CDT editor’s note: This article was first published in the 8th issue of NetEase’s “Friends” column (September 10, 2014). It is an exclusive interview with Chen Peisi by NetEase Entertainment. There are three articles in total, this article is the second article “Spring Festival Gala: The Spring Festival Gala is a cancer cell and it will only destroy you”.
At the beginning of the interview, we were a little hesitant to mention “the reason why he left the Spring Festival Gala”, because through the understanding of people around him, Chen Peisi was quite resistant to this topic. In his opinion, those things have passed and should be turned over. He I don’t want to mention it again. But experience is sometimes really insurmountable, and this problem came to my face while chatting, and Chen Peisi did not shy away from it.
When we chatted with Chen Peisi about going to the mountains and going to the countryside, and about his father talking about movies, his demeanor was easy-going and his words were always relaxed. Although those experiences were really hard, we could not feel a trace of anger in Chen Peisi’s words, his indifference And frankly, we were impressed. As time went by, when we talked about the Spring Festival Gala, our topic became a little heavy.But this heaviness is not because of leaving, but because of the platform itself.
Leaving the Spring Festival Gala: It is too difficult for you to change one thing within the system
From “Eating Noodles” to “The Prince and the Postman”, now it seems that some blurred pictures are replayed on TV over and over again. After more than ten or even thirty years, Chen Peisi’s sketches are still timeless. “King” title, but he himself dared not take it.
From 1984 to 1998, Chen Peisi’s Spring Festival Gala seemed to be going smoothly, but everything came to an abrupt end in 1999. When talking about this past event, we can feel Chen Peisi’s hesitation in words, but as the topic deepened, he The chatterbox slowly opened up.
Different from the selection of sketch actors in the same period, Chen Peisi walked very decisively, “I left because I had to leave, I personally had to leave first, because it involved a lot of my energy, and I couldn’t spare time and energy to do more for me. Things to do, things to do more.”
He described the life at that time as a “unlucky” life, but it was also this almost devil-like experience that allowed Chen Peisi to deal with more twists and turns and ups and downs in the future. Life is to be enjoyed.
In Chen Peisi’s mind, his comedy career is far more important than those 15 minutes on TV in his junior year. In fact, Chen Peisi has had the idea of quitting the Spring Festival Gala for a long time. He also tried to better integrate the Spring Festival Gala with his career, but the half-year preparation time before the Spring Festival Gala wore away all his patience. More importantly, the Spring Festival Gala has a natural stubbornness and rigidity in the context of the entire cultural system, which leaves no room for Chen Peisi, who has a lot of ideas in comedy.
Although he left the stage of the Spring Festival Gala early, the skit “Eating Noodles” in 1984 had a profound impact on Chinese cultural undertakings. Chen Peisi defined the original sketch as a “comedy skit”, and he and Zhu Shimao were in the 30 The type of performance created years ago symbolizes “a particularly deformed, tense, and terrifying society has been remodeled, and people can laugh.” Speaking of this, I saw an unusually firm sense of responsibility in Chen Peisi’s eyes , It is precisely this responsibility that makes him move forward resolutely under tremendous pressure.
In Chen Peisi’s view, chasing fame and fortune is no longer his goal. In the 21st century, Chen Peisi’s comedy theater is on the right track. Several stage comedies have been well received, and his comedy theory system has gradually taken shape. Regarding the Spring Festival Gala, Chen Peisi was angry, regretful, dismissive, and laughed and cursed. After all, Chen Peisi has deep and complicated feelings for this stage, but what is certain is that even without the attention of 1.3 billion eyes, he still chooses to walk alone without hesitation.
After leaving: It was too cruel to look back
On New Year’s Eve in 1999, Chen Peisi, relieved of his burden, spent the New Year at home with his parents and children. He rarely felt the family happiness of the three generations of the old and the young. Chen Peisi was very satisfied. After leaving the Spring Festival Gala, Chen Peisi seldom paid attention to the most-watched gala in the world. In his words, he even couldn’t bear to look back, “Don’t dare to look back, you feel uncomfortable when you see others, you are nervous for them, so you can’t watch it, you know where it is How devastating.”
Leaving the Spring Festival Gala was a big setback for Chen Peisi, but he admitted that he is a person favored by God in his career. It is the audience who insists on loving comedy and Chen Peisi that gives him the motivation to move forward, and also makes many crises come before him. Invisibly resolved.
Regarding Chen Peisi’s whereabouts in the next few years, there were many speculations in the market, but there was no conclusive statement. Some people said that Chen Peisi contracted a barren hill in the suburbs of Beijing and planted pomegranate trees to make a living. Chen Peisi laughed out loud. In fact, Chen Peisi did contract barren mountains, but not for the purpose of planting trees and selling money, but to protect the environment, “At that time we were afraid that the vegetation on the mountain would be destroyed, so we contracted it down and maintained it. The self of nature The ability to repair is particularly strong, and if you don’t destroy it, it will naturally rise up in a few years.”
