This article totals about 6,000 words
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In the documentary "I Am Bruce Lee",
Bruce Lee's former friend, the daughter of the Filipino martial artist InoYamado, once said of Bruce Lee in this sentence:
It was only later that I realized that this was no ordinary compliment.
Especially the first sentence, must be understood according to the literal meaning of the original English text.
The Marvel movie "Shangqi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (hereinafter referred to as "Shangqi") has been released overseas for some time.
According to the current data, the film's performance in the United States can be called "acclaimed and popular", not only creating the highest box office in North America since the epidemic, but also winning good reviews on major movie websites.
However, as the first Marvel superhero film based on China, this film was caught in an overwhelming "insult to China" controversy long before filming began.
There are two main points of controversy:
The film is suspected of having a famous Western insulting character "Fu Manchu", and the protagonist of this film, as a Chinese, is suspected of having the behavior of "killing his father and throwing himself into the United States";
Choice of actors.
On the first point:
Although it is not possible to see this movie in China, according to some comments currently circulating on the Internet, as well as the explanation given by Marvel President Kevin Feige when he specifically contacted Chinese film critics some time ago,
Kevin Feige in conversation with Chinese film critic Zhou Liming
We can probably know that such blatant "insulting" elements as Fu Manchu and "killing fathers and throwing beauty" should be absent. (I even read comments on the Internet that the film was too "pro-China.") In fact, even if you think about it, even for the sake of the renminbi, Marvel will not be too out of line. ）
But in my opinion, more worth discussing is another point of controversy - actors.
The male protagonist of this film, that is, the actor of "Shangqi" is named Liu Simu, who is a Canadian-Chinese actor.
I believe that many people who pay attention to movies know:
Since the day he was announced as the lead actor, the insults have not stopped.
Similar words abound.
First of all, I have absolute respect for the actors themselves, and I am extremely disgusted by online violence, especially the rude behavior of insulting others.
However, I remember a sentence by Teacher Luo Xiang: "(The law) should listen to the voice of the people, but it should transcend the prejudice of the people." ”
Verbal abuse of actors, and even internet violence, is wrong, and there is no need to discuss it.
However, if one thing has caused discomfort to the vast majority of Chinese people, it is not explained by the phrase "Chinese glass heart, Chinese no quality". This is simplifying complex problems and essentially avoiding them.
Therefore, when I see that some people on the Internet completely attribute this matter to "Chinese is too sensitive", and even ridicule the Chinese people for "going online at every turn", I can hardly agree.
As the saying goes, "Whether it is a joke or an offense depends on the feelings of the person being joked." And this "joke", obviously most Chinese people do not find it funny.
But we have to understand: actors are just "hit workers". Running to insult them is not only rude, but also the wrong person.
Especially in the mature film industry in the United States, we should pay more attention to the casting standards of Hollywood than the actors, and the cultural level behind this.
Let's start with the conclusion:
The emergence of "Shangqi" itself is definitely a positive thing for the Chinese, but it has not completely faded the "insulting Chinese" color that has basically become a "collective unconscious" of americans, that is, the choice of starring actors is not conducive to the establishment of the Chinese image. But it's worth noting that this is not the responsibility of the Marvel family (not even his subjective malice), but the strong cultural inertia that has developed in American society over the centuries.
And to be honest, I think Marvel should have been confused when it first saw the character of "Mandarin" in China being overwhelmed by crusades — "You didn't say that when Iron Man 3 was released a few years ago."
In the final analysis, it is still the national consciousness of the Chinese in recent years that has awakened too violently.
Back to "Shangqi".
Although the insult is not right, it is probably correct to say that the lead actor Liu Simu is in line with the consistent Chinese male image in the eyes of Westerners.
Let's first zoom in on the field of view for a comparison:
These are today's top European and American male stars -
And these are today's hottest Chinese male stars:
Stereotypes of the Chinese: smart, calculating
What's the difference?
You can say that there is a gap in appearance, or you can say that the Chinese are "mostly villains" and "too stereotypical".
But, the more important difference is "sexual charisma", the kind of sexual charisma that can make female audiences scream for it.
The top male stars of the West, either masculine or handsome, are all the types that can cause female audiences to scream all over the world (pay attention to this).
And the "sexual charm" of the Chinese? Obviously, it's a far cry.
Someone may have said:
"Is this an aesthetic difference between different ethnic groups?"
In fact, I thought the same thing before. But now, I'm more and more inclined to say that the so-called "difference" is actually not that big —
Whether it is Brother Atang or Captain America, their "handsomeness" and the kind of male hormones emitted are clearly regardless of race, and people all over the world can feel it. So why did the Chinese start to distinguish?
