taboo in romantic relationships, and women's pursuit of material things becomes reasonable. The top-dollar bossy is willing to spend a lot of money only for the heroine’s smile, or to give all the shares of the property under his name to her, or to buy a castle to hold a glorious wedding, etc. Such description meets the ideal vision of women in material terms in an exaggerated way. In that world, materials giving is a way of expressing love, and the heroine is not be criticized as a ‘gold digger’ because of her pursuit of fortunes. For the heroine’s requirements, the bossy will only reply “I can give you everything you want.”

The second is the desire for sex. In the Chinese context, people hardly talk about sex. However, women in the prime of their youth do have a normal curiosity and desire for sex. As mentioned above, bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama are featured privacy, so they tend to have bolder depiction and filming of sex than ordinary romance publications and TV dramas. Therefore, these work gradually become the carriers of women’s feelings and desires. Even for some adolescent female readers and audiences, such exaggerated works serve as sexual enlightenment to some extent.

But can works that are able to satisfy women’s the appetite for these two be counted as female-centered works? Otherwise, the underlying logic of bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama is still the discipline and exploitation of women. From the beginning of the story, the relationship between the hero and the heroine is a transaction. For example, in the novel called Be Loved Given by a Golden Bachelor, the heroine is sent to the bossy in a transaction to be used as a plaything. At first, the man only takes the heroine as a brunt of his sexual desire and gives her financial compensation. But later he gradually realizes that they two have established true feelings in the process of getting along with each other. Honestly, such plots rationalizes male brutality and legitimizes the rape to women, and in these works women have no control over their own bodies and lose liberty.

Moreover, a kind of feudal paternalistic control is embedded in bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama. In the name of love, the hero restrains the heroine in all aspects, such as requiring the female master not to interact with other men, etc., passing on a wrong idea that the deeper one loves the other, the stronger he is inclined to control. Li Chao points out that although traditional hierarchy of gender no longer dominates, still exert its influence in a residual and reshaped form (2017:136). The bossy, partly representing traditional ideas on gender, uses his strong economic strength and the residual gender concept of strong men and weak women to discipline female, so that they can act according to their own will.

Ⅲ Marketing Methods

The wide spread of bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama owes to not only their "eye-catching" content, but also their omnipresent publicity and marketing. Let’s discuss from bossy fictions. Jinjiang Literature City and Qidian Chinese Website are the first batch of online platforms to release the bossy fictions and female-oriented novels. At the beginning, if readers want to read online literary works, they need to log on to these websites to find out. Later, with further development of online literature in terms of scale, the number of platforms for obtaining bossy fictions boost dramatically, and a large number of reading apps begin to seize users and market shares, such as Tomato Novels and Seven Cats Free Novels. These apps tout themselves as “apps providing free reading” and then continue to expand their popularity and increase APP downloads by placing advertisements on TV and online video platforms, hiring spokespersons, and placing large advertising screens on buses and subways. As a result, the stage of “looking for novels to read” comes to an end, and online literature begins to penetrate into the lives of Internet users and seek consumers by itself from then on. Social media such as Weibo and Wechat have also begun to carry advertisements about online novels and push them to users. After clicking on a link to read the first few chapters of the novel for free, users must download apps to pay for follow-up reading.

Compared to bossy novels, the marketing method adopted by the bossy micro-drama is more commercialized. General speaking, its most effective marketing strategy is “Few Free Slices, Paid Complete Set”. In the Internet era, online traffic becomes the priority and top consideration. The company placing traffic to platforms would like to clip the micro-dramas into video slices, which are usually the most exciting and fascinating parts of the short plays, and then puts them on short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou for large-scale stream promotion, and app users would be more likely to watch these slices when they go through videos. If they are interested in the slice, viewers can click the link in the comment to watch more (Yang Haibo & Ma Dong, 2024). Once audiences are longing for the complete set, it means that they are successfully hooked because the first few episodes of micro-dramas are usually free to watch, and the remaining episodes are unlocked and only available by watching advertisements or paying. However, there is only a limited number of episodes per day that can be unlocked by watching ads, so many viewers choose to pay for watching. As a result, once viewers have watched these short videos or purchased for them, the platform will to constantly push similar videos that the user may be interested in on the basis of big data, thereby inducing consumption again.

