Quality and reputation have been tempered and tested by the double "touchstone" of "Emmy Award" and yield. "Modern Family", an American family situation comedy that was produced in 2009 and has been broadcast for the four seasons, still creates a popular and popular TV. The myth of sitcoms. Family situational comedies are classics of situational comedies. The troubles of growing up and everyone loves Redmond, which were all the rage in the 1980s, occupied the mainstream influential position in the American television and media industry. After being occupied by the new type of situational comedies that have emerged from the 1990s to the new millennium-"Friends" and "The Big Bang Theory", the development of family situational comedies can be described as sluggish. Until 2009, the family situational comedy "Modern" launched by ABC "Family" (Modern family) came out, achieving a double success in art and business, and it can be said that it "revived" family situational comedy.
To gain a foothold in the overwhelming trend of new situational comedies and become a "dark horse" and "evergreen tree", "Modern Family" as a traditional type of family situation comedy must have a "modern" that caters to the trend of the times and meets the demands of reality. Place. The modern and diversified family model, the perfect combination of the values of love and understanding with the funny and nonsensical aesthetics, and the innovative shooting and production methods can be described as the "three magic weapons" of "Modern Family".
The diversified family model of the times.
When watching "Modern Family" for the first time, the American family structure that the audience was accustomed to and familiar with was broken. The most basic elements of parents, siblings and children still exist, but intertwined kinship and family gender. The dislocation and the setting of the family model across ages and races, on the one hand, is a condensed microcosm of the real American society in the new era, and has a strong sense of the times and audience acceptance; on the other hand, it is also a development of the story and a steady stream of jokes. The source of life.
Compared to the life of a multi-child family in the suburbs of the United States shown to the audience in "The Troubles of Growing Up" in the 1980s, "Modern Family" conveys to the audience that the changing American middle-class society in the 21st century can cover almost all kinds of things. Such a "new style" family structure. Transnational marriages, gay families, old and young love, second-time families, and adopted families are all present in the three families that Pritchett has expanded for nuclear families. Jie, who has reached the age of earshun, has a daughter, Claire and Michelle. After the divorce, Jie reorganized a new family with the hot Colombian single mom, Gloria, who was more than 20 years younger than him, and her adolescent son Manny. The Claire family is a typical American middle-class family, with the wife of a housewife and the husband of a real estate agent, as well as three very different children Hailey, Alex and Luke. Michelle and her gay lover Cameron adopted a Vietnamese girl, Lily.
Among the structural elements of Jie’s home, Jie is a veteran who participated in the Vietnam War and now has a lot of wealth; Gorollia was a single mother who was smuggled from Colombia to the United States, and was a single mother who initially lived in a slum-the union of the two is full of Has a social symbolic meaning. In the United States with an immigrant background, practical problems such as cultural conflicts and racial discrimination between old and new immigrants are still prominent. In the American society that has undergone a long period of social reform, these are still very sensitive "minefields" for Chinese people. "Modern Family" does not evade this social hotspot and sensitive point, but transforms decadence into magic through character settings.
The most "spectacular" family structure is the family of Michelle and XXX. What is "spectacular"? It is the unique advantage of film and television dramas that can magnify the details of life on the screen, allowing the audience to release their suppressed feelings and perceptions on the screen. Among the three families in "Modern Family", the most "modern" Michel family is not only here, but the other "modern" place is the adopted Vietnamese girl Lily. Asian adopted kids is also a social phenomenon that has become fashionable in the United States in recent decades. In the plot setting, the lesbian family and the African adopted kids family also appeared as supporting roles, colliding with the Michel Cameron family and creating a spark of the times.
The Claire family is a traditional American middle-class family structure. The "original" parents and three children are connected to the social community by a traditional pure blood relationship. If there is no Claire family, there is a suspicion that the screenwriter will choose to describe the new-style family, and the "modern" family will be renamed the "wonderful" family. And joining the Claire family as the protagonist, the whole situational comedy is a natural and true "modern" family that reflects society.
The first "modern" feature of the new-style family situation comedy is that in the character setting, the three families not only conform to the new trend, but also cover the tradition, deeply and completely cut the veil of the family structure of American society today.
The theme highlights the values of love and understanding. In
recent years, from "True Love as Blood" to "The First Vampires", "Sex and the City" to "Desperate Housewives", the American TV drama industry is flooded with huge numbers of works of the same type. Taking "Sex and the City" as an example, its theme is whether love is lust or lust in a modern city full of desire and temptation. In various soap operas (such as "The Vampire Diaries", "Broken Sisters", and "Mom"), the protagonist groups are almost permuted and combined in love, frequent one night stand, and casual derailment plots to a certain extent. Confounding the public's vision-is American society really as "open" and "post-modernist" as shown in their TV series, abandoning traditional values? Today, when the public aesthetic is full of changes and even revolutions, traditional family situation comedies take the traditional family view as the theme. Does it still have a market?