(For "what kind of man is handsome", we can actually find some explanations in evolutionary psychology to confirm the aesthetic cross-cultural commonality.) But I am only shallow and shallow, and I can't fully grasp it at present, so I will not press the table here for the time being. In short, I am now more and more reserved about the so-called "aesthetic differences between China and foreign countries")
It is worth mentioning that "sexual charm" cannot be completely equated with "handsome" -
For example, if you simply look at the face, I am afraid that Curly Fu is not how "handsome". However, with his excellent acting skills and the blessing of the "Brainy is the new sexy" trend, he can also show a unique charm, including of course sexual charm.
(Although Sherlock is a British drama, I don't think there is any need to distinguish here...) ）
Of course, creating such an outstanding character requires the efforts of the entire crew, and this is undoubtedly out of reach for the Chinese actors who survive in the cracks.
With the resources of chinese in the Western film and television circle, at most playing some functional supporting roles that bring together hunting perspectives and stereotypes, there are not many opportunities for you to play acting, let alone show any charm.
Even, you can not be a villain, you can be funny, you can be cute,
But there must be no sexual charm.
Of course, when it comes to well-known Chinese actors in the West, we must not forget these two -
Bruce Lee, probably the only exception among the Chinese, is said separately later.
Jackie Chan's position in Hollywood is to take advantage of the boom of the golden age of Hong Kong kung fu films, spelled out with his life, and if you talk about box office data alone, it has greatly surpassed Bruce Lee.
But, when we mention Jackie Chan movies, do you think of the plot of his love affair?
His main achievement is "action" + "comedy", and to talk about "sexual charisma" is obviously almost meaningless. Not to mention in Hollywood.
Cheung Kwok Wing bluntly said that "the market value of Hong Kong actors in Hollywood is 0"
Oh yes, there is one more little thing about Shangqi:
Before the main role was confirmed, another Chinese actor, Lin Ludi, also participated in the audition, and once had a high voice, but finally failed.
(It seems that there have been TV dramas recently filmed in China)
Rumor has it that the reason for his defeat was "not in line with the aesthetics of Europeans and Americans for Asians" and the like. However, after all, it has not been confirmed, and we are not in a position to expand too much.
"This little thing is on the line, think too much, right?"
Ok, as far as the matter is concerned, it is a matter of statistical probability -
If it is once or twice, it is better to say, but the same situation occurs repeatedly, which is absolutely abnormal.
It's like flipping a coin:
If it is only thrown once, it is not strange to stand up, not to mention the front and back, but if it is thrown ten times a hundred times is the same side, it is absolutely abnormal.
Moreover, when it comes to the lack of "sexual charm" of Chinese men, there is a most intuitive embodiment -
"Transnational Love" in film and television dramas.
The mainstream transnational love collocation in Western film and television is "Chinese women + foreign men", which should have no objection, right?
Sorry Jing Tian is you again, but who makes your resources so powerful...
In this section of "The Great Wall", Jing Tian and Matt Damon almost rolled the sheets, or Zhang Yimou stopped him from changing it at the end:
Zhang Yimou talks about the original script of "The Great Wall"
In short, on the big screen:
White people and Chinese women fall in love,
Black and Chinese women in love,
Only Chinese men and foreign women are not seen falling in love.
(Of course, it is not completely absent, like the early Liang Jiahui Zhou Runfa, but the number is too small to be basically meaningless.) ）
In real life, although there is no detailed statistics, but in terms of my personal limited observations, the number of "middle women with foreign men" should be more than the number of "middle men with foreign women" (a family's words, you are careful to understand).
(Of course, real-life relationships are much more complex and can be influenced by a variety of real-world factors.) But I believe that the long-term rendering of cultural products is definitely one of the factors that cannot be ignored — as early as the 1980s, a university in the United States conducted a national survey of white and Asian women in school, asking them about their impressions of "Chinese men." The final conclusion was this: "Chinese men are seen as weak, extreme, lack of masculinity, only understand technology, not human sophistication." ）
I know that the topic of "transnational love" is more sensitive, and there will definitely be people who stand up and say:
"Free love, nothing to do with you";
"Don't objectify women, women are independent, not your resource".
Of course, I agree with these ideas by twelve points. I sincerely wish every pair of true love regardless of race, I have no intention of objectifying women, and I have no intention of interfering with their mate selection criteria.
But, again, that sentence:
It's normal to do it twice, but it's absolutely not normal for the same situation to occur repeatedly.
All in all, we can find:
From the screen, to reality,
Chinese men in a global context seem to have been collectively "castrated".
This is definitely not a "on-line",
On the contrary, the loss of "masculinity" of Chinese men is not a cold day, but a manifestation of the long-standing "Chinese exclusion" tradition in the United States in the cultural field.
As Wilde said, "Sex is about power. ”
The essence of "masculinity" is power;
"Castration", on the other hand, is domestication, a deprivation of power.
The object of "castration" can be either a human being or a civilization.
