"The uncle wanted me to hold an umbrella for him, I wanted to walk away, but I still wanted to help him, I thought I should give the uncle who was raining on the umbrella, so I supported him, but people said it was my fault, and no one praised me."
This is the complaint of the 8-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted in the Korean movie "Suyuan". Behind the innocent, calm tone, there is a deep malice that the world is smashing in the face—an extreme indifference that is almost suffocating.
In 2019, musician Taiyi took this as inspiration and created the song "Grow up with a weight of 10,000 pounds", which issued the truest cry of the heart for those children who carried the weight forward because of "accidents".
Coincidentally, in the dark corner of this society, there is another group of people who are getting old because of the same kind of disaster.
In 2020, South Korean director Lim Sun-ae's debut film "Old Woman" unveiled such a ruthless layer of social scars. In addition to exploring the sensitive topic of sexual assault, "Old Woman" also extends the audience's perspective to the survival status of the entire elderly group.
Lin Shan'ai said in an interview that what she shows in the film is not only the harm caused by young men to older women, but the discrimination and prejudice of the whole society against the elderly group.
As the world's first country with a zero birth rate, South Korea now faces a severe aging population of 15.8% of the population over the age of 65.
In society, those elderly people who are generally considered sexually unattractive and lose the value of their labor, and many of them are even deprived of the right to pursue their partners in their old age by their children, and gradually no longer receive mainstream attention.
Because of this, the elderly are increasingly becoming a vulnerable group in society, especially women. Whether it is the deterioration of physical fitness, the weakness of resistance, or the shame of the older generation for "sex", they have become a major target for people with ulterior motives to commit low-cost crimes.
In the film "Old Woman", the 69-year-old protagonist Xiaozhen is a typical representative of this marginalized group. In the black screen at the beginning of the film for more than two minutes, the director filmed a shocking "violation" with patience and restraint.
"Don't you have a guardian?"
"Your legs are beautiful."
"The back is very much like a young girl."
In a pitch-black hospital nursing room, the voice of a young man kept ringing out. As the healer timer made a dripping sound, a bruise on an old woman's wrist came into the camera.
This 69-year-old woman named Xiaozhen is a 69-year-old woman who is close to the end of her life, but she is well maintained and attaches great importance to her personal image. Whether it is a well-groomed hairstyle, a commendable piece of clothing, or a good posture maintained after years of swimming, Xiaozhen looks younger and more fashionable than her peers.
In the hospital, Li Zhonghao, a 29-year-old physiotherapist, saw this old man who still had the charm in bed, without the escort of a guardian, and had no resistance, and even had evil thoughts in the process of physiotherapy, rudely violating filial piety.
Xiao Zhen's originally stable old age has undergone earth-shaking changes since then.
After being discharged from the hospital, she often stared at herself in a daze; whenever she heard a dripping sound similar to that of a treatment instrument timer, she would always be frightened and trembling; she had always loved beauty, wearing two different styles of socks to the supermarket without knowing it...
In the familiar swimming pool, even if she was accidentally touched, Xiaozhen was nervous like a frightened bird; when the young women around her praised her figure, Xiaozhen's face was not happy, she only felt a kind of utter irony, almost collapsed.
Xiao Zhen, who was unable to dispel this psychological repression, finally plucked up the courage to tell the truth to Dong Gen, who lived together, and the two went to the police station together to report the case.
However, during the interrogation, when the police learned that the defendant Lee Jong-ho and XiaoZhen had a 40-year age difference, they could not help but question Xiaozhen's accusations, as if it was a miracle that "69 years old" and "sex" could still be linked.
Coupled with the fact that the defendant Lee Jong-ho has a sunny appearance and a good reputation, the interrogators seem to believe more in the set of statements compiled by Lee Jong-ho - "This is not sexual assault, but X sex that you love and I wish."
Under this naked "age discrimination", Xiaozhen was even identified as possibly suffering from Alzheimer's disease. So when she took out her underwear stained with the other party's semen in shame, the police once again ignored her application for an arrest warrant on the grounds that "young men are less likely to sexually assault elderly women."
The police's "prejudice" against Xiaozhen made her at one point also begin to doubt whether she really had Alzheimer's disease. In order to prove her innocence, she ran around despite her age, and even returned to the hospital where she used to work, looking for witnesses who could prove that her memory was not biased.
It can be said that this is a confrontation between filial piety and sexual abusers, and it is also a confrontation between the weak social group of the elderly and the judicial mechanism and social prejudice. Among them, the loopholes in the law and the indifference of human nature are revealed here.