Criticism and Reflection

Born in the Internet era, bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama meet people's entertainment needs in a low-cost way, but the ideas they reflect are worthy of vigilance. First of all, although their target audiences are female, they still follow the traditional portrayal of female characters under the male gaze. After suffering from verbal violence, sexual violence and something awful, instead of leaving the terrible intimate relationship the heroine chooses to forgive and fall in love again as long as the man pursues her ardently. It is so strange that female-oriented works employ plots with evident inclination of humiliating women to please women and eventually gain a widespread market accept. The phenomenon reveals the deeply rooted misconceptions in patriarchal societies, that is men are the center of power and dominant, and women are subordinate. In addition, although writers and producers of bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama contend these works are created with the purpose of building wonderful dreams for females and fulfilling their pursuit of sincere love, these works do not get rid of utilitarian color at all. It is the material things, power, and social resources that help the hero chase and win the heroine’s heart. Furthermore, works of this kind also strongly try to beautify the profit-seeking nature of businessmen. Specifically, they depict the hero who has a huge business empire and is proficient in capital operation as a man with a love-stuck mind and highlight his self-struggle and efforts on the road to success. Ostensibly, this kind of image construction characterized sincerity, goodness and beauty is the writer's imagination of the "upper class", but in fact it is the expression of the "upper class" entering the cultural field and using economic capital to promote their own ideas (Li Chao, 2017:138).

The popularity of bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama gives us insight into part of the values people hold in contemporary society. Some only go after material pleasures and the authority status, compare relationship going to the logic of capital, and believe wealth can buy love. Fortunately, due to the exaggerated descriptions in such works, reader are fully capable of distinguishing them from reality and will not excessively get engaged in fantasies. As Hegel said, what is rational is real and what is real is rational, so there is a reason to allow the sublime and beautiful ones and low and common ones to exist at the same time. Overwhelmed by the immense pressure of modern society, choosing to read some "brainless" bossy fictions & bossy micro-drama can also be a way to set oneself free and relax.

Terms and Expressions

Chinese Bossy Fictions & Bossy Micro-drama中国式霸总小说&短剧

plot motif 情节母题

paternalistic 家长式作风的

Jinjiang Literature City 晋江文学城

Qidian Chinese Website 起点中文网

female-oriented 女频文

video slices 视频切片

traffic 流量

stream promotion 推流

the male gaze 男性凝视

Questions

1.Which websites do the bossy novels originate from?

2.What is the marketing model of the bossy micro-drama？

3. What desires do the bossy fictions and bossy micro-drama satisfy for women to some extent?

4.Do he bossy fictions and bossy micro-drama belong to female-oriented literature？

References

[1] Gu Li. A Capitalism that Cannot Help Itself: Understanding “CEO romance”[J]. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication, 2019, 41(05): 110-123.

[2] Huang Liqun. “Bossy Novels” : the Special Imagination in the Age of the Demise of Love Myth[J]. Journal of Suzhou College of Education, 2017, 34(06): 32-37.

[3] Ke Tingqian. The Cultural Configuration and Readers’ Acceptance of Bossy Novels[J]. Journal of Chinese Women's Studies, 2021(02): 97-107+128.

[4] Li Chao. The Image of “CEO”: the Imagination of the “Upper Class” in Contemporary Popular Culture[J]. New Horizons from Tianfu, 2017(03): 134-139.

[5] Long Xiaonong&Li Furong. From Netflix to ReelShort: Assessing Global Communication Models on Streaming Platforms[J]. Contemporary Cinema, 2024(11): 95-103.

[6] Yang Haibo&Ma Dong. An analysis on the Overseas Dissemination of "Shuang Wen and Micro-Drama" From the Perspective of Reception Aesthetics[J]. Media Forum, 2024, 7(20):62-64.