From this point of view, the weakness of China's national strength in modern times, in the face of the emerging hegemony of the United States, from hard power to soft power is all in a state of being crushed, I am afraid that the fundamental reason why the Chinese people have been collectively "castrated".
And this process of "castration" can actually be traced back to the birth of the "Chinese Americans" group.
From the middle of the 19th century onwards, the first Chinese to set foot in the United States were mostly related to two things:
The gold rush, and the construction of the "Pacific Railroad."
The latter, in particular, even led to the signing of the 1868 Sino-US Treaty of Pu'anchen, the first "equality treaty" in China's modern history, in order to open the door of the United States to a large number of Chinese workers- a large number of cheap laborers were needed to build railways, and the Chinese workers at that time were the cheapest.
It is worth noting that whether it is panning for gold or building a railway, it is obvious that the Chinese at that time went to the United States only to work and earn money. They look forward to returning home rather than settling in, so they often come alone without bringing their families with them. This also laid the groundwork for the subsequent tragedy.
Facts have proved that compared with the free and loose white people who like to strike, the hard-working, highly efficient Chinese workers have shown obvious advantages in their work. By the end of the project, the Chinese even accounted for 90% of the total number of engineering workers in the western section.
However, the harsh construction environment, especially the year-round snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, has also made chinese workers pay a heavy price and even sacrifice their lives. At that time, there was no record of how many Chinese workers died. But there is a saying that has been passed down to this day: "Under each sleeper there is the bone of a Chinese worker."
However, the industriousness and sacrifice of Chinese did not come with respect — when the railroad was completed, the Americans began to "unload and kill donkeys" tricks.
Chinese national character is submissive, willing to endure hardships, and most importantly, not demanding wages. These capitalists' favorite qualities have provoked resentment among American workers, believing that Chinese robbed them of their jobs and lowered their standard of living. Coupled with the fact that the United States experienced an economic crisis at that time, a large number of white people were unemployed, and the downward pressure of the economy made American society urgently need to find a common enemy to vent.
As a result, China, a nation that is very different from its own in appearance and culture, has become the target of revenge by the Americans.
In the beginning, they were just pranks, such as cutting their braids when the Chinese were not paying attention (at that time, the Qing Dynasty ruled that they could not return to China without braids).
Later, violent chinese exclusion began. White men rushed into Chinatown to burn and loot, and when they saw Chinese they beat them. The "Shiquan Massacre" of 1885 and the "Snake River Massacre" of 1887 killed dozens of Chinese people, and no white murderer was convicted, on the contrary, these white people were heroically welcomed when they were released.
"As I was writing these words, I saw the news that some boys had stoned an innocent Chinese to death on the streets of San Francisco, and that although many had witnessed such a shameless act, none of them had stepped forward to intervene."
—Mark Twain, The Ascetic
Seeing that more and more Chinese were coming to the United States, Americans began to find ways to prevent Chinese from coming to the United States through laws.
In view of the fact that the "Pu'anchen Treaty", which guaranteed the freedom of immigration between the two countries, was still in force, they initially chose to "save the country by curve", starting with Chinese women:
In 1875, the United States passed the Page Act, which specifically targeted Chinese women, which stipulated that all Chinese women arriving in the United States should be questioned at customs:
"Are you a prostitute?" Ever been a prostitute? Is it possible to become a prostitute in the future? ”
These ill-intentioned questions can be said to be the most slanderous things for Chinese women. Traditional Chinese women can hardly bear this humiliation, and many people dismiss the idea of going to the United States. As a result, the ratio of chinese men to women also began to become very different.
Later, after sending people to China to repeal the "Pu Anchen Treaty" and clearing the legal obstacles for Chinese exclusion, the Chinese exclusion movement finally ushered in a climax -
In 1882, The Chinese Exclusion Act was introduced. This is the only racially specific discriminatory bill in U.S. history that provides legal safeguards for prejudice and violence against China. The bill was originally valid for 10 years, but was extended several times over the next half-century, eventually continuing into World War II.
The bill stipulates that except for a few identities such as teachers, students, and diplomats, all Chinese, including laborers, cannot come to the United States, cannot obtain citizenship in the United States, prohibits Chinese men who come to the United States from bringing wives, and does not allow Chinese men to form families with white women.
All in all: Chinese men are not allowed to breed offspring in the United States. From the law to the culture, it is forbidden.
We know that most of the Chinese who originally came to the United States were men, and the successive implementation of the Peggy Act and the Chinese Exclusion Act completely made the Chinese society a "bachelor" society.
According to statistics, in the decades since the implementation of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the sex ratio of Chinese in the United States has reached 27:1.
Moreover, due to legal restrictions, the Chinese at that time could only engage in laundry, restaurants and other occupations that were usually performed by women.
Under the influence of various factors, weakness, obedience, insidiousness, and femininity have become the labels of Chinese in the eyes of Americans.
