The recently aired "Whitesnake 2: Green Snake Robbery" has a good rating, but the reviews are divided.
Objectively speaking, its plot expansion is very interesting, everyone knows what happened to the white snake, but after the water flooded the Golden Mountain Temple, what will happen to the green snake, there is no one to tell.
People who think it is good-looking said that they never expected that the green snake tells the story of female independence, which is the first film I have seen this year that feels that it has not been betrayed. Watching Xiao Qingdou Tiandou Dou Fahai, Fahai still looks a bit like Wu Yifan, and feels that the hammer is more enjoyable.
People who feel bad looking say, why do you have to turn sisterhood into a Kuang shi Ji film?
From these two reviews, it can be seen that the aesthetic effect of a film has long been unable to meet the audience's deeper aesthetic needs.
Even if it achieves a perfect blend of traditional oriental aesthetics and ruinpunk aesthetics, there is no impeccable skin texture to the physical effects of the scene, it is not enough.
The connotation of this story is more worthy of our continuous exploration.
Regarding the legend of the white snake, have you found that why this familiar myth and legend, the white snake is always the traditional image of the virtuous and virtuous returning to the family, while the green snake has many breakthroughs and always has a new character?
Why is the green snake constantly being rewritten and newly edited, and why is everyone's focus slowly shifting from the white snake to the green snake?
The answer is that green snakes are more reflective of the situation of contemporary women than white snakes. The reconstruction of myths is not only a breakthrough in old values, but also a kind of exposure to the existence of real society.
Regarding this film, whether it is the praised "Green Snake embodies the awakening of female consciousness" or the bad review of "physiologically uncomfortable same-sex feelings", it can reflect the situation of women in contemporary society.
Today, Uncle Oxygen will take everyone to see what the image of the green snake embodies in women.
The green snake is the main anti-guest
In film and television works, the visual shape of the character often indicates her identity, personality, situation, and destiny.
We take the most intuitive character modeling as a clue to connect the story of the green snake, to see how she has gradually developed from a thin to dispensable role, gradually developed into a powerful foil, and finally moved to independence and became the protagonist.
▲Represented by the 1992 "Legend of the New White Lady", the 1993 "Green Snake", and the "White Snake Origin" series
The Green Snake costume in The Legend of the New White Lady (1992) is a long-sleeved cardigan with simple one-sided silver hair ornaments, green ribbons, and long white earrings.
The face is thin eyebrows, large long eyes, long nose, hairstyle with bangs, combing simple coiled hair.
This is a bright and lively image, dressed in simple clothes, and the tones are bright green, creating a sense of activity. Bangs hairstyles and hair ornaments are simple, outlining a childish girl.
The shape is mostly childish and delicate, the degree of refinement is far less than that of the white snake, the angle of view image recognition is weak, and only "green" is used as a character recognition symbol.
During this period, the green snake was mostly written as a loyal and simple image, which was a supplement to the white snake's personality and a foil for beauty, and the relationship with the white snake was more like that of the "master and servant".
In the following year, that is, in 1993, Xu Ke's "Green Snake", Xiaoqing's visual modeling had a major breakthrough. If the portrayal of the image of the green snake in "The Legend of the New White Lady" is based on tradition, then "Green Snake" is on the basis of subverting tradition.
Two hairpins, released as ornaments, a flowing and simple multi-layered gauze style, adding blue and yellow to the green base.
Blue and yellow are a pair of complementary colors with strong sensory stimuli that suggest the diversity of the green snake's personality.
The facial feature is the eyebrows, very exaggerated and prominent, no bangs, the hairstyle is very winding, and the swirling design of the sideburns gives the green snake a feminine charm and wildness.
This version takes the green snake as the narrative center, and the shape is also the most unique, and the wayward and feminine appearance of the green snake begins to penetrate the hearts of the people. The styling style that is visually inconsistent with the white snake reflects that the green snake is gradually given initiative and self-awareness, and realizes the independence of identity.
At this time, the green snake is no longer like a "room companion", but more like an "unmarried girl", with a strong sense of female subjectivity, pursuing the same rights as a woman as a white snake, and even has the careful eyes, jealousy, seduction and other states of women in the world.
What is even more amazing is that when she found that the idol in her heart was so despicable and shameless, sinister and cunning, she was unusually calm and resolute, and quickly discarded Xu Xian, a shameless villain. In the film and television lines, he also directly indicates his own concept of love and the exploration of the essence of love.
This version of Xiaoqing has the arrogance of Zijun in Lu Xun's "Wounded Death", "I am mine, and none of them have interfered with my rights", and the control of fate is always in her own hands, whether she has loved or hated, it is her own choice.