中国式霸总小说&短剧

引言

近几年，随着短视频平台在国内外的爆火，时长更短、节奏更快的微短剧正在吸引更多观众的目光。微短剧是“竖屏”时代的产物，主要是为了满足用户碎片化的观影需求，一部微短剧总集数从十几到几十不等，每集短至几十秒，长达十几分钟。短剧之风兴起于国内市场，以抖音、快手等线上短视频平台为播放渠道，题材较为单一，主要以“霸道总裁”强取豪夺的爱情故事为叙事主线。随后，在海外推广过程中经本土化，外国版“霸道总裁”的故事在tiktok、ReelShort等APP上演，成功俘获了一大批外国观众。

而要了解这类“霸总”短剧的爆火，就必须了解其前身——霸道总裁类型小说（以下简称霸总文）。目前国内的很多霸总短剧都是由小说改编而来，且无论是小说还是短剧，其核心叙事逻辑都是相同的。

柯倩婷（2021）认为霸总文是伴随着网络文学而成长起来的一种言情小说亚文类，主要描写的是现代都市男女爱情故事。而根据男主是否虐待女主，霸总文又分为虐文和甜文两种（柯倩婷，2021：98）。在这类文体或短剧中，作者或编剧为追求戏剧冲突和情节张力，会刻意将矛盾和情节极端化，以形成前后反差和对比，满足读者或观众的猎奇心理和快感。比如霸总在前期总是冷酷无情，但爱上女主之后就变得有人情味了。或霸总对所有人都很冷漠，但唯独对女主温柔贴心。梁颐（2015）指出这类文学和影视创作的典型特征就是重复对总裁情节母题的使用。换句话说，就是套路固定，内容同质化。事业成功、相貌出众但脾气暴戾公司总裁在机缘巧合下遇到普通平凡却积极乐观的女主，后两人经过一系列的误会，最终相爱并收获大团圆结局。

令人费解的是，尽管短剧和小说中“霸总”式的文艺创作充斥着男强女弱的话语表征，与当代女性所追求的‘平权和解放’思想背道而驰，但仍在互联网上掀起很大热度。那么，这些作品究竟凭何赢得女性受众的喜爱呢？这背后蕴含着复杂的文化、经济和社会因素。

Ⅰ霸总小说和短剧中的男女形象建构

首先，霸总类型的文艺作品倾向于夸大男女性别特征。如在进行男性形象描写时常使用“气宇轩昂”、“英气逼人”、“身材高大”、“肌肉分明”、“肩膀宽厚”、“体魄强壮”等词汇，突出表现男主的优越外形和男子气概。而在介绍女主时，却将其刻画为“身材娇小”、“手指纤细”、“杨柳细腰”的形象。

其次，既是霸总，男主人公不仅相貌出众，而且有钱有权，具备相当的经济实力，可以使用“钞能力”解决各种问题。但男主通常性格暴戾、不善言辞、待人冷漠无情，甚至不近女色。但一旦爱上女主之后，便会变得专一，甚至为了获得女主的爱，会采取极端的手段，如囚禁女主，将其强行留在身边。而女主则出身普通家庭，虽命运坎坷，却善良单纯，积极乐观，对生活充满热爱。故事的典型开场为，女主因经济上陷入窘境，被迫与男主签订某种协议或出卖身体，在双方协议即将到期时，男主突然发现自己已经爱上女主，但女主不从，后霸总将其关在自己的私人小岛或豪宅中，强迫女主与其发生关系。而在囚禁和虐待中，女主非但没有产生仇恨，还爱上了男主，并发现其暴虐的原因是来自原生家庭的伤害或某些情感创伤。故事的最后，因为爱情的力量，男主变得温和、善解人意，两人也过上了幸福的生活。

有人认为这样的人物形象建构和叙事逻辑在一定程度上符合商业时代下女性对理想伴侣的想象：多金宠妻。与霸总恋爱不仅能收获情感上的抚慰，并且也能在物质生活上得到满足。于是，在现实生活中婚恋不如意的女性，便将目光转向这类霸总小说和短剧，以寻求慰藉（黄丽群，2017：32）。也有部分学者主张，这类作品流行的原因在于满足了女性追求刻骨铭心爱情的感性心理和长久以来对男性依赖的潜意识（魏佳瑞，2017：46）。

但是，霸总作品中男权的压迫和虐待完全违背了恋爱关系中尊重和平等的基本原则。虐待不是爱，也无法发展成爱。暴力手段也同样不能被美化。另外，虽然男女在生理结构方面确有差距，但这类作品总是将女性刻画为娇弱的低能者，这不仅是种刻板印象，更是对女性的弱化和矮化。更重要的是，在这类题材中，霸总使用金钱帮女主解决各种问题，最终抱得美人归的故事侧面反映了物质主义和商业主义对情感的操控，即金钱是购买感情的货币。

