A few days ago, an entry of #Chinese-style horror# quietly rushed to the hot search.
In the live performance "See Pingyao Again", a performance passage called "Choosing a Wife" caused controversy.
This part shows in detail how to use feudal standards to measure whether a woman is worthy of being married, such as whether she is a three-inch golden lotus, fingers like green onions, palm prints, and plump buttocks.
The story is located at the end of the Qing Dynasty, so some people argue that this is just a true reflection of history.
Then a thorny question arises: Is this a succession of feudalism or a critique of feudalism?
In my opinion, the discomfort experienced by many netizens in the performance is the most real after all.
"See Pingyao Again" is worth talking about, but not only because of its controversy and scolding. More importantly, we need to see through the source of this "Chinese-style terror".
"See Pingyao Again" is a situational experience drama, which has always been famous for its immersive experience.
It tells the story of the last years of the Qing Dynasty, when Zhao Yishuo, the owner of a ticket number in Pingyao, spent all his family property to bring people to Tsarist Russia in order to save people. Before leaving, the people in the city heard about this righteous act, and they gave wives to Zhao Yishuo, who had not married a wife, some to his own sister, and some to his daughter, just to let his Zhao family also leave a bloodline.
The performance aims to embody the traditional morality of loyalty and filial piety, and plays a very old-fashioned tragic narrative.
So, is "See Pingyao Again" deliberately engaging in male condensation?
I don't dare to say a word about death.
First, the paternity in the plot can indeed be explained as "mapping history", as if all costume dramas cannot jump out of the cultural background of the Three Outlines and Five Constants, and all criticism can always be displayed as the premise.
Second, although there is no shortage of men in "See Pingyao Again", there seems to be no shortage of women......
The bathing plot of the dart master in "See Pingyao Again".
But then again, I've always believed in a way of "what you see is what you get".
No matter how avant-garde the consciousness of the work is, if the audience only gets the rotten expression, what is the point?
The problem with "See Pingyao Again" is that although it has some traditional temperament, this temperament is highlighted by the sacrifice of women, and although it presents the plight of the weak, this dilemma is depicted too frivolously and therefore does not show weight.
Elaborate on the "wife selection" clip that caused controversy.
Whose three-inch golden lotus can be placed in a porcelain basin, whose fingers are slender and snow-white, whose palm pattern is not broken (Broken Palm Kefu), whose back is smooth and white, whose face is good, and finally bigger than whose buttocks.
Among them, the actresses wore belly pockets to show their backs, twisted their hips to the audience, and the movements were beautiful.
I can't see at all that this is a decent family and the yellow flower girl in the city are getting married, but it is like visiting a kiln.
When it comes to "criticism", no matter how it is presented, it must always have a background of suffering that can be generally perceived by the public.
Just like Lu Xun's "Blessings" is writing about the lively happiness of the New Year at the beginning and end, but no one really thinks that this is a happy time of "making dumplings together".
And in "See Pingyao Again", I believe that only women can feel this creeping.
Immediately afterwards, the most "precious" woman was finally selected, and the husband's family said that her character was good enough. She was dressed in red, and she reserved seeds for Zhao Yishuo that night.
In order to reflect the decency of the male protagonist, he thanked the woman, and the woman said:
Less proprietors
You chose me
It's a blessing to me
I do not know
Is she a competitive woman?
I'm going to give you a son
I do
I can't do it, the husband is the wife
I cannot accept your courtesy
Are you sure this is not a line from "Mother's Road"?
What's even more terrifying is that Zhao Yishuo left home the next day to do "big things", and the wife who was chosen only to let him keep the seeds overnight died in childbirth.
The value of the heroine is a blood vessel, and her righteousness is not highlighted in her personality, but in the womb.
In order to reflect the heroes of the Zhao family's era, the ancestors all sat upright and dignified, and the women who were selected just now were still surrounded by belly pockets, showing their enchantment.
Only the lady who was chosen, who died for her husband, was dressed appropriately and sat upright.
Her self-evaluation of her own death is full of pride and consciousness (to the effect):
All life is born
Death is death
The Zhao family has so many generations
Only I, the woman, were allowed to enter the ancestral hall
OK, the word "ancestral hall" comes out, and the nature of this episode is a foregone conclusion.
What's even more ironic is that she only had one set of clothes from beginning to end: a wedding dress.
Among them, there is another secret wedding, which is also uncomfortable.
