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after the hysteria, xie meilan's words "you are a good person, but you are really useless" gave the ultimate comment to her former lover, and also highly succinctly summarized the core contradiction of the whole play -

when the upward space left by society for a person changes from incremental to stock, when competition becomes the dark forest law of zero-sum game, and "being a good person" is no longer a reward but a punishment, how can ordinary people sing their own song of mortals?

tension is the primary feeling that "song of ordinary people" brings to the audience.

the story revolves around three pairs of cps:

na wei and shen lin are a middle-aged couple who have worked hard all the way from a small place and settled down in beijing. from a secular perspective, this couple is a standard middle-class family, with two sons and one daughter, a car, a house, savings, and tens of millions of stock options.bmwwhen he returned to his hometown to hold a one-year-old party for his youngest son, na weizhi said proudly, "if you don't return to your hometown when you are rich and powerful, it's like walking in fine clothes at night."

but when people reach middle age, life doesn't change, but once it changes, it changes drastically. the company's big brother becomes a monk, the listing plan fails, and the option contract becomes a waste paper. his younger brother na junyu predicts that "change of dynasty is the time to kill old ministers", and na wei is kicked out by the new leader as expected; shen lin, who used to be a rich wife at home, has to return to the workplace, but she doesn't know that the workplace is also like a siege, it's hard to get out and even harder to get in.

na jun & li xiaoyue, a programmer with a million-dollar annual salary in a large company and a junior clerk who graduated from a second-tier university. na jun, who graduated from peking university for undergraduate and tsinghua university for graduate, is an "excellent student" who has fought his way through the meritocracy. he is more of an "elite" than his brother na wei, and he always talks about "core competitiveness" and "planning awareness"; li xiaoyue, influenced by her family, believes in "living in the present", and is willing to give up promotion opportunities for freedom, and has her own philosophy of life.

the so-called "elites in big companies" are growing at a speed as fast as bamboo shoots after a spring rain. there are always people younger than you and people with better resumes than you. in the latest plot, "the king of resumes" na jun has also welcomed the new wave that is ready to beat him at any time.

shen lei and xie meilan, xie's mother's death became the fuse for their divorce. meilan wanted a better life, and she really deserved a better life, but shen lei only focused on the small piece of land in front of him, and was unwilling to smooth out his edges and corners for material things. in the end, shen lei's nobleness became incompetence in xie meilan's eyes, and xie meilan's ambition became vanity in shen lei's eyes.

this tension overflows and continues to spread. not only the protagonist, but also the bosses, colleagues, and friends around the protagonist are all shrouded in various kinds of pressure.while shen lin was sitting on the subway worrying about work, the girl next to her was also on the phone complaining about the workplace. this should be a scene that every worker living in a first-tier city is familiar with.

unemployment in middle age, sexual harassment in the workplace, ineffective internal competition, marriage crisis... those without jobs worry about work, those with jobs worry about promotion, marriage, car and house, and the next generation. the endless troubles and the long gowns that cannot be taken off correspond tojonathan leethe lyrics of the song "song of mortals" read: "you and i are both mortals, born in this world. we toil all day long, without a moment's rest."

the director and screenwriter intend to depict the life of ordinary people through these three couples in different stages and states.no matter what your profession, age or background, there is no "foolproof" life.the mountain of reality weighs equally on everyone, and over the hills, there are still hills.

this is also the crux of the polarized reputation of this drama: people think it is "realistic" because the series of difficulties in the drama are daily lives that are all too familiar to this generation of young people; people think it is "floating" because none of the protagonists is truly "at the bottom", and if they still have the possibility of "jumping over the hill", then the lives of ordinary people are no different from "yugong moving mountains".

this may be a paradox unique to this era.

"reality": they are suffering too much.

"suspension": there are many people who are suffering more than them.

02 why is "song of ordinary people" so extraordinary in the urban drama track?

from"ode to joy"arrive"nothing but thirtyfrom "the song of a common man" to "dear child", urban dramas have never lacked hits. "the song of a common man" has also achieved good ratings and playback data since its launch, with kuyun breaking 2 in real time, which is the best result of noon sunshine in recent years.

embedding hot topics in the plot is basic operation for urban dramas. the difficulty lies in truly connecting with the current audience, allowing the audience to empathize with the characters in the drama and resonate with the life perspective provided by the creators.

in this regard, "song of ordinary people" has its own delicacy. even though the camera is focused on middle-class couples and quasi-middle-class young people, the director and screenwriter's way of portraying the characters is plain and down-to-earth.

