Identity Anxiety, Alien Demonization, and Leviathan

If you often watch American animations, you will often find a lot of the following plots: teenagers born in certain professional families have long-term disagreements with their parents, and their skill points have not been added enough points, and they are despised by the opposite sex who have a crush on them. Produces what De Botton calls "identity anxiety." What kind of person are you? How will others see me in the eyes of others? What should I do to gain acceptance from others? In the middle of the story, the young man will experience some adventures, and then his character will explode, and finally he will be recognized by everyone, and he will be a beauty. You can recall "Astro Boy", "Food Falls from the Sky", "Farm Crazy", etc., etc., basically this is the same routine. However, looking at this film, there are more interesting things besides the "identity anxiety" of mass production.

For example, for the image concept of aliens, what I get from books and teachers is only "dangerous, kill", in addition to this, there should also be "ugly, sinful, greedy" and other impressions. As we all know, Dragon is such an image in the Western tradition. If anyone doubts this image and wants to coexist peacefully, it must be regarded as an alien and knocked down. In some senses, a unified voice is a good way for an imagined community to maintain self-identity, such as stereotyped recognition and contempt for neighboring countries and peoples, and by dwarfing and vilifying other groups to gain self-esteem identify. The main explanation of the Vikings in this film is because "Dragon came to plunder them, they were greedy and lazy, and killed their people". And the male protagonist accidentally discovered that it turned out that "we" are the same, they also know how to be afraid, Oh, we are the same, Muslims, pagans, communists, we are the same. After discovering this problem, the male protagonist was still hesitating, but after seeing the boss in the dragon cave, he "discovered" the source of evil: Oh, it turns out that they were forced. So after killing the BOSS, there will be no obstacles in their Datong world - then there will be no original evil of Dragon.

And that BOSS is very reminiscent of "Leviathan" written by Hobbes. Leviathan is a sea monster that symbolizes evil in the Bible, and is regarded as a demon who rebels against God and wants to destroy the world. What Hobbes said about Leviathan is that people agree to make a contract, give up their rights, and entrust them to the so-called collective, which should also be criticized. In the film Dragon, regardless of fear or why, the rights they gave up made the boss. And after the Vikings eliminated the so-called alien Leviathan, the world was united.

But that's not quite the case. Dragon was domesticated and controlled by Vikings after Datong - this is not bad in Vikings' view, it is better to work here than Leviathan. In fact, Vikings were also pirates. Later, infidels, XXists, and XX elements were all working for them: the world is in harmony.

PS: Dragon is not a dragon, please don't associate it. I remember someone saying that "Yooog" is better to translate dragon into English, but no, it still has two horns.

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