"The economic base determines the superstructure" - in the cultural world, Chinese actors have lost their right to speak early and can only be "demonized" by white people.
Today we know that the sinister and cunning Fu Manchu is an evil American imagination of Chinese, the product of racial discrimination and yellow peril theory.
But, almost at the same time as Fu Manchu, another Chinese image created by the West and seemingly very positive, Chen Charlie, must be friendly to the Chinese?
Who is Charlie Chen?
A Chinese detective, fat, intelligent, hardworking, full of Cantonese-flavored English.
Although he is a positive character, he still brings together the curious perspective and stereotypes of the West, and is an alien image that has been "domesticated" by mainstream American culture.
In particular, there is no doubt about the outside – no masculinity, lack of sexual attraction.
Moreover, even if he was a Chinese character, just because the image was slightly more positive, the United States at that time would never let Chinese actors play.
"They'll look for white women to play Chinese detectives and they won't look for Chinese actors."
They will find Chinese women to play Chinese men and will not find Chinese men to play Chinese men.
They will look for Chinese gays to be stars and will not look for Chinese men! ”
- "The Road to Gangaddin"
This is cultural castration.
The social image of Chinese men has completely fallen to the bottom.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was not repealed until World War II, when China and the United States became allies on one front, but we know that its effects have never completely faded.
However, it is in this social atmosphere that
Bruce Lee turned out to be a world.
Bruce Lee's greatness is not only that "kung fu" is written into the American dictionary.
It is even more about the unprecedented reversal of the image of the Chinese-
Brave, wise, just the right amount of humor, plus a handsome and tough oriental face,
These made him the first Chinese male in the true sense of the word, to make young American women scream in front of the screen.
He， put balls on Chinese men.
In fact, when the character "Shangqi" first appeared in the comics, it was based on Bruce Lee.
In the century-old history of humiliation of the Chinese, he is like a shooting star, so dazzling, but so short.
After Bruce Lee, the image of the Chinese in the United States returned to the previous castrated appearance, and could only play stereotypical roles without sexual charm.
To reiterate: I have absolutely no disrespect for Chinese actors, especially in Hollywood, they are very difficult.
The initiator of Chinese exclusion is the entire American culture.
It can even be said that "Chinese exclusion" is there, and it has almost become a "collective unconscious" all the time.
This is the source of the plight of Chinese men in a global context.
Zhang Guorong: "Hollywood is not anti-Chinese, this is a lie"
Having said that, I would like to reiterate my point about Shangqi: its emergence itself is definitely a positive thing for the Chinese, at least the beginning. However, the stereotype of the Chinese is not something he can reverse on his own.
In the final analysis, your own image still depends on yourself to establish.
You don't take the initiative to "export culture", just expect others to give you gold, where there is such a good thing.
This is also why China must have "The Wandering Earth" and "Wolf Warrior".
Perhaps the films themselves have all kinds of flaws, but we have to admit:
They represent the right direction —
Commercial popcorn blockbusters.
Don't look down on popcorn blockbusters.
The United States can have today, is by popcorn blockbusters.
I remember that it seems that Xu Ke or who said it, to the effect of:
At that time, American movies, such as "The Godfather", were good, but Hong Kong movies also had no shortage of good works, and they could also play back and forth. It wasn't until "Titanic" and "Jurassic" were launched that Hong Kong movies completely collapsed, feeling that they could not fight.
The power of popcorn lies in its extremely low cultural threshold and the unparalleled spectacle it creates, which can maximize the attraction of audiences around the world and then affect their cognition.
And if we don't play this,
Most likely, India's "Bollywood" is our future.
Of course, "entertaining yourself" is not meant to be positive, it is just a market form (in fact, this is also the norm, like Hollywood, which can affect the world is a special case).
However, if China really wants to compete for the right to speak in the international community, and even export culture, it must face up to this problem.
Culture wars, if you don't advance, you will retreat.
If you do not occupy the heights of public opinion, others will occupy them.
China needs more Of The Wandering Earth.
Just like China needs more aircraft carriers, J20s.
Related References:
WANG Zhong. A Brief Analysis of the Reasons for the "Castration" of Chinese Male Identity[J], Literary Education, 2013
WANG Cong. The Trauma of the Chinese Exclusion Act on Chinese Men: An Interpretation of "Eating Bowls of Tea"[J].Scientific and Technological Information
WANG Yuanchong. The Floating Dreams of The United States and China: The Life Before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The Paper.
documentary:
Chinese Exclusion Act
"Golden Road Nails - Chinese Workers and the American Pacific Railroad"
Other than that:
Regarding the significance of Bruce Lee, I highly recommend that you read this answer of Zhihu Shang @ Li Weak ke.
Why did Bruce Lee develop influence around the world? - Zhihu