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Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies (ISSN: 2321 – 2799) Volume 05 – Issue 02, April 2017 Female’s Gaze in Idol Drama: A Case Study of My Sunshine Yongling Song Taipei, Taiwan Email: yonglingsong [AT] gmail.com 1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND Croton Media (克顿传媒) is a Chinese TV production company noted for its content strategy developed from research studies on digitalization. My Sunshine (何以笙萧默), one of Croton Media’s notable TV series, won a very high rating on terrestrial TV in 2015. It got hundreds of millions views on the first day of its launch on the Internet, breaking the record. Soon after its launch, the web search query for Wallace Chung (钟汉良), one of the leading actors, rose up to the top, beating the most popular Korean stars at that time. In May, a Korean TV station, MBC, acquired the programming rights, adding Korean subtitles, and aired this series, which set a record of being the first Chinese TV series acquired and aired by Korean terrestrial TV stations. In terms of network broadcast, because it adapted from classic online novel written by popular writer Gu Man and she has also anticipated the script creation, so the drama has remarkable online attention since it plays. On the first day, the network broadcast quantity breakthrough hundred million in a single day, which refreshes the record. In that year on January 20, it became the first series to breakthrough 300 million in a single day, and in the ending day, the amount of play are 355.52 million times. Since its launch, there have been more and more online discussions about My Sunshine. Some of the remarkable lines from this series became popular sayings both on the Internet and in reality. Moreover, He Yichen (何以琛), one of the main characters portrayed by Wallace Chung, was recognized as the ideal gentlemen of girls’ dream. A post on Weibo (微博), which was viewed more than hundreds of millions times, summarized all the male protagonists of those classical films as follows: “decades of beseeching gets you Wang Xiaojian (王小贱, the male protagonist of Love Is Not Blind, 失恋33天); centuries of beseeching gets you Ko Chentung (柯景腾, You Are the Apple of My Eye, 那些年我们一起追的女孩); millenniums of beseeching gets you Li Daren (李大仁, In Time with You, 我可能不会爱你); tens of millenniums of beseeching gets you Lu Licheng (陆励成, Best Time, 最美的时光); thousands of millenniums of beseeching gets you He Yichen.” The discussions and fevers caused by this drama make the researchers to further explore the female audiences’ psychological interest based on it. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 1. TV Related Research Soap opera originated in the United States in early 1930s radio soap opera(soap opera, it gains its name as its advertisements are often related to the washing products, because its audiences were mainly housewives) and then turns to TV series type to broadcast. Although soap opera is popular with people from start, it truly become the theme until the academic discussion about it as late as the television studies, cultural studies and the formally rise of the women’s academic field. Christine Geraghty put forward three suspects on the content of soap opera initial analysis orientation: first, it implies that the key function of media is to represent the truth; second, media representation should correctly reflect women’s real appearance; third, it implies that correct representation is more important than the things which to be represented, because the media representation reflect how people see themselves and how others see us. And these suspects make more and more feminist researchers turn their focus to the constructivism. For example, program and narrative mode, in fact, focus on how to construct femininity and care about what these forms can provide to women and figure out why they enjoy it. (Pamela Abbott、Claire Wallace、Melissa Tyler。2008。P362) Because of its main female audiences and romantic story, some researchers have pointed out that the content of soap opera is generally follow a fairly simple formula: exotic love and emotional plot combined with difficult understood suspense. And it almost has no real ending, the new problems are created when the old ones are solved at the same time, which make the anticipation itself as the focus, making people addict to its plot. In the TV series, the characters of man Asian Online Journals (www.ajouronline.com) 112 Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies (ISSN: 2321 – 2799) Volume 05 – Issue 02, April 2017 and woman maintain a relatively equal relationship, therefore, women can get rid of shadow of mainstream consciousness of the inequality between man and woman, thus resulting viewing pleasure.