CCTV's comedy variety show "Laughter Has a New Life" recently concluded. In the hit work "My Praise", actress Barbie plays an AI crosstalk comic, combined with mechanical dance movements, which is hilarious. "I enjoyed the first half, but couldn't enjoy the second half." Variety show host Yan Hexiang believes that the contrasting effect of AI praise in the work actually raises a profound proposition – what is the most irreplaceable part of artistic creation? "AI will replace stylized formalism. The core of art creation is content. Once your content is not strong enough, AI will quickly replace your form, so if the form is greater than the content, it is not worth a penny."
Stills from the variety show "Laughter Has New Life".
Yan Hexiang, who has been deeply involved in the field of comedy for more than 20 years, from cross talk to talk shows to publishing books, jokingly calls himself an "out-and-out comedy slash young man." Not long ago, his first non-fiction work "Jumping into the Green Sea" was published. This book is about the journey of riding a motorcycle across North and South America when his comedy career was blocked. The concept of "antipodal points" that became popular on the stand-up comedy stage last year originated from his thoughts on this 30,000-mile motorcycle trip. Yan Hexiang, who is "taking action", is taking various actions within his power to explore more possibilities for the continuous self-renewal of comedy today.
The book and video of the non-fiction work "Jumping into the Green Sea with a Throw of a Motorcycle".
Discover new expressions on the comedy stage
For Yan Hexiang, "Laughter Has a New Life" is intended to discover new talents and new strengths in the comedy industry, and it is also another opportunity for him to explore new comedy expressions. Take "My Barbie" as an example. During the performance, the Dou Ni actor was temporarily absent due to the temporary absence of her partner, so the AI Peng Ni had to be used. She accurately reproduced cross talk lingo, cross-talk and other stylized expressions, but due to her cold mechanical nature, she frequently threw out contrasting jokes such as "please excuse me", which was in sharp contrast to Dou Ni's panic and helplessness. Her hard-core jokes and genuine complaints made the audience laugh. Another "breaking" point of the program is that it cleverly integrates various art forms such as traditional cross talk, mechanical dance, and double reed dubbing.
Stills from the variety show "Laughter Has New Life".
Starting from Deyun Society, Yan Hexiang's positioning on the cross talk stage is to "praise", so he felt particularly sympathetic when seeing this show. In his eyes, the traditional art of crosstalk also has a core charm that is difficult to replace with AI. "Praising is not just about talking less, but the most important thing is emotion and following. AI may not be able to replace emotion and following." New thinking has penetrated into the traditional comedy art, and traditional comedians are constantly breaking boundaries – from cross talk to talk shows, no matter how innovative the form is, content and emotion are always the soul of comedy.
Yan Hexiang shared what he saw and heard as a motorcycle traveler in the live broadcast room.
The experience that crosses borders is also the nourishment for Yan Hexiang to explore comedy. During his motorcycle trip, he often saw open mic performances in street parks in some small South American cities. "There is a small theater in the park. There are people performing comedy in the small theater, and everyone is watching from the side. There are also adults and mothers in the community pushing their children back and forth. It feels very free and unrestrained." This makes Yan Hexiang feel the common charm of comedy. No matter how different the region and form are, free expression rooted in life is the most touching.
Good content comes from life and walking
Why do you feel the urge to walk? "I want to find where the end of the road is." In a live broadcast about the new book, Yan Hexiang had an in-depth chat with netizens about his first nonfiction book. The book not only records a thousand-mile motorcycle journey across mountains and seas, but also writes about the journey of exploring where the boundaries of comedy lie. In Yan Hexiang's eyes, this ride that began with "there is no retreat in life" is "actually a kind of escape, but escape itself is also a process of finding answers, because you are always thinking."
Yan Hexiang was riding on the road.
In half a year, he rode a motorcycle weighing 500 to 600 kilograms all the way south from the North Pole to the end of the Pan-American Highway in Ushuaia, Argentina. Hundreds of kilometers of unfamiliar scenery flew past his eyes every day, and the magnificent mountains and rivers became the background for his dialogue with himself. "On this road, you don't have so many partners with whom you can communicate. The one you can talk to is yourself, countless selves, yourself at the moment, yourself who talks about cross talk, yourself who talks about talk shows, yourself when you were a child, and when you were young." On the endless beach road, he looked at "the blue sky, not a single cloud, and no one on the golden beach. And then at that moment you just want to escape, throw the motorcycle away and jump into the vast green Pacific Ocean."
The scenery along the way of Yan Hexiang Motorcycle Tour.
In fact, the risks of motorcycle travel are far beyond people's imagination, including hypoxia, sunburn, respiratory inflammation, and even the fatal danger of encountering guanacos crossing the road. However, it is this "feeling beyond carbon-based organisms" and the experience of crossing several temperature and climate zones in one day that gradually made Yan Hexiang understand his doubts, and made his later comedy stage empathize with countless people. After all, comedy creation is never done behind closed doors, but to step out of the confines of the theater, into a broad life, and to perceive the world while walking, so that the expression of comedy can go beyond laughter.