TV commentator Hirst once said: "American situational comedy provides a series of rules for its culture-the rules of how to fall in love, the rules of how to distinguish between truth and deception, the rules of how to train children, the rules of how to hold a dinner party. and many more."
"Modern Family" is a well-received drama that successfully picked up traditional values. In "Modern Family", there are no "hot spots" of derailment, one night stand, no sex jokes, or "excitements" of lust; some are the warmth of tolerance between family members after conflicts, and the annoying and warmth of children growing up , The understanding and tolerance learned because of love when conflicting with their values. When "Modern Family" was launched in 2009, when the US economy was weak and depressed, people had already experienced the cruelty of economic shady and gloom in real life. On the one hand, "Modern Family" was the psychological comfort of the American people at the time, a dose of positive "family" energy at the time of their economic crisis, and on the other hand, it guided the trend of retrospect of traditional values.
Father Jie is a traditional American tough old man, but his son is the most unacceptable homosexual group; his wife Claire is a control freak with obsessive-compulsive disorder, her husband and Phil is an extremely liberal romantic; sister Hailey is Beautiful and popular socialite, and younger sister Alex is a serious schoolmaster... What is out of place is the personality and temperament of the individual, while love and understanding are smoothly integrated.
Priceless family affection is the core value conveyed by this play. The messy and noisy family life depicted in the work is full of precious family affection, hidden or visible. ④ For example, Claire doesn't like Gloria, a stepmother who is more beautiful and younger than her. She avoided getting along closely with Gorollia everywhere, but she was a little jealous of the harmonious relationship between her brother Michel and Gorollia. In episode x, she was jealous to Michelle complaining about his close relationship with Gorollia and was heard by Gorollia, and Gorollia replied to her "Indeed, I like Michelle." More than you. Because I am not your favorite person in this family, or even your favorite Colombian. You have my phone number, but you have never called me." Claire was stunned by the frankness of Gorollia Later, "Call me in advance, my schedule is very full." Gloria gave another step. When in this awkward relationship established by convention, Gloria opened Claire’s heart with love frankly and sincerely, and really taught the audience a lesson-in the face of a gap that we think cannot be crossed, only love is ability and Courage, especially in the family.
Contrary to the protagonist of the "Gao Daquan" style, the characters in "Modern Family" are ordinary people, and even some characters are offensive "exotic flowers". For example, Michelle’s "Sharing Disorder", he has the absolute right to use every object that belongs to him. Cameron can’t use his exclusive bowl, exclusive pillow, and even the pillow will be taken away by Cameron when he sleeps. The selfish character of "MY PILLOW!" is really boring. Cameron is also not a perfect person. In the audience comments of "Sohu Video", he was described as a person who "slowed down the plot process and caused professional troubles." This is true. Cameron is an enthusiastic and sensitive person, so enthusiastic that passersby can hold a wedding at his home, and so sensitive that his creativity can burst into tears as long as it is not praised. And so on, in the eyes of us "normal" audiences, every character is "wonderful." In ordinary humanity, even the not-so-lovable humanity, the reason why the audience is moved and moved is that we can see tolerance and power-people don't have to be perfect, because there is always someone who can tolerate your quirks. Everyone is a broken piece, and the whole family is a complete circle.
The "A big family" full of joy and laughter is also "A big love family". In this family-situated comedy, the positive energy that the audience reaps after laughter is not limited to the kinship between blood, but the non-blood love that floods the reorganization of the family, the adopted family, and the gay family. "Love and understanding" is an eternal theme, which is firmly adhered to with the changes of the family structure of the times, reflecting its strong vitality.
Innovation in shooting methods The
original situational comedies have the characteristics of TV column dramas. For example, most of them are shot in the studio, the scenes are concentrated, the camera is fixed, the multi-camera is shot, there are live audiences watching the performance, and so on. But "Modern Family" showed more new features in the production and shooting methods. ⑤
The "pseudo documentary" style, character interviews and even secret shooting are the innovations and highlights of the production method of this film. The shaky push camera and the occasional visual camera of the characters create a realistic atmosphere. It seems that the audience is not watching a professional TV series produced by a team, but a documentary filmed by a family DV. In this kind of deliberately operated "non-professional" shooting, the audience's inherent reservation attitude towards TV shows is subtly changed, but there is a kind of "authenticity" resonance, which is also the indoctrination of the theme value of "Modern Family" The technical reasons for the role played. There is a scene that is often repeated: the first shot is Phil often holding the family hand-held DV to shoot three children, the next shot is the picture of the children shot by the DV. This is the "Ecstasy" of the screenwriters-it confuses the audience's perception. Phil was originally an actor in the filming scene, but the scenes he shot became part of the broadcast scenes, and then he became a TV series. The "producer". The closeness and realism of the "pseudo documentary" style are the breakthrough of this film.