Ⅱ女性欲望的表达

不同于严肃文学和电视影像，霸总短剧和小说以手机为媒介进行传播，这样一来就具备完全的个人性和私密性。也就是说，这类作品为受众创造出了一个独立空间，在这个世界中她们所接受的信息是私密的，不与他人所共享的（柯倩婷，2012：104）。而这一特性恰恰满足了中国女性的两大隐秘欲望。

一是物质欲。中国传统的婚恋观认为一个“好女孩”不应该贪图物质生活和享受，只有不掺杂金钱的纯粹爱情才值得歌颂和推崇。如在中国民间爱情佳话，王宝钏和薛平贵的故事中，王宝钏虽贵为宰相的女儿，却不嫌贫爱富，宁愿嫁给乞丐薛平贵。但在现代生存逻辑中，物质是一个人生存的必要条件，人们参与劳动是为了获取维持生活的物质所需，而人们所进行的一系列活动也需要物质支持。建立恋爱关系或婚姻关系亦属于社会活动的一部分，同样需要物质支撑。然而，倘若女性在恋爱关系中对金钱有所要求，就会被贴上“拜金”的标签。因此，这就导致即便是女性是出于生育成本或其他各种因素考虑，对男性的经济实力有所要求，也会迫于压力而难以开口。

但在霸总小说和短剧中，开诚布公地谈钱不再是恋爱关系中的禁忌，女性对于物质的追求也变得合理化了。身价不菲的霸总或是豪掷千金只为博女主一笑，或是将名下的所有股份房产全部赠与女主，又或是买下古堡举行婚礼等等，这些都以一种夸张的手法满足了女性在物质方面的一种理想愿景。在那个世界中，金钱的赠予是一种表达爱的方式，女主不会因为对物质的索取被批判“拜金”，相反，对于女主的要求，霸总是回答“你想要的我都可以给你”。

二是性的欲望。在中文语境中，人们较少谈及性这个话题。然而处于大好青春年华的女性确有对性正常的好奇和欲望。正如之前提到的，霸总小说和短剧具有私密性，因此，其中对于性的描写和拍摄相较于普通言情出版物和电视剧来说更为大胆。所以，这类作品便成为了她们表达感情和欲望的载体。甚至对于一些青春期的女性受众来说，这类夸张作品起到了性启蒙的作用。

但是，满足女性这两大欲望就算是以女性为中心的作品了吗？不然，霸总小说和短剧的底层逻辑仍然是对女性的规训和剥削。自故事伊始，男女主的关系就是一场交易。比如，在《名门挚爱：帝少的千亿宠儿》小说中，女主就是在一场交易中被送给男主用作玩物的。开始男主只将女主当做性发泄的对象，并给予她经济补偿，直到后来才逐渐意识到两人之间已经建立起感情。实际上，这是将残暴合理化，将女性被强奸行为合法化。女性对于自己的身体没有控制权和自由权。

再者，这类作品中还充斥着一种封建大家长式的控制。男主以爱之名对女主在各个方面对女主进行约束，比如要求女主不能同其他男性正常交往等，传递出一种‘爱的越深，控制欲就越强’的错误观念。李超指出，传统的性别等级观念虽然不再起主导作用，但仍然以一种残余的、更新的形式发挥着自己影响力（2017：136）。霸总就是在利用强大的经济实力和残余的男强女弱的性别观念对女性进行规训，使其按照自己的意志活动。

Ⅲ营销方式

霸总小说和短剧的广泛传播不仅得益于内容“吸睛”，而且离不开其“无孔不入”的宣传营销。从小说讲起，晋江文学城、起点中文网等是最早一批发布霸总文和女频文的在线网络平台。若想阅读相关小说，读者需先登录网站进行查找。之后，随着网络文学进一步发展，获取霸总小说的平台也进一步拓宽，大量阅读APP开始抢占用户和市场份额，如番茄小说、七猫免费小说等。这些APP打着“免费阅读”的旗号，通过在电视、在线视频平台投放广告、聘请代言人、在公交、地铁投放广告大屏的方式不断扩大知名度，提高APP下载量。于是，“找文阅读”的阶段结束，网文开始渗透进网民生活，自己找上门来。微博、微信等社交媒体也开始搭载网文广告并向用户推送，用户在免费阅读完小说前几章后，就必须下载专门平台进行付费阅读。

