Every Christmas is a time when everyone is madly writing "True Love First". At this time of the year, you can see friends in the circle of friends who forward the screenshots of this movie over and over again. I also watched this movie with anticipation under the influence of this atmosphere, but was choked by the backward gender concept.
Indeed, I also admit that there are many moving scenes in this movie, but we should also note that this movie was released in 2003, and 16 years have passed since this year. During these 16 years, people’s gender awareness has After a great awakening, if we are still blindly immersed in the touch brought by the movie from the perspective of 16 years ago, without reflecting on the gender issues highlighted in it, we will be surrounded by more and more "Mother's Way" and so on. Works flooded.
The women in "True Love First" are only the objects and accessories of men's desires
This movie is unfolded by the stories of 10 different characters, and the ending of almost every story ends with the men "getting" the favor, admiration or forgiveness of women. It seems that women do not have their own subjective consciousness, have no impressive personalities or interests, and only appear as objects of male desires.
One of the stories is that Harry, as a manager of a company, has a happy family and is attracted by the young and sexy secretary Mia.
In order to "get" Mia, he bought an expensive necklace for her at Christmas, but was discovered by his wife. After being heartbroken, the wife still (under the arrangement of the director somehow) forgave her husband. This story obviously divides women into two categories. One is young women who are sexy and beautiful outside the family. They are dangerous and beautiful. They are excuses for men not to return home and are the culprits of destroying the family; the other is the one inside the family. A kind and honest wife who is no longer passionate, she is loyal, tolerant, and always a good mother and wife. No matter what a man does, she opens her arms and waits for him to return home.
However, no matter which kind, it makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. Their desires, struggles, and emotions as a person are all erased, leaving only the empty images of men.
The wife finally forgave her husband for this behavior. On the one hand, you can certainly defend it in the name of love, but on the other hand, the novelist Jamie who was betrayed by his wife who appeared at the beginning of the movie, but simply chose to leave.
How can this not be reminiscent of the fact that in reality, those women who face their husbands cheating often choose to forgive and forgive, standing behind him and silently supporting him, while those men facing their wives' cheating will mostly choose to leave. In both cases, it was women who were scolded: the former was a "family-destroying" junior, and the latter was a cheating wife.
There is also a story: Sarah has a crush on designer Carl for a long time, and finally expressed her affection for him at the Christmas ball. However, when the two returned home to make friends, Sarah received a call.
It turns out that she has a younger brother with a mental disorder who is extremely insecure. When he is upset, she will call her sister for comfort. Sarah also accompanies her brother every time he needs him, and this time is no exception. In this case, Carl can only choose to break up with her.
In this story, the woman appears as a caring, Virgin Mary. She has her own desires and the urge to satisfy her desires, but when she needs to perform her duty of care, she will immediately let go of these and transform into The Virgin Mary who works hard and provides emotional support 24 hours a day. Rather than praising the greatness of sister’s love, it’s better to say that the film changed another way to impose harsh demands on women : as a woman, your most important role is a caregiver, and your most correct choice is to provide care. Instead of just having fun.
And man, if you are not the one being taken care of, just leave and find a woman who can take care of you.
The most terrifying thing is one of the lines. Colin has been depressed for not finding a girl who likes him, so he suddenly wanted to go to the United States, and confidently believed that he would be welcomed in the United States (but I don’t see it at all. To find out where his self-confidence came from, as mentioned below), he went to the United States with a backpack and condom (???).
The ending of the story is that he really met three sexy and hot girls in the United States who were willing to sleep with him, and even went back to the United Kingdom with him. When his old friend watched him come back with an American girl in amazement, Colin gave him another surprise: He also brought another girl to "given" to a friend! ! !
Is it buying one get one free for women as souvenirs? The objectification of women must be no longer saying that everyone can vomit with me.
The men in "True Love First" should really learn how to express love to the people they like
This is a movie about love. The most important question is, what is love? How to show love to the one you love? It's a pity that many stories in this movie make very wrong demonstrations.
