A while ago, I saw the list of Films of Hope movies recommended by Cate Blanchett, and then I came to know about The Joy Luck Club. The story of almost every character made me cry when I watched it. I felt that there were too many things to talk about, so I simply wrote After reading the article.
(Serious spoilers, if you haven't seen it, it is strongly recommended to watch it first)
This is a poignant movie. The "poor" is that each character's story has a tragic and sad part. The "beautiful" one is that the actors in this movie are really temperamental, Chinese and American. The costumes, scenes, and props are all beautifully made. Another point is that each character's story contains an element of "love". Love is a complex emotion, and it is those tragic stories that set off the greatness of love and the beauty that love brings.
The narrative structure of the movie The Joy Luck Club is very clever. It has a chapter-like structure. History is constantly written, but different characters are marked with accents in each chapter.
My narrative connects a complete story. In fact, the narrative structure of Mrs. America is also very similar, and it is similar to this chapter-like structure, which is exactly the movie recommended by Cate Blanchett, so I am curious whether the production of Mrs. America has borrowed from this movie.
This way of self-narrative is very infectious. Everyone has an unspeakable past, a heavy and tragic past that has to be overcome. The past and present stories of these movie characters all reflect the phenomenon of a patriarchal society. In a patriarchal society, the family is often in the private domain, and the life and thoughts of the women in the family, her past and present seem to be more It is a more personal thing in the private domain, so the way of self-narrative in the film reflects this characteristic.
And this family construction model has been reflected from the beginning of the film. The camera moves gradually with Wu Jingmei's entry. Most of the "fathers" in the family are sitting on the sofa watching rugby, while the "mother" and the children are sitting at the dining table chatting while preparing ingredients. Only Lucy's lover, Ted, stood by and chatted with them, while the "grandma" sat at another table handling the ingredients. This is an invisible family construction, because it is not a mandatory behavioral requirement, and there is a certain mobility. However, in a peaceful environment, most of the male and female members of the family are doing their jobs, doing what they and they are supposed to do. From a structuralist perspective, these small things in the family form a complete family structure - grandparents, husband and wife, boys and girls. Such family structure stratification is naturally derived from blood and age, and the specific manifestations formed are a series of things such as those mentioned above. Maybe you are curious, isn't this picture because most men like to watch sports and most women like to cook? However, this is only the result, and the result cannot be used to interpret the result. The most important thing is to discover the reasons behind the phenomenon. The reasons are naturally multi-factors, such as the differences in the physiological structure of men and women, but the most important thing is closed thinking. Men are expected by society to be tall, strong, sports-loving, responsible, etc., while women are ladies. , slender, virtuous, etc. This mode of thinking is obviously strongly patriarchal, limiting the growth space of men and women, and requiring the behavior of men and women. In addition, it is necessary to point out that such a family must have certain capital and economic foundation to realize the separation of family space. This is also the phenomenon of Chinese families who have the ability to immigrate to the United States.
With the sound of the piano in the first few bars of the humorous piece (Humoresque Op.101No.7), the first story begins when Wu Jingmei was a child. Her piano teacher was deaf, so she never practiced the piano and only played these few bars. But at the talent show, her mother felt embarrassed because she could only play these few bars. Here's an excerpt from the line:
"You want me to be the daughter you want, but that will never be possible."
"There are only two kinds of daughters - obedience to mother's orders and free will, but this house can only accommodate obedience."
"Then I hope I'm not your daughter, and you're not my mother."
"It can't be changed."
Hey, what kind of "Chinese-style parenting" education this is. Parents place all their expectations on their children. This kind of hope is mixed with love, and it is difficult to evaluate right or wrong. The last paragraph of the film also tells that when Wu Jingmei's mother Wu Suyuan was migrating during the Anti-Japanese War, she had to abandon her twin daughters when she was migrating during the Anti-Japanese War. The past of love and pain has cast a cassock on this imposed hope, hard to evaluate, hard to articulate, but certainly inappropriate.
