Online
Review: Reality Check (心路GPS)
Reality
Check (Chinese: 心路GPS) is a Hong Kong television drama serial created by Lee Yim-fong and
produced by TVB. It first premiered on Jade in Hong Kong on 18 February 2013. Apart
from other drama series, rather than fighting over the inheritance or romance
as the serial centers, it is based on the shooting team as a starting point,
including director, assistant director, photographer, assistant photographer,
as well as their reality television programe, and with each of their story’s
development, bringing out the social problems nowadays in Hong Kong, and it is
a both fresh and realistic type of Hong Kong drama.
Stereotypes:
Referring to the social problems
The tv drama
projected a variety of today’s social issues, including the labelled post-90s Hong
Kong teenager who is disobedience and insufferable, can not get along with
strict father; the over-materialism of Hong Kong children only care about parents’
money and leave them aside; a family living in public housing, facing a
marriage crisis because of the communication problem between mother-in-law and
daughter-in-law, etc.
Negatively
stereotype the post 90s Hong Kong teenagers
The producer tried
to use a new way – ‘play within the play’ to show the labelled Hong Kong Child.
By filming a brand-new reality show -- 'experience of rural life ' exporting Hong Kong children
were spoiled, cannot endure hardship, willful, rebel and so on. You will see
that both are negative images and nuisance in it. Based on Rayner, Wai &
Kruger (2004), stereotyping is believed to be a powerful tool for producers to
reproduce and repersent groups of people in the media in their own perceptions
and ways. Therefore, it is shown that the image of people in the drama are
always being over-exaggerated such as the post 90s teenagers in the drama.
Moreover, it also
use the experience of HongKonger living in the mainland and the use of family
in the countryside, experience the countryside contrasts with the urban values,
family relationships, friendships, as Hong Kong and the Mainland's cultural
differences in a more tender approach, with another angle to show the
contradictions between Hong Konger and Mainlander.
Redefining
the important of family through social issues
In fact, there is a raising number of family tragedy,
most of them to be attributed to money dispute. Under the worshiping money
society, up-to-date the values of people are distorted by the excessive materialism.
In the drama, children could do anything for the money, they even own their
mother’s house and abandon her. Media representation as particular subcategory
of fictional characters, over the type in our society, with a exaggerated way.
And this drama is mainly based on the social issues in order to redefining the
important of family.
Although each of the character have to
face different issues within their family, at the end of the drama, all of them
realized that no matter what difficulties or what wrongs, only your family
members will eventually forgive and support you. The importance of family was highlighted as the main aims of the drama, besides to
ease the grievances of the society and also release more positive energy and
warmth to the society.
Chiu Man Ching Akeiko (10420712/21055092)
The review has tried to situate the programme in a larger cultural and economic context of Hong Kong. Some concrete examples have been included to illustrate the ways that the programme mediate and represent the so-called “Post-90s”, as well as the changing (weakening) family relationships of Hong Kong people nowadays.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you could discuss the role of media in reaffirming and reconstructing the “fading values” that are important to us. In case you want to take the text for further study, you might explore the following questions: who is the target audience for such kind of drama (e.g., youngsters? elderly? housewives?)? What is the main source of pleasure derived by these audiences? How could audience identify with the cultural representation and reaffirm their own identities?