In that bathing scene, each dart master had a festive-looking girl to wipe his body.
The master picked up the girls and told them to bite them, then threw the girl to her knees and cried because it hurt too much.
The lines say, so that even if you die on the road, you have the last solace.
No matter how subtle it is, it is not difficult for adults to see the meaning of sexual comfort, and this is the only role that women can play in front of "great achievements".
Compared with his wife, this time he handed over his body without even a name and no point, it was just a pure sacrifice.
This is the meaning of #Chinese-style horror#: the ancient wedding banquet was a happy event for men, and for women, it was a funeral for the second half of life.
And the times have advanced to this day, why is there still this kind of "funeral joy" in the name of righteousness?
The word "marry" is composed of "take" and "female", and the original meaning is the custom of robbing a woman as a wife in ancient times.
Here's an explanation from the dictionary.
It can be seen that in the entire feudal era, the joy of marriage was often based on exploitation.
In "See Pingyao Again", the individual is integrated into the grand narrative, the woman is shown to the body, speaking words that are proud to sacrifice for men, completely unperceived tool people, and all emotions are erased.
Is it because they are too concerned with righteousness and forget personal expression?
There are a lot of personalized expressions in the performances of the dart masters, such as after the sacrifice, some of the ghosts of the dart masters say that they want to go home to eat a bowl of noodles, and some say that they miss their women, etc.
Although people die, the human touch is still there.
The opposite is true for female characters.
The emptiness of women's feelings means that the persecution and cruelty of feudal weddings against women have been tolerated and forgiven by the creator instead of women.
And this is the core source of the so-called "sense of terror".
I'm reminded of some performances with similar themes, but more contemporary.
Zhang Bichen and Meng Jia's "Three Worships on Red Dust and Coolness".
As soon as they appeared, the two ripped off the red veil, and opened with charm and expression.
They maintain a faint atmosphere of sadness throughout the whole process, telling their sad situation to modern audiences from the perspective of ancient women:
Listen to the noise of gongs and drums, who is accompanied by tears
Absurd marriage in the world
I have never met but can hold the red line......
Worship the heavens, the earth, the sun and the moon
The second worship will forget this life
After singing to the wedding feast, the joys and sorrows of the rest of your life have nothing to do with it, and you will pour wine on the ground like a walking corpse:
People are still alive, but they have begun to pay tribute to themselves, which is wonderful.
The song ends when the audience thinks the performance is over, and the finishing touch comes.
A festive suona suddenly sounded next to the stage, and a welcoming team came to the middle of the stage to put on the headscarves that they had just torn off for the two "brides".
At this moment, they were deprived of even their words, obediently trapped in a thin red veil, and turned back into a docile doll.
What's so good about this stage that's only a few minutes long?
Fortunately, it conveys to the audience the feelings of individual women.
In contrast, in order to highlight a certain subject, the gap between erasing the woman's words and then forcibly filling in the blank dialog box with the expression of submission and flattery in place can be described as a high judgment.
In the final analysis, netizens ridiculed "See Pingyao Again" as "Chinese-style horror", which just hit its hypocrisy:
In the name of promoting tradition, it is still talking about clan culture, feudal morality, patriarchal system, and the three outlines and five constants.
Although it shows the experience of women in the old days to a certain extent, it uses a festive and fragrant presentation to hide its deep compulsive nature.
It is not an exaggeration to package harm as good, and it is not an exaggeration to call it terrifying.
Ironically, on the contrary, some ghost films with the theme of "Chinese horror" focus more on women's encounters.
The "A Chinese Ghost Story" series is about the social situation in which people are not as good as ghosts in a chaotic world.
In the first part, although Nie Xiaoqian is a ghost, she still can't escape the fate of being at the mercy of sexual resources. was first used by the tree demon grandmother to seduce men, and was promised to the old demon of Montenegro who needed to be stammered.
Xiao Qian is extremely gorgeous when she is dressed in red.
But when she got married, the darkness blinded Hongyan, she was slapped and eaten by the thousands of male heads that made up the old demon of Montenegro.
She never had the right and freedom to choose, both before and after her death.
In the second part, Fu Qingfeng and Ning Caichen were in love, but they were promised to marry others.
The shape of the wedding dress at the time of marriage is still classic, but beauty does not mean joy, and her lonely tears still tell the grief of women.
and then talked about "Liang Zhu" n times, Zhu Yingtai cried blood and no one cared about it, the red clothes were like prison clothes, and the phoenix crown was like a shackle.
