It was nearly two years ago that I wrote an essay called “Also on Guo Degang.” At the time, I was responding to an article by ZW; astonishingly, he actually looked down on Guo Degang. I had only listened to a few short audio clips then, so I mainly said a few words from the angle of “tradition,” arguing that Guo Degang had certainly contributed to the development of crosstalk.
But recently, on the advice of an older fellow student, I learned that Guo Degang’s crosstalk really has to be watched on video; only then did I go back and find a lot of videos to watch again. Ah, OMG, the feeling was indeed completely different. And after listening to more crosstalk, I also came to understand better the so-called “yellow jokes”—what yellow jokes are there at all?! Do such teasing remarks count as yellow too? I really don’t know how ZW watched it when he went to the live performance back then…
At the time I forgot where ZW’s article was, but I dug out my own article from then and found a sentence in it quoting his piece: “Media, in relation to us, are in fact a kind of ‘anonymous domination oriented by others.’ The taste produced by the media is in fact also a trace of cultural consumerism.” At the time I felt it was a bit unintelligible, but now that I have read so much about consumerism and media criticism, I can already understand what this sentence means. But does that really connect? It seems ZW has gotten a bit muddled from overdoing academia. The media want to hype Guo Degang; what does that have to do with Guo Degang’s crosstalk? Originally, Guo Degang was precisely insisting that crosstalk return to the theater, and resisting the media (of course, later Guo Degang seems to have taken part in some media entertainment programs and the like, but that is for later). Even if one says Guo Degang’s crosstalk is not good, or that Guo Degang is not worth becoming popular, if you are criticizing his crosstalk, why drag in all that anonymous domination by others and cultural consumerism?
After watching more of Guo Degang’s crosstalk, I can say that I hold Guo Degang’s crosstalk in extremely high esteem. I really want to say: good heavens, what was I watching before? Besides those old images repeatedly rebroadcast on television, what on earth were those newly filmed “crosstalk” performances? The likes of “Weekend Joyful Encounter” compared with Guo Degang—can they even be compared? Only when seeing Guo Degang does one realize that crosstalk surviving on television has really already led crosstalk onto a road to ruin. Guo Degang is crosstalk; those things simply are not.
“Yellow jokes”? Where are the yellow jokes coming from?? Television dramas and the like are what really count as yellow jokes. “Yellow jokes” precisely prove that crosstalk is indeed an art. For example, in painting there are nude figures; some art teachers will use this as an example: when you look at that nude painting, do impure thoughts arise in your mind? No. What rises from the heart is only aesthetic feeling, not lust. This shows that such painting is art. Yet if it is also a nude figure, the kind on websites that are “very yellow and very violent,” then it will arouse lustful thoughts. Can the laughter in crosstalk be the same as the lewd grinning that comes with telling yellow jokes? If it were the same, then those works of art would all be obscene objects too.
I have one thought: the first level of art is realism, then comes the beautiful, then tragedy, and the highest level is “humor.” Reason and sensibility, emotion and thought, converge in “humor”; none can be missing. The beautiful is some kind of seamless harmony, while reason pursues rigor and coherence; but humor, precisely, must contain some kind of conflict and paradox. Humor is of course not tragedy, but neither is it “comedy.” Comedy is a kind of complete fulfillment and reunion, whereas humor precisely requires a certain sense of incompleteness, and in many cases humor is precisely embodied as making merry amid hardship. Perhaps to pass through “humor” is the road to reaching truth~
Of course, elevating crosstalk too much and making it “too heavy” may not necessarily be beneficial to the development of crosstalk. Better let crosstalk return to its origin: listening to crosstalk is nothing more than seeking a good laugh, and that is all.
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2008-01-13 13:06:21 Anonymous 222.82.76.18
“Perhaps to pass through ‘humor’ is the road to reaching truth~”
I saw an essay by Zong Baihua before that seemed to say that, in the quest for the meaning of life, one attitude is ceaseless suffering, while another is humor. Then I read Chen Danqing’s “Laughing Talk about the Great Master” and only then learned that Lu Xun was actually a very humorous person. He is by no means always painted as a figure with a perpetually black face. So now I have a new understanding of humor as a stance toward life.
Actually, one can look at the origins of crosstalk. It started with talking and scolding out on the street, and even had some serious content. But what is most marvelous about it is its humorous spirit of seeing the great in the small, or through laughter. Or why must one see the great at all? Crosstalk is wise. For example, “Teasing You”~
Baozi often talks about Guo; yesterday he brought him up again. He said one of his former classmates has suddenly become a die-hard fan of the “steel wire” now. Just look at this fellow~ http://blog.sina.com.cn/shuizhuqinglan
Bao says~ many of Guo’s routines are old bits from the older generation. He also said that the routines Guo used when he was just starting out were the kind that absolutely could not be said out loud (seems the things he was criticizing were rather sensitive). But there aren’t many of those now~
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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