Editor's note: Since 2019, the "Answers" year-end show of Observer.com has invited well-known experts and scholars at home and abroad, leaders, entrepreneurs, and science popularization workers every year to bring a feast of academics and ideas to contemporary young audiences.
2023 is a year of recovery after the shock. China and the world are back to high-speed connectivity and "two-way travel". In the midst of instability and uncertainty, the world needs China's answers, and China's heading for the world also needs new answers.
At the 2023 answer year-end show, Ms. Pan Nini, associate professor of East China Normal University, took Japanese pop culture as the starting point in the "Renaissance in the New Era" unit, and explained how China's pop culture industry created cultural products in the new era in the process of finding a down-to-earth national cultural narrative, so as to resist the once serious "culture shock" in a special way.
Pennie: The topic of my talk today is "Pop Culture, From Shock to Counterattack". The word "counterattack" is actually a bit exaggerated, but because it corresponds to "impact", I can't think of any other suitable word for the time being, so let's use this first.
Why do we care about the influence of pop culture.
On the subject of pop culture, let me start with a very small personal experience. In 2017 I traveled to Russia. Hanging from the backpack is a thing in the shape of a Pikachu's head, a myth of animation and games, made in Japan. One day I went to Lenin's tomb on Red Square and forgot that I still had this thing on my backpack. Originally, according to my personality, I would have taken it off, but I didn't think about it at the time. Then I went straight inside, the security guard, a tall and handsome little boy, suddenly very happy to point to my bag and called: "pikachuu" I was startled, I didn't know how to answer, while thinking that the little boy was very cute, while thinking: "Eh, is it really good to be so unserious".
Such a small thing can intuitively see the strong penetration of pop culture symbols - Japanese symbols, Korean products, young men in Russia, and a not-so-young woman in China, these seemingly unrelated elements are connected in an instant.
Since the last century, there have been many, many discussions in the world and academic circles about the possible social and even political impact of popular culture, and it has also given many complex meanings to popular culture. To put it simply, there are probably some academic views:
One is that pop culture gives high added value to commodities and can gain an advantage for the producing country in foreign affairs. This view should not be controversial.
The second point that is most likely to attract attention is the "soft power" of pop culture. It is believed that pop culture will directly impact and deconstruct the existing mainstream value system, or construct a new identity among the pop culture audience, thereby indirectly deconstructing mainstream values.
The third point of view is actually an extension of the second point of view, which believes that the growth of the people who are deeply influenced by pop culture, the generation that grew up watching TV, and the generation that has been surfing the Internet since they can remember, will bring about changes in cultural values and even society.
In the last century, when this kind of opinion and research began to flourish, it was roughly the same time that overseas pop culture goods began to hit the Chinese market. It is no exaggeration to say that in the minds of many outsiders at that time, China was simply the perfect paradise for the import and impact of overseas pop culture. China has a large untapped consumer market for entertainment, a large number of well-educated and skilled artists who have no understanding of business and industry, not to mention, and a tacit purpose in everyone's mind, which is "peaceful evolution"—to make your money, let your people work cheaply, and by the way, rearrange your entire society. The pop culture shock of the last century seems to be so powerful.
Let's use an animated movie as an example today. Before the last century, we actually had a relatively mature animation creation model, which was commonly known as art films when we were children. They are indeed a kind of fine art, a kind of artwork, a kind of "national culture" in the new era. They were once shocked, abandoned, and despised, but today we have rediscovered their beauty, and it is something to be happy about. For example, my favorite one, "The Fisherman", is a paper-cut animation from Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio in 1959.
When we talk about "national culture" here, we do not mean that it is so-called ancient, "mysterious", or "original", but that it is basically oriented to the audience of the nation in the country, from the masses, to the masses. For example, the story of "The Fisherman", which comes from the collective historical memory of the Chinese nation, is a folk legend that reflects the spirit of the people's spontaneous resistance to imperialism. This kind of content may not be understood without the historical experience of counter-aggression. The foreign missionary in "The Fisherman" is keen to pick up Chinese antiques, and he has a line that is now quite famous on the Internet: "The fishing pot is a treasure from our country". As soon as Chinese hear this, they can instinctively feel that this person is a villain. But in other countries, you may not have this feeling when you hear this line, and some countries may also think, oh, foreign missionaries praise your cultural relics for being good, this is cultural soft power, you should be happy, he wants you to give it to him. Therefore, different countries may not be able to empathize with their own people's historical memory.
In addition to the national characteristics of the content, the expression of "The Fisherman" is also ethnic, including the expression of paper-cutting and shadow puppetry, as well as the color scheme of folk customs. And the production process of this kind of work is artisanal, not market-oriented. This is very important, so no matter how subtle the content and meaning of such an art film is, it will inevitably be unable to resist in the face of the impact of global pop culture, because the global pop culture from the United States is to reinterpret "national culture". So there is no way for the two to coexist.
In the 90s of the last century, I remember watching three Disney animations in a very dilapidated workers' cinema in a small part of my hometown. "The Lion King", "Pocahonta" and "Mulan". Of course, I'm not here to criticize these works, they left very good memories of my teenage years. I just want to say here that the common denominator of these works is that they all emphasize ethnic elements in their performance, the Africa of the Lion King, the North American aborigines of the wind, and Mulan's China, for the national cultural elements of these regions can be said to be very accurate and imitated, but they are just elements. But the connotation of all the stories is the same, they are all underage girls, occasionally teenagers, these minors are healthy, lively and beautiful, for various reasons, detached from their original national living environment and living customs, in a long journey with foreign cultures collision, to achieve a most joyful adventure story. On the one hand, the elements of national culture are full, and on the other hand, the whole story requires the protagonist to break away from his original life. Then, the more "national culture" these stories are in appearance, the more it will cover the historical memory of the original "national culture".