No matter how beautiful the red dress and wedding are, it has nothing to do with the happiness of the woman herself.
They always fell to their knees, destined to be imprisoned in a "wedding feast" for the rest of their lives.
On "Liang Zhu" and under "A Chinese Ghost Story"
On the contrary, only by throwing away the "beautiful" phoenix crown from the male perspective can they regain their freedom.
On "Liang Zhu" and under "A Chinese Ghost Story"
These works are not a great advanced consciousness, they are just honest enough.
Honest enough not to ignore the darkness of history, not to decorate greatness with the blood and tears of the weak.
In the final analysis, the controversy of "See Pingyao Again" is not a problem of material, but a problem of expression.
There is no problem in showing backward ideologies, the key is to use them from what angle.
For example, Mo Yan wrote "Breast Fat Buttocks":
"She is the wife of a blacksmith, but in fact she is much better at striking iron than her husband, and whenever she sees iron and fire, her blood is hot. The blood boils, washing the blood vessels. The muscles are bulging, one by one, like a bullwhip out of the sheath, the black iron smashes the red iron, the flowers are everywhere, the sweat is drenched, and the smell of iron and blood permeates the heaven and earth. ”
In fact, he is also not taboo, and his sketches and fantasies about female bodies are very generous.
But the beauty of breasts and buttocks is not objectified or gazed at here, but is a powerful and shocking symbol of motherhood. A woman's body can give birth to the whole world, and it can shake the whole world.
Another example is in "Lust and Caution", which also requires the passive dedication of women to complete a great cause.
But in Ang Lee's interpretation, Wang Jiazhi's strength is cohesive. She is not there, but in the shell of a woman, easily disintegrating the entire patriarchal structure.
I don't want today's literary and artistic works to reach a similar ideological height, but at least, don't ignore reality.
The dark nature of traditional weddings is still a remnant of it.
For example, "throwing chopsticks" is a wedding custom.
When the bride gets married, she has to throw a pair of chopsticks back, which means that she will no longer eat the "mother's meal" and break off with the original family. It is also said that it means not taking away the wealth of the mother's family.
Therefore, many brides are reluctant and cry bitterly when throwing chopsticks, but they are still forcibly fulfilled.
This is actually the same as the so-called "splashing water" ritual.
Another example is "being sexual".
Let the bride sit in a dustpan and carry it home, and put it in front of the ancestors and ancestors in the ancestral hall alone, with the intention of rubbing off her sharpness, being docile after entering the door, and honoring her in-laws.
There is also "divorced meat".
Before marrying, the man should prepare a few catties of pork to send to the woman, and in some places there will be pork legs, which is called "Liniang meat".
Why? Flipping over to one of the versions, it makes people's hairs stand on end:
There was a daughter-in-law who was not good to her mother-in-law, and was turned into a pig by a fairy and then slaughtered by her husband. When her husband learned the truth, he felt that she deserved it, so he cut off a pork leg and took it to her father-in-law's house.
There are also places where the bride's mother cuts a piece of pork at the wedding, symbolizing the division with her daughter.
These still surviving marriage customs all follow a similar logic:
Marriage is a delivery ceremony, and the bride is a fish to be disposed of.
Just like Ning Caichen's sigh in "A Chinese Ghost Story", it turns out that whether it is a human or a ghost, she can't escape her own life.
The presentation of 1987 still reflects the plight of some women today.
On the contrary, there are still so many scenes now, blowing suona for them without authorization?
While the actor shows strength and greatness, the actress kneels to the side and bows her head humbly.
When the male actor shows the pasta culture with a long cultural connotation and is full of power, the actresses collectively twist their buttocks with their bare backs to the audience to show their bodies......
Piao often said that the plight of women is a structural net.
This thing seems to be quite small when taken out alone, but if the creators who have the right to speak replace us with this kind of paternal perspective, then this grid will be denser and denser.
In "Liang Zhu", Zhu Yingtai has to die to return to his true face and regain his human rights.
But the women of "See Pingyao Again", from birth to death, are a tool for sequelization in the play, and a tool for sensationalism and affection outside the play.
Until death, there is no liberation.
Chinese horror, but that's it.
Chinese-style horror is not a ghost, it is a person who ignores human nature
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