Who is to blame for the chaos in the film and television industry where unprofessional young actors have become the target of public criticism?

Nowadays, the film and television industry can no longer be described as half of the country, but it is very popular. It seems that every movie must have one or two young actors, and every director will use one or two young actors to support the scene. This has become a standard feature of film and television production, as if Chinese films will not have a guarantee of box office without the participation of young actors. A movie cannot be released without investors, but most investors only care about how much money the movie can make for them.

The reason Chinese movies make money nowadays is not the plot, not the good content or story, not the superb acting skills of the actors, but the full-screen face display. Whoever has the most fans will be used. So we see that movies nowadays are basically a bunch of stars making various cameos, and then every star just waves his arm and a large number of fans flock to him.

Through the star effect and fan effect, the box office of a film has a guaranteed minimum. Then the investors are happy, the fans are laughing, the audience is angry, and the director is crying. This trend is getting more and more serious in the era of young and handsome actors, which forms a vicious circle.

In order to attract box office and make money quickly, many directors have to abandon their feelings and follow the trend, which eventually leads to the bitter fruit that movies cannot do without young actors, and young actors ask for exorbitant prices but do not allow you to film properly. With an article by screenwriter Song Fangjin and many veteran actors such as Chen Daoming and Song Dandan speaking out about this phenomenon, people's perception of this group has been refreshed again.

The trend of young and handsome men sweeping the film and television industry

The domestic film and television industry has developed rapidly in recent years. Under fierce competition, many producers rely on popular young artists to attract attention and grab ratings. However, some "fresh meat" who became popular overnight at a young age have lost themselves, taking high salaries but not being serious and unprofessional in filming, which has caused dissatisfaction among many people in the industry.

Screenwriter Song Fangjin went undercover in Hengdian and brought back too many chaotic scenes in the film and television industry, especially in the field of performance. Actors acted to the air, a play with more than 30 people was performed by stand-ins, most young actors did not memorize their lines, acting was just acting some expressions, the crew was young and handsome, and the director hardly talked about the play.

Not only screenwriter Song Fangjin, but also CPPCC member Song Dandan, director Chen Kaige and screenwriter Gao Mantang also talked about the problems of young actors during the two sessions this year. Song Dandan said that many young actors now become famous overnight just because of a song, a play or even good looks, and they have tens of millions of fans and rich rewards.

Song Dandan listed two phenomena: for example, young actors compete with each other for the number of makeup artists and assistants. Another phenomenon is that two young actors are filming together, and the one who arrives early waits in the parking lot, insisting that the others go in first. The reason is that the person who goes in later is said to be more famous. Chen Kaige also said that the phenomenon of young actors being paid high prices definitely exists, not because what they do is wrong, but because no one tells them what is right. It is a basic requirement that artists cannot take drugs and do not violate social morality.

More and more statements about young actors seem to be being verified. For a time, the topic of young artists' career outlook is flooding the Chinese film and television production environment. Some unprofessional young actors have become the "scourge" of the industry, and the sky-high pay, acting skills and other issues caused by the young actors are also pushing the film and television industry towards chronic suicide.

I think it is correct for many older artists to criticize the unprofessional young actors, because although this phenomenon may not seem very serious, it is actually influencing the social atmosphere imperceptibly. The ideological and moral qualities of many young people are declining, and many of them even give up their academic prospects.

Although these young artists are not well-trained in performing arts, they are very good at eye-catching hype. The hype will attract waves of attention. In fact, it is nothing more than some gossip and hearsay, but it can divert people's attention to other aspects by avoiding the main issues and shifting people's attention to performing skills. Over time, these lazy young talents have been created.

The most terrifying thing about the chaos is not the sky-high pay

The huge pay has forced film and television works to save money on production, which has led to a decline in the quality of the work and criticism from the audience. In response to this, the famous gold medal screenwriter Gao Mantang complained in an interview with reporters: A drama is invested 100 million yuan, and the young actors account for 50 million yuan, and the higher ones account for 70 million yuan. The remaining 30 million yuan includes various expenses such as director and production. This is not sensational but a naked reality.