When Xiaozhen returned to the hospital where she used to work and told the head nurse she had worked with about her experience, the other party coldly asked Xiaozhen: "Why are you not careful?" ”
And commented on Xiao Zhen's dress: "If you dress like this, who will think you are a nurse?" ”
The policeman handling the case also intentionally or unintentionally mentioned in the conversation with Xiaozhen: "I thought you were very good at dressing up..."
From bystanders to law enforcement officers, they all attributed the reason for Xiaozhen's sexual assault to her dress, dress and figure that did not match her age, but ignored the words that Xiaozhen said for all the elderly:
"When you are old, the shabbiness of your clothes will be ignored, feel annoyed, and then be harassed and bullied."
Under this collective deformed cognition of the "victim guilt theory", even Li Jong-ho, who really committed a crime, dared to shout with words: "I help you live happily!" ”
With the help of this "collective unconscious", the deformed social value judgment has affected the fairness of law enforcement to a certain extent.
As early as 2010, South Korea had actually increased the punishment of sex offenders in the Special Law on Sexual Violence. Among them, if the victim is a child, adolescent or disabled person, the victim will be investigated by a female police officer, and the perpetrator will be detained unconditionally.
Unfortunately, this bill does not include the elderly in special cases, which shows that the real bill has omissions in the legislative and practical processes, which also creates the powerlessness of the elderly group represented by filial piety in the face of infringement.
In front of the camera, the frustrated Xiaozhen smoked a cigarette lonely again and again; in the sun, she took off her gloves and watched the bruises on her wrists have completely disappeared, but no one knows that the pain in Xiaozhen's heart has condensed into an inner scar with the passage of time, always reminding her of the unspeakable past.
Camus wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus: "The important thing is not to be cured, but to live with sickness." ”
In ancient Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a wise man of the world, daring to rebel against the authority of the gods, because helping the world against death violated the authority of Zeus. He was punished by the gods for pushing a boulder up to the top of the mountain, and then watched it roll down again, repeating the cycle, consuming life.
The filial piety in the film is like Sisyphus, single-handedly resisting the imperfect legal loopholes. In order to restore the truth, she uncovered the scars again and again, not to heal, but to live more innocently as a martyr.
But the harsh reality has also taught her time and time again that the prejudices of this society will not be eliminated by sympathy and kindness.
At the end of the film, XiaoZhen comes to the home of the physiotherapist's girlfriend with the indictment, but what she sees is that the other party is holding up a seven-month-old pregnant belly, and the family is happy and harmonious.
In the next shot, the complaint, along with the baby's toys and clothes, is thrown into the fire by the girl's father and slowly reduced to ashes.
However, this kind of personal emotional "punishment" still cannot hide the "emptiness" of society at the legal level.
Until the last moment of the film, Lee Jong-ho was not arrested. Xiao Zhen exposed the pages of indictments to the sun, let them flutter in the wind, and made the crime public.
In the bright visual tone, this artistic ending is like a blank space, giving the audience more room for thinking and reflection.
In real life, many people pay attention to "sexual assault" cases in society, but few people pay attention to the elderly group that may also become one of the targets of aggression.
But if you type keywords such as "the elderly" and "sexually assaulted" in the search bar, you will find that there are even many more unbearable cases in society, such as the case of sexual assault of the elderly in Xiayi, Henan Province from 2011 to 2014.
In these three years, Wang Jun, a 49-year-old in Xiayi County, Henan Province, has infiltrated the homes of widowed elderly women more than 40 times to commit violence, and more than 10 elderly people have been victimized, ranging in age from 73 to 95 years old.
The perpetrators of violence took advantage of this group's weak sense of rights protection and the mentality of not daring to report the case for face, and continued to carry out continuous violations against the villagers. This kind of collective helplessness in the face of aggression is even more cruel than the film presents.
This real dilemma of the elderly also reflects Lin Shan'ai's original intention in creating this movie:
"I don't want the movie 'Old Woman' to recreate just a case, I want the audience to realize that what happens in the movie is not an isolated case of someone, but something that is likely to happen in the future of "me" and around "us.". ”
According to the forecast of the China Development Foundation, China will officially enter an aging society around 2022. Among them, the elderly population over 65 years old is expected to account for more than 14% of the total population. Therefore, the marginalization of the elderly in society urgently needs to be faced by every young person.
Wilde once said: "The tragedy of old age is not that a man is old, but that his heart is still young." ”
This sentence actually summarizes the thinking brought to us by "The Old Woman": If you long for freedom and dignity when you are young, then you must not give up freedom and dignity when you are old.
The so-called "peaceful old age" for the elderly, in fact, is not a free and self-respecting old age for the elderly?
END.
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