for example, na wei and shen lin, a couple who fell from the middle class, did not stage bloody scenes such as beating the mistress and the evil mother-in-law to attract traffic. the most intense quarrel was caused by na wei's disapproval of shen lin's labor value as a housewife.this is a very “current” topic.

after the change of senior management and the repayment of 800,000 yuan of debt, na wei, who was gradually marginalized in the company, accompanied clients to drink and socialize in order to prove his value, and acted as a clown at the dinner party for people's amusement. during the day, shen lin barely dealt with the greasy boss who sexually harassed her by using the self-torture method. when she walked home exhausted, she saw na wei drunk in the back of the car... shen lin, who had a backache, helped na wei home, and she leaned against the wall and cried. the bitterness and helplessness of adults are beyond words.

in addition to anxiety, "song of ordinary people" is also trying to provide new solutions: shen lei, who gave up his job and went to live alone in a remote area, and li xiaoyue, who insisted on living in the present with his own values, also reflect the current choices of some young people.

in recent years, "returning home" has become a hot topic in domestic dramas. people who are tired of the pace of life in big cities and feel burned out in the workplace have begun to return to their hometowns to rediscover their self-worth and construct the meaning of life.

as the upward channel becomes increasingly narrow and the class structure becomes rigidified, some people choose to "lay down their enthusiasm", only seeing work as a means of making a living, having low material desires and low consumption, and enjoying life within the scope of their capabilities.

in the 2020 korean drama "love rules of urban men and women", the second female lead xu linyi is such a "gig worker" who only works but does not go to work, and enjoys her "low-desire" life, which is quite similar to li xiaoyue in "song of ordinary people".

it is a bit regrettable that the creator did not further explore the character of "xie meilan" based on the original work. compared with shen lei, she does not have a warm and loving family as a retreat; compared with li xiaoyue, she does not have a partner with an annual income of one million to "back her up". after her mother passed away, she became truly "alone and independent". all she could do was to climb up to any place she could climb and hold more survival capital, even if she divorced shen lei for this.

xie meilan is the person with the strongest sense of crisis among the protagonists, and is also the missing piece of the puzzle that "song of mortals" attempts to portray.

03 noon sunshine enters the deep waters of realism

art comes from life, and this is especially true for urban dramas that are rooted in reality.

noon sunshine's realistic path can be traced back to "ode to joy" in 2016. at that time, the emotional connection between people could still break the class gap, so the story of the "five beauties" was still valid, and the audience was willing to believe that the arrogant and ostentatious rich second-generation qu xiaoxiao would do something for the sake offan shengmeiin order to seek justice, andy, a female boss who puts efficiency above all else, will speak up for the "ordinary girl" qiu yingying.

in the 2019 "all is well", the topic of original family was pushed to the top. su mingyu, who had been tempered into invulnerability in the world of fame and fortune, still had to face the mess caused by family affection, and the finale was still inevitable.

in the 2024 "song of mortals", the most representative scene should be when na jun and li xiaoyue are lying on the bed after their reunion. when they are most affectionate, the two whisper "don't let me, a second-class student with no ambition, delay you."

this is also the most acute aspect of songs of mortals in its observation of reality. people no longer talk about love seriously. where is the match made in heaven? to put it bluntly, it’s just about the price-performance ratio.

before coming to find li xiaoyue, na jun had just been on two blind dates. one was an accountant who treated marriage as a partnership to start a company, and had to calculate rent for living together after marriage. his planning awareness and ability to calculate carefully pale in comparison; the other was a beautiful, rich and white woman who ate foie gras and tasted red wine on a daily basis. this is no longer the era when beautiful, rich and white women were equal to naive and innocent. rich ladies who come for blind dates have to screen out phoenix men first, and it is even more impossible for them to lower their status to dig wild vegetables for love.

na jun, who is regarded as a favored child by his friends, wants to step into other circles, but his ability and strength are not good enough. in contrast, li xiaoyue, who is beautiful, easy to please, doesn't like to spend money, and has an emotional foundation, is not the most cost-effective option?

xie meilan and shen lei were a couple who were content with love when they just graduated from college, but after working for a few years, shen lei earned 8,000 yuan a month and meilan earned 20,000 yuan a month. the income gap pointed to the difference in their life concepts, which could never be filled in their already shaky relationship.

why is the relationship between shen lin and na wei so convincing? it is not because of the various glorious and decent things in the early stage, but because after na wei was cheated by the boss and paid 800,000 yuan to the developer, shen lin did not ask too much, silently accepted the result, and chose to share the responsibility with na wei.

when the storm is about to come, the greatest true love between people is no longer "i love you", but the willingness to form an "economic entity" to jointly resist external risks.

as for those of us outside the screen, perhaps all we can do is walk through the wind and snow, singing as we go.