A Comparative Study Of The Female Portrayal In The Network Romance Novels And Their Adapted TV Dramas

Internet media are now regarded as the "fourth medium" behind newspapers,radio and television.As a new literary form,network novel is born and developed along with the prosperity of network media.Romance novel is an important branch of network novel.The mighty development of the network novel attracts the film and television industry to adapt it into a TV series with huge profits.China’s TV drama adaptation based on network novel originated in 2004,and has gradually become the mainstream on the screen.These writers are born out of romantic novels based on female writers,and they crate a large number of female portrayals,at the same time,women are also the main audience of these drama adaptations,so it is necessary to study the female portrayals in the media.Moreover,these female portrayals,which originally exist in the novel,are moved to more influential TV media.In the process of cross-media adaptation,there should be a change in the female portrayal to a certain extent.Therefore,this article selects the typical text and uses the text analysis,and the comparative research method,to study whether the female portrayal adapted from network romance novels to television dramas have changed.It discusses the reason behind these changes as well as the enlightenment.The study found that:from the network romance novel adapted into TV series,television lens embodied the external female portrayal,and made the internal personality externalized and become clear;television adaptation reconstructs female temperament.For the traditional image of "evil woman",TV drama excavates the root of their alienationand reveals its process from good to evil to show the richness of human nature.But for a woman with a positive image,TV drama get rid of the setting of good and evil in the novel to blur its defect;TV drama also endows the novel with the new characteristic which the female does not have,that has highlighted the both gender equality.Therefore,on the one hand,TV drama adaptations dare to break through the stereotype of women,on the other hand,they will still shape the ideal beautification of women.The television narrative perspective breaks through the female individual whispers of the network novel writers,and the narrative perspective is wider.The change of female portrayal is the result of common action under subjective and objective conditions.Objectively speaking,the characteristics of television media make the female portrayal a unique way of expression.Subjectively,because of the mainstream consciousness,audience expectations and TV broadcasters setup,the image of women has been deleted and reshaped.Compared with the traditional TV dramas,the TV drama adaptation based on network novel shows multiple female portrayals,but the female portrayal still has its drawbacks.This is reflected in:TV propaganda overemphasizes on female love’s standard;female portrayal shows homogeneity and simplification;some TV dramas attach to the theme of female growth,but its essence is still to express women,dependence on men.What is revealed behind these is the symbolization of the female portrayal by the media.