Hu Ge may have just won the Best Actor award at the Magnolia Awards for the second time this year, but even that doesn’t make him exempt from Netizen’s ire. Hu Ge’s newest drama Male Nurse 楠丁格尔先生 was just unveiled during the recent iQIYI conference. However, it’s stirred up tons of controversy for what Netizens claim as him “riding on the coattails of a beloved female icon”.
A look at the just released poster should already give you an inkling that this is definitely going to be a male-centric drama since only Hu Ge’s name is listed aside from the title. Speaking of titles, it’s also one of the things that has got Netizens very salty.
When translated, the Chinese title actually says “Mr Nightingale” so calling it Male Nurse in English feels like a slap in the face to the woman known as the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. As we all know, Florence Nightingale is synonymous to the nursing spirit. Using her name as the title to a male centric drama and then changing the main protagonist to a man was just a tad disrespectful and completely inappropriate Netizens say, especially when Florence Nightingale was a woman!
The Backlash
“Another man here to take advantage of women” a Netizen angrily said whilst another one pointed out “they want to promote the male Nightingale, but not the female nurse Nightingale!” Others wondered why production had to use the Nightingale name in the title in the first place when they could have just used the Chinese translation for Male Nurse instead. To make matters worse, the Chinese characters they used was even wrong . Although phonetically similar, 楠丁格尔 should’ve been 南丁格尔 if they really wanted to pay tribute to the mother of modern nursing.
According to the official announcement, Male Nurse aims to pay tribute to healthcare workers and the healing and warmth they bring.
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Anon
Hu Ge is over-rated. He is a good actor but still over-rated.
XZF
Yes. I agreed with you.