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30 – the step from optimistic youth to realistic maturity
The arsenal of feminist dramas grows by the day, and China has pulled out the big guns this year with Nothing But Thirty.
Nothing But Thirty focuses on three women, each of whom are approaching their thirtieth birthday in the first episode. Each of them represents a different “type” of woman, in turn pawing through hosts of problems that their “type” suffers: Gu Jia, married with a kid; Zhong Xiao Qin, married with no children; and Wang Man Ni, single with no children. Obviously, this is an oversimplification of their circumstances, but even these basic characterizations define how they go about their lives – you can imagine, for example, that someone with a child has drastically different considerations to make than someone without.
From a female standpoint, these three characters are written as close to perfection as possible (before all the events that happen in latter third of the series that made me roll my eyes). That realism, paired with the leading ladies’ superior acting skills, are what makes this show worth watching. Each of the women are strong at times and weak during others. They allow themselves to have emotions, be stupid once in a while, but resolve to become stronger at the end of the day. Their worldviews are unique to themselves and their personal struggles, meaning that viewers can relate to one character and learn to sympathize with another.
Where the waters get very muddy is when it comes to the plot. Everything that happens in the first 20–30 episodes isn’t unrealistic at all. You get to see the oh-so-relatable financial and workplace struggles. A couple of scumbag husbands here and there. It induces a ton of frustration and outright anger (mistresses, anyone?), but that means the drama is doing its job in presenting real problems and riling you up over them.
Hit what I call “Act III,” meaning the final episodes of the show, and you really begin to question the morality of the writer. Every problem the ladies encounter is something that happens to a good amount of women in real life. But I would be hesitant to claim that the way these problems unfold down the line is representative of how most women actually live.
I want to preface my criticisms of the realism by saying that I’m closer to 20 than I am 30, and I do not live in Shanghai; thus, I don’t understand what it’s like to be Gu Jia, or Wang Man Ni, or Zhong Xiao Qin. (However, I did watch this with my Chinese mother; and while she is far from the 30-year-old mark as well, she had similar qualms.) I’ll put it this way; as a younger woman who is trying to find a way to be independent by the time I reach 30, I find the way that this show wrapped up certain issues to be extremely problematic and detrimental to the overall message of the show.
You get a pretty solid sense of the capabilities of each character with every episode and how much they grow when life begin to test them. Yet, this growth abruptly stops right when it matters the most. Perhaps it even goes backwards. And not in a way that depicts internal struggles, but in a way that’s hullabaloo, garbage writing. Because of these sudden about-faces, there are certain supporting characters who get off the hook far too easily. Others make net gains from terrible behavior and are subsequently put on a pedestal by the writer for having “redeemed themselves.” And I’m well aware that in real life, bad people get away with things. But I feel like there should be a pretty clear difference between getting away with things, and being seen as a saint just because you’re marginally less terrible than the total asshole next to you. This is a pretty bizarre and harmful message to be sending in a drama that's supposedly about women becoming stronger in the face of adversity: some people will hurt you, and you just have to...take it? Let me just say, if episodes were to continue to be written post-ending, I'm not sure luck would be in our girls' favor.
I’m not denying that Nothing But Thirty is a worthwhile watch, but it would be a painful stretch for me to claim that it’s amazing. In the end, I don’t think that the character development was satisfying enough. For the genre, though, I did find sufficient enjoyment in the process of watching. Hopefully, more female-centric dramas will be to come that take this is almost a beta of what types of female characters should be represented in the future.
Nothing But Thirty focuses on three women, each of whom are approaching their thirtieth birthday in the first episode. Each of them represents a different “type” of woman, in turn pawing through hosts of problems that their “type” suffers: Gu Jia, married with a kid; Zhong Xiao Qin, married with no children; and Wang Man Ni, single with no children. Obviously, this is an oversimplification of their circumstances, but even these basic characterizations define how they go about their lives – you can imagine, for example, that someone with a child has drastically different considerations to make than someone without.
From a female standpoint, these three characters are written as close to perfection as possible (before all the events that happen in latter third of the series that made me roll my eyes). That realism, paired with the leading ladies’ superior acting skills, are what makes this show worth watching. Each of the women are strong at times and weak during others. They allow themselves to have emotions, be stupid once in a while, but resolve to become stronger at the end of the day. Their worldviews are unique to themselves and their personal struggles, meaning that viewers can relate to one character and learn to sympathize with another.
Where the waters get very muddy is when it comes to the plot. Everything that happens in the first 20–30 episodes isn’t unrealistic at all. You get to see the oh-so-relatable financial and workplace struggles. A couple of scumbag husbands here and there. It induces a ton of frustration and outright anger (mistresses, anyone?), but that means the drama is doing its job in presenting real problems and riling you up over them.
Hit what I call “Act III,” meaning the final episodes of the show, and you really begin to question the morality of the writer. Every problem the ladies encounter is something that happens to a good amount of women in real life. But I would be hesitant to claim that the way these problems unfold down the line is representative of how most women actually live.
I want to preface my criticisms of the realism by saying that I’m closer to 20 than I am 30, and I do not live in Shanghai; thus, I don’t understand what it’s like to be Gu Jia, or Wang Man Ni, or Zhong Xiao Qin. (However, I did watch this with my Chinese mother; and while she is far from the 30-year-old mark as well, she had similar qualms.) I’ll put it this way; as a younger woman who is trying to find a way to be independent by the time I reach 30, I find the way that this show wrapped up certain issues to be extremely problematic and detrimental to the overall message of the show.
You get a pretty solid sense of the capabilities of each character with every episode and how much they grow when life begin to test them. Yet, this growth abruptly stops right when it matters the most. Perhaps it even goes backwards. And not in a way that depicts internal struggles, but in a way that’s hullabaloo, garbage writing. Because of these sudden about-faces, there are certain supporting characters who get off the hook far too easily. Others make net gains from terrible behavior and are subsequently put on a pedestal by the writer for having “redeemed themselves.” And I’m well aware that in real life, bad people get away with things. But I feel like there should be a pretty clear difference between getting away with things, and being seen as a saint just because you’re marginally less terrible than the total asshole next to you. This is a pretty bizarre and harmful message to be sending in a drama that's supposedly about women becoming stronger in the face of adversity: some people will hurt you, and you just have to...take it? Let me just say, if episodes were to continue to be written post-ending, I'm not sure luck would be in our girls' favor.
I’m not denying that Nothing But Thirty is a worthwhile watch, but it would be a painful stretch for me to claim that it’s amazing. In the end, I don’t think that the character development was satisfying enough. For the genre, though, I did find sufficient enjoyment in the process of watching. Hopefully, more female-centric dramas will be to come that take this is almost a beta of what types of female characters should be represented in the future.
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