(Li Juan, 2013) In Taiwan, this kind of similar to soap opera drama is developed from “Love trend drama” which imported from Japan. Those Japanese dramas are well-made, so they attract many young audiences, and they also find deep echo between men and women. Because those dramas are starred by the Japanese popular actors or singers, therefore we call them idol drama in Taiwan. Later, Taiwan, Korea and China are competing to intimate this type of drama programs. (Li Zhiqiang, 2004) Why the women are the main audiences for this kind of TV programs? Soap opera research shows that long-term broadcast drama can make housewife from loneliness even if they miss some plots. However, modern scholars further pointed out that woman’s emotional life is relatively slow compared to the man’s. Therefore, women are prefer to the long-term stories with slow rhythm, which are conducive to release their emotion. The difference between men and women is that men like to pursue the stimulation of desire, while women are more eager to and look forward to long-term emotional comfort. TV series can better meet woman’s psychosexuality psychology compared with movies. The audio- visual film, whose main audiences are male, likes to expose woman’s body on the screen; while, the audio-visual TV series, whose main audiences are female, seldom directly exposes male’s body. Obviously, it is because men and women have differences in aesthetic experience and cognitive psychology. In terms of cognitive aspect, man is rational who can use their visual, while woman is emotional. (Yan Xiaofang, 2012) Researchers also pointed out that the theme in the romantic story preferred by women “special love”, “dearest”, “single- minded” are the keywords expected by every woman. The emotional relationships such as “ three thousand pet in a suit”, “ love you will never change until death”, “ love beauty without loving landscape” all satisfied woman’s desire which can not achieve in the reality. This not real pure way of love meets woman’s primitive expectation and also embodies the wakening of female’s consciousness.(Ma Shaopei, Bai shaonan, 2012) 2. The Romantic Fiction Related Research Erotic novel emerged in the 70s, in order to effectively titillate woman to attract readers, and it gradually developed a set of formula: set barriers in the plot to make the beloved lovers can not have sex immediately, they have to go through many moves back, depression, moves again and depression again. In the foreign romantic story, man and woman get together morning and night in the name of the “fake marriage” to exchange their obscure emotion. (Lin Fangzhi, 1994) The domestic romantic story, because of different national conditions, doesn’t have specific detailed description about sex like foreign countries, but the lust development of heroine is an essential element. In order to pursuit the romantic and dramatic effect, the tease process just like waltz, both sides do not directly express their love to each other, which make their relationship more ambiguous. And audiences expect their ambiguous relationships become clear and then begin their love story. (Zheng Yapei, 1998) Radway pointed out that a romantic novel text usually contains two or more misunderstandings or conflicts, which are the catalyst of love to some extent, mainly from the uncertainty about love. The most fascinating place is that both sides can gain growth from the misunderstanding, which is known as developing love. Researchers pointed out that the primary condition for audiences to choose the romantic fiction is happy ending, otherwise it will lose the “the pleasure of escape” of reading love story at first. Researchers pointed out that the setting of hero is based on the woman’s desire for prince. Male leading role, in the ancient time, can substitute for rich royal relatives, powerful generals or even the supremacy emperor; and in modern time are president, the second generation of entrepreneurs or even the underworld eldest brother. No matter in the ancient time or modern time, the common of all these characters is that they grasp money and power and can do anything they want, thus protecting woman. For female readers, those characters are more attractive because it is impossible for them to fall in love with such person. (Xu Shuqing, 1994) The individual portray of the hero often appear “cool”, “lofty”, “hegemony”, “indifferent” and “evil” or some other words. Most of them have unbearable memories. Although they have successful career, popular with woman, they still detest the world and its ways, play through life until the actress appear. (Zheng Yapei, 1998). In the happy ending of the love novel, actress and hero are usually combined with each other to resolve the conflicts of opposites. Heroine is often in the victory and inject light into the hero’s gloomy heart, and make evil experience the love.(Linda, Jayne, 1993, introduced by Cheng Ya Pei) The setting of heroine, heroine may have big gap in the social status ranging from orphans to a not-so-rich and they are not be stressed.

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