而霸总微短剧采取的营销方式则更商业化。总体来讲，霸总短剧最突出的营销策略就是“切片尝鲜，付费观看”。网络时代，流量为王。投流方根据短剧的成片剪辑成一个个素材切片，这些素材切片通常是短剧中最刺激、最引人入胜的部分，将其投放到抖音、快手等短视频平台，进行大规模推流，感兴趣的观众刷到后就可点击评论区的链接进行观看（杨海波&马东，2024）。此时，观众就算“上钩”了。短剧的前几集通常都是免费观看，剩余剧集则需观看广告免费解锁或付费才能继续观看。由于每天观看广告能解锁的集数有限，所以很多观众会选择付费观看。而一旦观看或购买过此类短剧后，平台会利用大数据向用户不断推送可能感兴趣的短剧，从而再次诱导消费。

批判与反思

诞生于网络时代，霸总小说和短剧以一种低成本的方式满足了人们的娱乐需求，但其反映出的思想观念却值得警惕。首先，尽管这类作品的主要受众为女性群体，但仍沿袭了传统“男性凝视”下的女性形象刻画。女主在遭受了男主的言语暴力、性暴力等种种后，并没有选择果断离开这段糟糕的亲密关系，而是在男主“追妻火葬场”的猛烈追求下，选择原谅男主并重新陷入爱情。用如此辱女的情节来取悦女性受众还能获得广泛的市场接受度，事实上反映了父权制社会中深蒂固的错误思想观念：男性是权力中心和支配者，而女性属于下位者。其次，这类作品虽宣扬为女性造梦，追求与金钱无关的、纯粹的真挚爱情，但并没有摆脱庸俗功利的现实。男主正是借助经济手段和权力手段对女主开展追求的。另外，这类作品还极力美化商人的逐利本质，将拥有庞大商业帝国、精通于资本运作的霸总塑造成“恋爱脑”的形象，并突出其通往成功道路上的自我奋斗。这种“真、善、美”的形象构建表面上是写手对于“上等阶层”的想象，实则却是“上等阶层”进入文化领域，运用经济资本宣传自我理念的表现（李超，2017：138）。

霸总题材文艺作品的流行，让我们得以洞见当今社会人们的部分价值观，即追逐物质享受和权力地位，将处理恋爱关系与资本逻辑相提并论，认为持有财富就能够购买爱情。然而幸运的是，由于这类作品夸张的描写，读者完全有能力将其与现实区别开来，并不存在过度带入情境的情况。正如黑格尔所说，存在即合理，我们要允许“阳春白雪”和“下里巴人”同时存在。生活在压力巨大的现代社会，选择看一些“无脑”的霸总小说和短剧也不失为排解压力、放松身心的方式。

术语和表达

Chinese Bossy Fictions & Bossy Micro-drama中国式霸总小说&短剧

plot motif 情节母题

paternalistic 家长式作风的

Jinjiang Literature City 晋江文学城

Qidian Chinese Website 起点中文网

female-oriented 女频文

video slices 视频切片

traffic 流量

stream promotion 推流

the male gaze 男性凝视

问题

1.霸总小说最早起源于哪些网站

2.霸总短剧的营销模式是什么？

3.霸总小说和短剧在某种程度上满足了女性的哪些欲望？

4.霸总小说和短剧属于女频文学吗？

参考文献

[1]谷李. 情不自禁的资本主义：理解霸道总裁[J]. 国际新闻界，2019，41（05）：110-123.

[2]黄丽群. “总裁文”：爱情神话消亡时代的另类想象[J]. 苏州教育学院学报，2017，34（06）：32-37.

[3]柯倩婷. 霸道总裁文的文化构型与读者接受[J]. 妇女研究丛论，2021（02）：97-107+128.

[4]李超. “霸道总裁”形象：当代大众文化中“上等阶层”的想象[J]. 天府新论，2017（03）：134-139.

[5]龙小农&李芙蓉. 从Netflix到Reelshort：流媒体平台全球传播模式分析[J]. 当代电影，2024（11）：95-103.

[6]杨海波&马东. 接受美学视域下“爽文短剧”的海外传播探析[J]. 传媒论坛，2024，7（20）：62-64.