Traditional situational comedies are usually shot indoors with fixed scenes, and the scenes are concentrated, mostly with fixed shots and panoramic views. Movement through a variety of shots also played a role in showing the character of the characters and promoting the development of the plot, especially when the plot was in a big reversal. For example, in the 22nd episode of the third season, Claire invited her friend’s nephew to play with the whole family at Disney. In the middle shot, Hayley and Alex were impatient and complaining with each other. The camera immediately shifted to the close-up of Claire. She was helpless. Expression, the camera immediately turned to the boy outside the door-handsome and mature, the sports camera turned to the close shot of Alex's excitement and trembling, before Alex could introduce herself, she was pushed out of the camera by Hayley, and then The camera zooms in close to the close-up of Hailey’s excited conversation. A few shots and scene switching reveal the adolescent thoughts and tricks of Alex and Hailey without any doubt. In the end, Hailey’s close-up of the spring heart on the camera makes people can’t help but laugh. Compared with traditional situational comedy that relies heavily on words to make dramatic jokes, the use of scene switching and multiple shots to produce silent jokes is more fashionable and clever.
The production method of inserting character interviews is very different from the editing that maintains the narrative fluency. Inserting the protagonist's interview in the middle or even the climax of the story development, the interview content is mostly inner monologue, which is part of the script creation, and more innovations in the production method. Individuals can analyze themselves in front of the camera and show their true inner thoughts. It has the following functions:
First of all, quickly shape the image and character of the characters, saving a lot of space in the layout design. In an interview with Claire and Feir, Phil is proud of his popularity among women and even his abilities in the boudoir. He immediately sketched out his simple-minded and casual personality. This is an image that requires a lot of puns and subtexts on the "table". In the setting of character interviews, Phil Fangfo entered a world of communicating with the audience alone. He removed his identity as a good father and a good son-in-law. , Just become Claire's lover, or just become himself. The revelation of human nature is very cute, especially Claire's awkward and inaction when Phil shows off, it is more real and ridiculous.
Secondly, the contrast between the characters’ inner feelings and reality during the character interviews is also a dramatic manifestation. For example, Cameron didn't want to work in his heart. During the interview, he revealed that he could not bear to leave Lily for a second. In the "real" life, he had to "take care of" Michelle's feelings and encouraged Michelle to rest at home. Michele accepted it on the surface, but in the character interview, he was about to collapse and shouted that he couldn't stand Baby whispering. Both of them thought of the overall situation and misunderstood their partner but did useless work. On the one hand, the audience can see the two people making a series of jokes because of their misunderstanding from an omniscient perspective, which achieves the purpose of a comedy—to entertain the audience; on the other hand, it also creates a unique comedy atmosphere for the whole play—the truth can be more. It's dramatic.
"Pseudo-documentary" style, multi-shot switching and character interviews, this is undoubtedly one of the new breakthroughs in family situational drama.
American situational comedies have always been the template for Chinese sitcoms. From "The Troubles of Growing Up" to the dark horses of the Chinese generation, "I Love My Family" and "Family Have Children", from the "Love Apartment" and "Friends" that have spread all over the country. We can infer that the Chinese sitcom world is guided by the trend of American sitcoms. And there is a time interval of several years. If the future Chinese local situational comedy can learn more from "Modern Family" in the diversified family model of the times, the return of traditional family values, and the methods of filming and production, and localize and modernize the "modern" place, there will be Prosperity, broad prospects and future.
"Learning English-Words in the News" BBC news published in 17 September, 2007
62nd Emmy Awards Best Drama Award
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63rd Emmy Awards Best Drama Award
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64th Annual Emmy Award for best Drama
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65th Emmy Award for best director
Marc, D. (2005) "Origins of genre", In MMDalton, &L.R. Linder Editor (Eds ), The sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skew ed (PP. 14一19). Albany, New York: State University of New York Press .
④ "A Discussion on the Artistic Style and Cultural Significance of American Situational Comedy "Modern Family"" Lv Xiaozhi China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House
⑤ "The Realistic Appeal of Sitcoms -An Analysis of American Drama "Sitcoms "" Duan Tingting Journal of Guizhou University, 2011 December 25, Issue 4
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