Hmm. Okay, part of the disconnect here is that I don't mean "trashy" to mean "wrong"? Anything but. For me, when I say "trash," I genuinely mean it as a compliment. It means something is fun for me in a lighthearted way that means I don't have to take it too seriously. It's not that it has "trashy parts" and "good parts"; it's that the whole thing, to me, is a delightful mess of things I think are amazing and things I think are dumb, in a cheese silly way intermixed with moments of pure id appeal. It's not trashy for the bad bits that I genuinely want changed; it's trashy for the bad bits that I think are hilarious and goofy and make the whole thing better, for me.
I'm not sure if this is going to make it better or worse for you, so...caveat on the rest of comment, please skip it if it will just be annoying to you? I'm going to explain why I think of Guardian as "trashy" and I am going to be mentioning things that could definitely be taken as flaws -- but I'll only be talking about Guardian, so you don't have to brace for anything else getting dissed.
For me, what makes Guardian "trash" is the endearingly bad special f/x and the teeming crowds of ten people and t-shirts in Dixing. It's because most of the monster-of-the-week storylines are cliches and don't fully make sense, and absolutely no one cares because that is SO not why we are watching this show -- and the show knows it, and instead of concentrating on shoring up those weaknesses instead gives us more of Shen Wei lovingly tucking Zhao Yunlan into bed, while wearing a wallet chain that is connected to nothing and is kind of a weird choice for his character and exists only because it is criminally hot and frames his ass beautifully.
It's trash because you can recognize most of the main villains by the silliness of their wigs/dye-jobs. It's trash because mid-battle when Shen Wei gets cut, Zhao Yunlan grabs him to demand why isn't it healing, and the bad guys just stop attacking to watch because they find WeiLan as crazily adorable as all of us do. It's trash because China demanded Morality and so there is an episode about how Video Gamers Will Kill People -- but to make up for it they gave us Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan defusing a bomb with a ridiculous amount of wires and who cares if it's cliche because Zhao Yunlan kneels before Shen Wei and basically looks like he's proposing, and he grins and Shen Wei curls his lip in a way that absolutely means "Please stop turning me on when I am HOLDING A BOMB."
That's why it's trash, to me. Because these things wouldn't happen in Prestige TV, wouldn't happen in a drama you were meant to take seriously; but I don't want to take Guardian too seriously, and I love it for being like this!
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2019-11-21 07:42 am (UTC)Hmm. Okay, part of the disconnect here is that I don't mean "trashy" to mean "wrong"? Anything but. For me, when I say "trash," I genuinely mean it as a compliment. It means something is fun for me in a lighthearted way that means I don't have to take it too seriously. It's not that it has "trashy parts" and "good parts"; it's that the whole thing, to me, is a delightful mess of things I think are amazing and things I think are dumb, in a cheese silly way intermixed with moments of pure id appeal. It's not trashy for the bad bits that I genuinely want changed; it's trashy for the bad bits that I think are hilarious and goofy and make the whole thing better, for me.
I'm not sure if this is going to make it better or worse for you, so...caveat on the rest of comment, please skip it if it will just be annoying to you? I'm going to explain why I think of Guardian as "trashy" and I am going to be mentioning things that could definitely be taken as flaws -- but I'll only be talking about Guardian, so you don't have to brace for anything else getting dissed.
For me, what makes Guardian "trash" is the endearingly bad special f/x and the teeming crowds of ten people and t-shirts in Dixing. It's because most of the monster-of-the-week storylines are cliches and don't fully make sense, and absolutely no one cares because that is SO not why we are watching this show -- and the show knows it, and instead of concentrating on shoring up those weaknesses instead gives us more of Shen Wei lovingly tucking Zhao Yunlan into bed, while wearing a wallet chain that is connected to nothing and is kind of a weird choice for his character and exists only because it is criminally hot and frames his ass beautifully.
It's trash because you can recognize most of the main villains by the silliness of their wigs/dye-jobs. It's trash because mid-battle when Shen Wei gets cut, Zhao Yunlan grabs him to demand why isn't it healing, and the bad guys just stop attacking to watch because they find WeiLan as crazily adorable as all of us do. It's trash because China demanded Morality and so there is an episode about how Video Gamers Will Kill People -- but to make up for it they gave us Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan defusing a bomb with a ridiculous amount of wires and who cares if it's cliche because Zhao Yunlan kneels before Shen Wei and basically looks like he's proposing, and he grins and Shen Wei curls his lip in a way that absolutely means "Please stop turning me on when I am HOLDING A BOMB."
That's why it's trash, to me. Because these things wouldn't happen in Prestige TV, wouldn't happen in a drama you were meant to take seriously; but I don't want to take Guardian too seriously, and I love it for being like this!