In previous media reports, a list of TV drama prices for young actors was released. Among them, Wu Yifan's price has reached 120 million, Lu Han's price is between 80 million and 100 million, and Yang Yang's price is 70 million. In Gao Mantang's opinion, in addition to relying on administrative orders to curb high pay, the more important way to change the current situation is to regulate the market. When the audience and TV stations' enthusiasm for young actors decreases, the pay will return to normal.

Of course, if these young actors' acting skills were really good, they would be justified to receive high pay, but it just so happens that these young actors' acting skills are rotten to a certain extent. In a recent survey ranking young actors' poor acting skills, several popular young actors were on the list, especially a young actor who almost monopolized the comedy films of this year's Lunar New Year and the youth films of last year's summer season, ranking first. It seems that the poor acting skills of young actors have become a consensus among the audience, and the results of the survey also reveal the audience's dissatisfaction with the low quality of young actors' works.

A careful analysis shows that the acting skills of young actors are not good. Most of them are not trained in professional movies. In order to highlight their appearance, the lighting and camera of the movie will be adjusted, such as a large number of close-ups, soft light, unnecessary moving shots, and the pursuit of gorgeous visuals like MVs. If you try too hard to express the appearance of the characters, it will inevitably be difficult to touch the inner world of the characters. In particular, the immature and inadequate performances of non-professional actors are more likely to destroy the integrity of the film art level, and the audience's viewing experience is often very embarrassing.

But the poor acting skills of young actors are not innate, but caused by the various variety shows nowadays. As long as they have a little fame, they will immediately appear in various variety shows. Variety shows have high exposure, attract fans quickly, and are fun. It is not like movies where you have to memorize lines, practice acting skills, and be scolded by the audience if you don’t perform well. As a result, many stars follow suit, and then variety shows are king and film and television dramas are secondary. The schedule of the year is so tight that even flies can’t fly in. How can they find time to figure out movie roles?

In fact, compared with the above, the most hateful thing is not the high pay and poor acting skills, but the lack of professionalism is the fundamental reason why so many veteran actors can't stand it. In October 2016, when the spy drama "Sparrow" was on the air, netizens dug out the details of Li Yifeng using a double in many places in the drama. On December 8, 2016, screenwriter Wang Qinan's Weibo broke the news that "a young actor used a reverse mold and a human skin mask as a double to film a movie", which eventually made netizens focus on the suspect Yang Yang.

In the past, it was impossible for actors not to come to the set for filming. Even for some dangerous scenes, many senior actors would rather do it themselves. On the one hand, most stand-ins are not as good as themselves in shaping the characters more fully. On the other hand, as an actor, as long as it is related to their job, doing it themselves is a rare opportunity to improve their skills.

Some actors nowadays have good lines, it's not that they don't have lines, but they don't have time to memorize them. For example, using a stand-in is just a strategy made by the producer because of lack of time. This is actually a vicious cycle caused by market process.

It's not just the young actors who are dragging Chinese films into the quagmire

Now, not only actors, but also many directors have problems with their professional ethics. Many crews are now centered around young actors, and everything revolves around these unprofessional young actors. Young actors basically rely on stand-ins for acting, and don't even have to memorize their lines, but their daily pay is as high as 556,000 yuan, which is like robbing money. This is in stark contrast to the professionalism of the older generation of actors such as Chen Baoguo, Chen Daoming, and Zhang Guoli.

Then, someone will definitely ask: In this case, you as a director can choose not to use such actors! In response, Mr. Zhang Guoli gave a response that the director has no right not to use these young actors because the capital side is tough behind him. But why is the capital side tough? The problem is that investors want to use the fame and fans of young actors to open up the market, which involves the industrial chain.

Take film and television dramas for example. With young and handsome actors, they can attract advertisements, fans and eyeballs, thus boosting box office and ratings. It can be seen that the entire film and television industry is eyeing the commercial benefits that young and handsome actors may bring. When the entire industry is frantically chasing money, young and handsome actors have become the objects of pampering and pursuit in the film and television industry, and strange phenomena have also arisen from this.