The novelist Jamie moved to France alone after breaking up with his cheating wife, where he met the maid, Ai Li, who only spoke Portuguese. Although the two could not communicate at all, even though Jamie didn't know who the woman in front of him was, where he came from, what wonderful or sad past, what interests and ideals he had, he didn't try to understand at all.
But Jamie still feels attracted to this maid (so a woman who can take care of a man with less work is really attractive?) In an accident, Jamie's manuscript fell into the lake and Ellie ignored it. Everything jumped into the water to retrieve the manuscript for Jamie. Seeing this scene, Jamie became even more sure of his love.
Moved, moved, one fact I want to clarify here is: Allie has no idea what Jamie wrote, whether these things are valuable, whether she personally likes them, it is impossible to be sure, in this case, she still feels He went to retrieve the manuscript in spite of his life.
The design of this plot seems to be just to make Jamie feel good, a feeling of being valued and even admired. However, it was in this kind of situation where the two of them did not understand at all, did not establish intimacy at all, and did not resonate, Jamie "deeply fell in love with Ellie."
I'm sorry I really want to question. Isn't this feeling of being taken care of and admired that you really love? Do you know the person you love? Do you recognize the value of the person you love?
Another story is about the prime minister and the maid (there are many pairs of unequal power relationships in the movie). The prime minister had a good impression of the maid and accidentally ran into the US president molesting the maid, misunderstood the relationship between them, and fired the maid.
Okay, let's analyze this situation. As a boss, it is a very dangerous thing to have a good impression of subordinates. Maybe it is sexual harassment. Even if you are willing on the surface, it may imply a lot of threats or incentives. But we believe that love is love for the time being. Then one day, you see the boss of another company act on this subordinate.
At this time, as a boss, you did not investigate whether your subordinates received sexual harassment from another boss, and defended the basic rights of the subordinates. As a crush, you did not try to communicate with her to understand what happened at the time and whether she was harmed. . You just swiped her pen and fired her. Is this the way to love someone? Prime Minister, would you really love someone?
Love means listening, communicating, caring, empathizing, love is not jealous, angry, using power to hurt the one you love.
Finally, I still have to mention Colin. He has never understood why he is not favored by girls, but the audience after watching the movie should understand it! ! Distribute candies in the company and tell female colleagues, "Do you want my lovely nuts" (nuts means "eggs" in addition to candy), and say hello: "hi, my future wife" (the other party is an ordinary colleague) .
Hello? I'm going to call the police. Is this naked sexual harassment? He just rolled his eyes and didn't prosecute him. He was lucky. He still thinks he is cute? ? By the way, the person may be your future boss instead of your future wife.
In Colin's worldview, it seems that there has never been an option to respect women. They are just objects to satisfy their own desires. As for who they are, it doesn't matter. So when he finally brought back three American girls, I always thought it was his fantasy! I didn't expect this movie to be really amazing (smile).
What kind of Christmas movie do I want to watch?
The Belder test is a test used to measure gender equality in fictional works. The test has three indicators: 1. There are at least two female characters in the film; 2. They have talked to each other; 3. The content of the conversation has nothing to do with men. It's a pity that "True Love First" obviously failed this test.
It is not wrong to praise love and show love, but the points it praises and the way it shows do cause a lot of discomfort in the context of today's era, especially for women. This is not the movie I desire.
The movies I desire not only have to pass the Belder test, but also have a distinctive, love-hate female image: they are not sexy (or they don’t show that side specifically); they are not virtuous, tolerant, nor Always seduce men, young and beautiful; some of them are fat, some are thin, some are tall and some are short, some are young, and some are old; they have their own interests and careers, but also their own shortcomings and grief; they not only know how to Love, respect, share anger; they also deceive, betray, and kill.
They are not only present in film and television works such as "War of the Proud", "The Great Mrs. Maisel", "Fatal Woman", "The Good Wife", "Oliv Kittridge" and so on. They also exist by our side.
View more about Love Actually reviews