Now that the mountains are full of pines and emerald greens, Chen Peisi’s face is full of satisfaction. The predecessors planted trees, and the descendants enjoy the shade. Maybe this is what Chen Peisi is doing.
Spring Festival Gala Platform: It is cancer cells that disrupt market order
For 30 years, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala has been ranked first in the national evening show program in terms of performance scale, cast, and audience ratings at home and abroad. The stage of the Spring Festival Gala has also become a place of fascination for countless people. However, in Chen Peisi’s eyes,This kind of inclination of resources is not only not a good thing, it will destroy the entire cultural market。
In recent years, more and more draft singers and grassroots actors have stepped onto the stage of the Spring Festival Gala and become popular. There is no doubt that this platform is attractive enough, but Chen Peisi thinks it is an “inequality” belt. The result is, “Why do you pursue this platform, because it is not equal, it is not equal to the living conditions of all people, it can make you famous overnight, you just do this ten minutes of work tonight That’s enough, you can eat and drink all year round.” It is precisely because of the innate superiority of this platform that absorbs the nutrition of the entire cultural market, creating unequal conditions, which directly affects the normal market order.
Reminiscent of the large-scale sacrifices or celebrations in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the “evening party” at that time did not leave any wonderful historical imprints. The history books only recorded the huge scale and momentum. It was also from the beginning of singing and dancing that the culture of that dynasty Beginning to decline, Chen Peisi compared the CCTV Spring Festival Gala to a “super-large song and dance show”. He believed that the Spring Festival Gala directly led to the decline of the theater and even the cultural market. Utilizing high technology, we have doubled the amount compared to the past, and all the best artists have been selected by us here, so what should we do over there? The innate platform advantage of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala attracted people from the entire industry to flock to it, distorting and distorting this celebration that was supposed to carry joy. Various “skewered” performances flocked to the stage. Chen Peisi was very indignant at this phenomenon , and even swearing, “Everyone went to the party to sing a sentence, seven people and eight people, that little book sang a paragraph, and each person passed it like a sentence. Is this called a fucking Beijing opera?”
Facing the rising “Spring Festival Gala Fever”, Chen Peisi said that when God wants to destroy a person, he must make him crazy first. This time is also a time to test you, so everyone who survives, lives, and lives happily in the media Everyone should consider this issue.
Unfunny Spring Festival Gala: Market culture is not suitable for sacrificial ceremonies
In 2013, Guo Degang, who had long been famous for a long time, appeared on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala for the first time, but the response he got was “it’s not funny to go to the Spring Festival Gala”. Chen Peisi believes that the attribute of cross talk is market culture and art, and it is not It is suitable to be placed on a stage like the Spring Festival Gala,At the same time, some intangible restrictions within the system have also left no room for the originally funny works. Chen Peisi also has his own views on netizens’ continuous complaints about the works of the Spring Festival Gala in recent years.
With the popularization of the Internet, every Spring Festival Gala, language programs are full of Internet buzzwords of the year, such as “Geeli”, “God horses are floating clouds”, “Cups” and other Internet languages can be found everywhere in cross talk sketches , but the audience did not buy this seemingly flattering move, and was even ridiculed as “fried leftovers”, which is not funny at all. In Chen Peisi’s view, all this can only be attributed to the weak work itself, “If a skit program can be affected by small language jokes, then the thing itself is not strong, it must be wrong, not good.”
At the end of 1983, Jiang Kun approached Chen Peisi and Zhu Shimao and invited them to be the hosts of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 1984, but Chen Peisi hoped to use a new form of performance – to condense the comedy conflicts in the stage play to a limited ten minutes Here, it performed on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala, which has also achieved the most expressive program in the history of Chinese TV evenings in the past 30 years – sketches.
Works created to cater to the audience violated the original intention of creation, and also deviated from the essence of comedy and stage art. “The state allows the people to laugh, and the government allows our people to laugh happily. Politically loose, it is a symbolic Later, politics asked them to say something else. If you can meet your standards, you will exist. If you can’t meet them, you will go down. Whoever can meet their later standards will win.” After hearing these words, The unfunnyness of the Spring Festival Gala and Chen Peisi’s departure became a matter of course.
Now: Can’t always live for money
After experiencing ups and downs and ups and downs in life, Chen Peisi regards himself as a “craftsman”. He believes that art itself is a craft, and it is also a “technical labor”. in the back of the head.
Chen Peisi used to be very desperate to make money, but now he is over 60 years old, and now he only wants to “keep some works”. For him, time is the most precious thing, Chen Peisi will use the next Time, to continue his pursuit of a comedy career.