Take the popular director Zhang Yimou's "The Great Wall" for example. Wang Junkai from TFboys was used in this movie. It can be said that Wang Junkai has no presence in this movie. Don't talk to me about acting skills. There are many children who are trained in performing arts. But Wang Junkai was used because of TFboys' popularity, hoping to increase the box office of "The Great Wall".

Although the problem of some unprofessional young actors does exist, it is not fair to attribute all the chaos in the film and television industry to them. The rampant young actors are, in the final analysis, due to the preference of investors and producers. Compared with veteran actors, young actors have a larger fan base. When investors invite them to play the leading roles, they not only have guaranteed traffic, but also have topicality and attention.

Fans behind the "fresh meat" will promote their idols' films and TV shows without their idols issuing orders. Even the "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" directed by Stephen Chow and Tsui Hark invited Wu Yifan and Lin Gengxin to play the leading roles. It is obviously untenable to say that they don't care about the box office.

If only young actors play the leading roles, it will not necessarily harm the film and television works themselves. The reason why the film and television industry has gone astray is that they ignore the quality of film and television works and only want to make quick money by selling looks and fans. In the eyes of investors and producers, as long as popular idols are invited to star, other production links can be simplified. The script can have flaws, the lines can be watered down, and the traces of cutouts can be ignored. It doesn’t matter how the actors perform, because the audience only sees their faces anyway.

From this perspective, it is not just the investors and producers who love fresh meat, but the audiences are also to blame. In fact, the various problems in the film and television industry are the result of the combined influence of multiple factors. Fresh meat is not the root of all evil, and the audiences are not the culprits. The opportunism of investors and producers, the lack of ambition of fresh meat, and the audience's pursuit of appearance have jointly created such an impetuous market environment.

Distorted professional values ​​will completely ruin Chinese film and television dramas

Since young handsome men became the new fashion and the first choice for actors in TV dramas, the damage to the plots of TV dramas has occurred, and the current hollowing out of plots is one of them. It is true that some genres will have a bonus effect if young handsome men are added, such as martial arts and some youth idol dramas. Martial arts dramas are themselves works of imagination that transcend reality, and youth idol dramas add flower boys to idols, which is also a true reflection of social reality. I think these are appropriate.

However, many types of dramas are really not suitable, such as period legends, anti-Japanese war dramas, and even spy dramas. The right actor plays the right role should be a universal industry rule, but under the trend, it still cannot prevent many producers and production agencies from considering young actors for the leading role, and they completely ignore the needs of the script and the role.

I don’t know how long this trend will continue, but it will certainly cause many companies and projects to fail along the way. In the daily film review process, I often encounter TV series that use actors without thinking. Very good plots and stories are used because of incompetent candidates, and the characters are hollowed out, the plot is weakened, and the plot collapses on a large scale.

Someone will definitely say that you cannot blame the hollow plot on the phenomenon of young and handsome actors. Maybe the screenwriter was like that when creating the film. I can tell you responsibly that the screenwriter's original intention should be to oppose this. However, no matter how good the screenwriter is, he cannot resist the special requirements of the producers and investors. If you don't believe me, ask the screenwriters, are they required to create plots that conform to the characteristics of young and handsome actors to adapt to the market?

Generally speaking, once such a plot comes out, the direction and style of the entire drama will quickly decline. In fact, for such a drama, this is tantamount to a disaster. I think this situation cannot be 100% the problem of young and handsome actors, but there are definitely many plots ruined by young and handsome actors. The rise of many young and handsome actors is due to talent shows and singing competitions, such as Lu Han and Wu Yifan. However, whether they started out as singers, models, variety shows, or dancers, most of them lack the masculinity of men. When femininity fills the screen, it seems to hit the excitement point of women, and they really have climaxes when consuming them.

Differentiation of aesthetics is generally acceptable, but it is not admirable to insist on playing roles in relatively serious TV dramas. The biggest danger of focusing only on young and handsome stars is the harm to the film itself and even the entire film ecosystem. When film is deeply tied to finance and the market, the film art itself is actually very easy to be ignored, which harms the overall quality of film art, including scripts, performances, etc.