The second story is about the mother and daughter Gong Linda and Violet. Gong Linda was introduced by a matchmaker to a husband she had never met since she was a child, thinking that she would have many children and grandchildren in the future. This is a major feature of traditional patriarchal societies, where women are objectified. The fate of a girl is decided when she is a child, she is given a baby to kiss, she is married to a big family, and so on. An important form of realizing this materialization is to marry into the male family. The purpose is to get rid of the control and interference of the female family, so that the female is completely controlled by the male family. It is very easy for women to alienate themselves in this situation, and the same is true for Gong Linda in the film at the beginning. She tries to accept her destiny and be a good wife and mother. But her mother-in-law's endless suppression and her wisdom accomplished self-liberation and got rid of the control of the man's family. Yet when she was a mother, she still used her chess champion daughter as a vehicle for showing off. When her child tried to resist, she also looked indifferent, hitting the child's self-confidence. These two stories have a clear Asian Family color. My personal point of view is that as a mother, especially a housewife, sometimes what is left is the identity of a mother, so that nurturing children and taking care of the family have become "jobs". The excellence of the work is naturally the strength of the children in all aspects. So I think the most important thing is to emancipate the mind. A mother can not only be a mother, but also have many choices of her own. But taking this a step further, a large part of what is emerging today is that the mother has to do both what she wants to do and the housework, so emancipating the mind is not just emancipating the mother's mind, but also emancipating the father's mind. Of course, there are too many places to discuss housework, so I will only mention it here.
The third story is about the mother and daughter Yingying and Lina. Yingying is a rich lady, but unfortunately the first husband Lin Xiao she fell in love with was a playboy. Poor Yingying was severely punished. After being humiliated, he killed his own daughter with his own hands. Lin Xiao is really a typical representative of patriarchy. His suppression of women is sexual domination. He even brought the young lady home and said that his wife was also a young lady. The first meeting between him and Yingying was actually foreshadowed. In order to show his strength in front of Yingying, he cut the watermelon with a knife and licked it obscenely with his mouth (I saw In this paragraph, I couldn't help saying that this person has a problem with his brain), but this tall, handsome and powerful boy attracted Yingying, who was in adolescence. This is also a problem that is very easy for adolescent girls in today's society. They are overly obsessed with tall, handsome, and mighty men, especially those boys on the basketball team. Remember, the body and appearance are only one aspect. Connotation, cultivation, quality, etc. are sometimes more important. Being overly obsessed with the body can easily be limited to the body. To put it bluntly, love only has sex.
Lina and her husband are in a seemingly fair relationship. The two use the AA system to pay for the things they use together in life, and pay for the parts they use independently. However, this is just a utopian beauty, she works in her husband's company, her husband's income is seven times her income, so everything is AA, which makes her financially difficult. This phenomenon also occurs in today's society, that is, falling in love with your boss, really! absolute! don't want! If you fall in love with your male boss, otherwise the unlucky women are often the ones who are unlucky. Because of the relationship between the boss and the subordinate, there are natural differences in the economy. This seemingly absolute equality will lead to women being unable to make ends meet, making it difficult for women to achieve economic independence. , the direct power relationship of the company can easily be transferred to the power relationship between families. The obvious point in the film is that Lina does not eat ice cream, but her husband ignores and counts the cost as AA system. This kind of power relationship and economic difference can easily lead to women's self-alienation, that is, self-deprecation and self-pity, and this kind of mistake is actually brought by men, but under the alienation, it is easy to regard it as their own mistake.
The last couple is Xu Anmei and Lucy. The story of Xu Anmei's mother is too tragic. She (Xu Anmei's mother) was raped and pregnant, but everyone, including her biological mother, didn't believe it. In order to make a living, she could only rely on the person who raped her and was forced to become the fourth concubine, and the son she conceived was also possessed by the second concubine. In the end, she committed suicide after taking an overdose of opium, and her husband made her right to be the eldest wife in order not to be punished, so ironic. This is a major feature of the family in feudal society, a traditional family construction that has lasted for thousands of years, and it is also what Max Weber calls traditional authority. In a patriarchal and patriarchal family, the male master has absolute power, while the female is assigned the title in order of rank. The most important child is the boy, because they are the future head of the family.
Lucy's family is interesting, her husband Ted has a prominent family background, her father is a publisher tycoon, and her mother owns a number of wineries. Ted's mother is actually racist, but Ted is very kind, not racist, respects Lucy and loves her very much, and has no annoying patriarchal ideas. However, after Ted took over the job, he was very busy, and Lucy silently supported him behind his back. She didn't even accept the scholarship from the university, and she didn't even think about accepting it. This is why I set the title as a patriarchal society rather than a patriarchal family. Although the man does not have a patriarchal ideology, this family has been subtly influenced by the patriarchal society—a kind of idea of "males govern outside, women lead inside". In the process, the element of love is constantly diluted, and women seem to be recruited domestic workers.
Although all the stories are very tragic, they all have relatively happy endings. I think this is one of the reasons why Cate Blanchett recommended this movie to the Films of Hope movie list. Wu Jingmei came to China on a cruise ship to meet her mother. Abandoned two daughters, Violet's mother accepted her husband and had a happy family, Lina broke up with her former lover and found a new love that belonged to her, Lucy learned the story of her grandmother and became brave and independent. My mother also walked through those painful pasts strong.
View more about The Joy Luck Club reviews