That's why I said earlier that there is no way for the powerful Disney animation and that kind of national art film to coexist, and our tradition will inevitably decline under the impact. In addition, we were so poor at that time, and we didn't understand what the marketization and industrialization of animation creation was, so we could only let it impact. This is actually a market problem and an economic problem, just as French films can't beat American films in the market, and Russian literature and poetry used to go into shock along with the economy, are these cultures not good enough? No, but it just doesn't sell for money.
However, people are poor and short-sighted, and we are a nation that is accustomed to thinking, so Disney animation aroused widespread reflection in society at that time. For example, if you look at our animation, we will only teach children hatred, but when you watch Disney animation, it is full of love and something, and Chinese have no sense of humor or anything. These critiques and reflections go far beyond the animated film works themselves.
In 1999, our animators were learning from Hollywood for a year and made an animated film, which was "Pauline Lantern". The film is entirely an attempt to put on the Disney model, and it carefully picks a piece of folklore. This story is very suitable for adaptation, it is mainly about a dispute within a family, so there are contradictions and conflicts, but it is not too outrageous. The legend of splitting the mountain to save the mother can also be completely set on Disney-style juvenile adventures. Then the movie also specially found the most popular Hong Kong and Taiwan singers at that time to sing OP and ED. The whole routine is completely Disney's and is market-oriented.
At that time, people hoped that this work would become a contender for Disney films, and it pinned a lot of hopes. But not surprisingly, hopes were disappointed. There is no way to do this, and it is impossible for a child who has just entered the lower grades of primary school to do a good job in college advanced math problems. So when this work fails. Of course, looking back now, we will have more tolerance and positive attitude towards "Baolian Lantern", but at that time, it was a failure, and it is no exaggeration to say that only despair remains. We were shocked, we tried to adapt, we tried to be like each other, and it turned out that you didn't have that opportunity at all. There is no way to make up for that huge gap. This is not only the case with animated films, but also in other fields, such as automobiles, gas-burning cars. So in the society at that time, in the face of the impact of overseas pop culture, we seemed to have only two ways, either complete surrender or complete resistance. In fact, the attitude is the same, they all feel that they are too strong, too strong, and they can't catch up, and they can't catch up in this life.
Today, however, we see a path that we never imagined. There was no resistance and no surrender. A few years ago, there was a phenomenal animation work, which was "Nezha Demon Boy Descends to the World". Before it, no one would have imagined that China's animated films would far outperform many overseas blockbusters at the box office, just as no one would have imagined that China's patriotic action and science fiction films could be so successful. In front of the box office list of Chinese movies, there are basically no Hollywood blockbusters. This kind of scene, not to mention the 80s and 90s of the last century, no one imagined it about 10 years ago.
But is a work like "Nezha Demon Boy Descends" a "counterattack" against Hollywood and Disney? In Western theories of international relations, more emphasis is placed on the balance of power between the great powers, such as the Thucydides trap or something. So theoretically speaking, the box office of Chinese animation is high, and the income of overseas animation is low, which can be regarded as a "counterattack". But I think that in fact, the development of contemporary animated films, like many other achievements in China, is not so much a counterattack, but rather a gradual path of our own, and there is no need to compare with the West. For example, the work "The Birth of the Demon Boy", as well as its previous "The Return of the Great Sage", and the later "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an", etc., we say that if we must discuss the performance skills in detail, discuss the maturity of the screenwriter's storytelling ability, and discuss the ability of animation industrialization, these can still be said to be very far from the mature Disney industry. But much of what makes them surpass Disney is that they are closer to the Chinese audience's own life experience. This is also a new "national culture", which uses a new way to tell the current life of Chinese people and express Chinese's own understanding of history or traditional culture.
There was a time in the past when we tried to get people who were good at storytelling, but who didn't have the experience of national life, to help us tell the national culture, for example, we used the best Japanese artists, or we used the mature framework of Western knight stories to frame our history. But now it's different, in many of today's works, we will feel that the author may not be so good at telling stories, but he has a very strong life experience, which is commonly known as down-to-earth. In these works, perhaps our current way of telling is still very immature, and our understanding of our own tradition still seems to be one-sided or impulsive. But at least, we're already getting started. As long as the land under our feet and our self-identity do not change, the "national culture" of the new era will naturally become more and more mature.
This kind of transformation happens naturally, maybe it has achieved the effect of "fighting back" to some extent, but it is not a conscious "counterattack", but because we are now more willing to face our real life, to love our life, to analyze our life, to change our life. As long as the life reflected in the story belongs to us, then no matter how much we imitate others in terms of skills and methods, we will not be "shocked" by overseas culture at every turn.
But the interesting thing is that we are now calm, and it is the turn of some countries that have hit us before to be anxious. Because as mentioned earlier, there are indeed some countries where some people want to change China through pop culture without being very tired and troublesome. Now, of course, they are mirror-thinking, fearing that the pop culture produced in China will in turn change their young people. Therefore, it is not China that really cares about the concept of "counterattack", but those countries that once thought they represented the whole world.
I think that for contemporary culture, "shock" and "counterattack" are outdated words and should be replaced with the word we all know, that is, mutual learning among civilizations. This is the ** I photographed at this year's CIIE, where "Genshin Impact" appeared, about Genshin Impact, some people think that it reflects China's cultural output, and some people think that it is just imitating Japan's two-dimensional culture. These two views are not contradictory. Because our culture, our life, is inherently rich and complex with very rich and complex spices.
Genshin Impact booth at the Expo.