If using a young actor can guarantee box office success, then the script will hardly be taken seriously. Producers will not polish the script repeatedly because the combination of popular IP and young actors is safer and easier to operate than original creation. However, this is undoubtedly a vicious cycle that will only make the quality of the film worse and worse.

In addition, not all young actors are professionally trained. They entered the entertainment industry because of their extremely high popularity. They started from a very high point, and the strong market demand made it easy for them to wait for opportunities. On the one hand, the scarcity of young actors is highlighted. On the other hand, young actors have to use their shelf life to maximize their self-worth. In addition to singing and performing, they also have to appear on variety shows and shoot commercials. The time left for them to figure out the role and hone their acting skills is very limited, which is actually very unfavorable to the long-term development of actors.

Heart disease needs heart medicine to cure it. The same is true for movies and TV series.

The emergence of young actors has caused chaos in film and television dramas. Of course, heart disease needs to be treated with heart medicine. If we want domestic film and television dramas to get back on track, we still need to purify ourselves from the industry. Many producers only seek to realize cash quickly in the short term, and the pursuit of artistic quality takes a back seat; investors bundle big IP, young actors, high ratings, and high traffic.

Over time, this type of bad drama has become the mainstream of the market, while works that truly rely on quality have become so-called unpopular because of being suppressed by false ratings and data. To truly solve the problem of performance collapse, we must first start by eliminating ratings fraud. Only when the evaluation system returns to normal can the market realize a positive feedback mechanism of good works getting good ratings and bad works getting bad ratings, and only then can the industry achieve self-purification.

Of course, in addition to the industry's self-purification, the self-reflection of young actors is also very important. It is no exaggeration to say that if young actors still want to do this job, they will have to transform sooner or later, because after all, young actors will get old one day, and if they don't work hard on their acting skills, they will also be eliminated by the industry. Therefore, young actors should use every movie to improve their acting skills. After all, as an actor, high-quality acting skills are the foundation of their survival.

In addition, fans are also the key to changing the chaos in film and television dramas. Fans' blind pursuit of stars will harm many young and handsome actors. In fact, Chinese football is an obvious example. In the past, many brainless fans of Chinese football shouted the slogan "I love you even if I win, and I love you even if I lose." This slogan ruined Chinese football. Since you support them regardless of winning or losing, it will inevitably make people lose the motivation to move forward. The same is true for the film and television industry. If fans pay for the movies and TV series starring young and handsome actors no matter how bad they are, the stars will naturally lose the motivation to improve their acting skills.

Although the star effect is still the inherent model of the industry in China for a long time, the primary goal is to change the chaos in the industry caused by the trend of young and handsome actors. In the past, we used to take people with superb acting skills and good self-cultivation as idols and objects of study, but what about now? Now we really only see young and handsome actors with good faces. This is the current fact.

On March 1, the "Film Industry Promotion Law of the People's Republic of China" was officially implemented. For the first time, "virtue and art" were written into the law, requiring practitioners to strengthen self-discipline and establish a good social image. This article undoubtedly gave the entire entertainment industry a boost. Many actors also responded after the "Film Law" was officially implemented, saying that they should learn to be a good person first and then pursue art. This approach can also directly change the chaos in the film and television industry.

Of course, it will take a long time to completely change, but what is imminent is that many old actors have reached retirement age. If we wait until these old actors retire behind the scenes, what can we still see on the screen? After all, today's young actors are basically in the process of self-expansion, and they don't consider what they have output for the film and television industry with culture and art as its core while achieving huge returns under the fan economy.

In the current film and television industry, young and handsome men are not the staple food that we all cannot live without. They are just a sweet and greasy dessert. Young and handsome men are not the salt that is indispensable for cooking. They are just MSG for seasoning. If the only thing we eat is dessert and MSG, then there is no doubt that this thing must be junk food. In our daily life, everyone knows to stay away from junk food for health. The same is true in the film and television industry. Film and television works are also the food of our spiritual world, so we should stay away from junk food.

Only when we all set an example by boycotting junk food in the film and television industry can the domestic film and television industry be purified faster.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.