In the series "The Origin of the White Snake" (2019) and "Green Snake Robbery" (2021), the green snake pays tribute to the image of the delicate green snake in the green cloth shape, and also launches the armor shape of the green snake, with almost no ornaments, a small number of patterns, and almost no patterns.
In the second part of the shape, there is a common bandeau + cargo pants on the road now, and the cool hot girl style of the upper body is light and the lower body is heavy, fast and deadly.
The appearance is also quite characteristic of Hollywood-style oriental beauty, with slender eyebrows and narrow eyes. Comb high bun, coiled hair, with partial bangs.
The green snake here has a clear love and hatred, and with the blessing of the armor shape, it is even more heroic, and it also shows the audience a green snake with independent thinking ability and a spirit of resistance.
In the original story of the White Snake, the emotional experience of the Green Snake is often rarely mentioned, and generally only explains that the Green Snake and the White Snake are the same sisters, inseparable, but rarely can dig deep into her deep and secret inner world as a unique individual.
But this not fullness provides an opportunity, a possibility of reprocessing and re-creation.
Women in contemporary society do not completely return to tradition like the white snake and enter the society as a good wife and mother, but are more tortuous like the green snake, in a free-spirited way to find a new living space in conflict and reconciliation.
The relationship between the sexes in the story of the Snake Woman
After talking about the anti-guest-oriented road of the green snake, let's talk about the most controversial point in this drama - "Kuang Shi Ji Love".
Many new editors of green snake stories have implanted potential same-sex discourse while writing mainstream heterosexual stories.
For example, in Yan Geling's "White Snake" novel, the myth of the "white snake" is deliberately deconstructed, telling the same-sex love in the specific historical period of the "Cultural Revolution".
The original novel of the movie "Green Snake" (by Li Bihua) also depicts the attachment, possession and entanglement of the green snake to the white snake many times.
For example, in the text, the green snake once sighed because the white snake was estranged from her: Maybe there was no me in the world, but there was Su Zhen first, and Su Zhen planted me, and she didn't want me, and I withered.
The movie "Green Snake" more beautifully shows the inseparable feelings between women.
At the beginning of the film, on a drizzly night, two giant snakes crouch on the roof of the Qinglou, and they transform into female bodies in the twisting and entanglement, snuggling and grinding with each other. Water droplets kept slipping from their faces, hair, and bodies.
Then the camera switches, and the picture is frozen in the indulgent voice of men and women in the Qinglou, inside and outside the Qinglou, the desire is unified, and the two echo.
It is undeniable that we can indeed see the same-sex dream of director Xu Ke from this work, and similarly, the same-sex love in the movie "Green Snake Robbery" can also be interpreted as satisfying men's sexual fantasies about lily.
What I want to emphasize here is that it is possible not to accept the expression of same-sex love, but we should not deny the written connotation of same-sex love. Because it not only broadens the breadth of love, but also shows the marginal areas in the relationship between the sexes to a certain extent.
Li Yinhe believes that "the existence of lesbians is itself a challenge to heterosexual hegemony and male genital hegemony, which can make us understand the diversity of human sexual orientation and the multi-source of physical pleasure."
It is a special presentation of gender relations and has a positive guiding significance for reality.
On the one hand, it can break through the usually recognized concepts of men and women to a certain extent, and broaden the depth of people's understanding of gender and love.
On the other hand, it has had an impact on the existing male discourse, especially the isolation of lesbians from the male group, which is more rebellious tension.
You can think of Sun Yining and Wang Sicong a while ago, and look at everyone's attitude towards "straight women's clothing T" and "straight men's B", although both behaviors are not good, in contrast, everyone seems to be more disgusted with Wang Sicong's long-term misogynistic behavior.
▲ Sun Yining without a dy filter on the Internet, Jin Zhixiu China Branch Show
From this point of view, the same-sex metaphor in the new compilation of the Green Snake Story, or the female sympathetic knot, is a breakthrough, and its deepening of "sisterhood" is the embodiment of women's resistance to single-sex rule.
Women's independence and gender relations have long been a common topic, but at the same time, the answer to this question is not achieved overnight, it is time-sensitive, so continuous practice and exploration is necessary.
The new compilation of the story of the green snake with women as the main object of expression can be called a series of practices to explore women's independence.
When they tell about women's emotional experiences and life encounters, they contain the discovery of women's inner characteristics and the exploration of external socialization, which reflects the creators' thinking and exploration of women's independent issues.
But it is also necessary to recognize that these explorations are inherently imperfect, and that they have limitations from the times and from the creators.
Whether the final result is satisfactory to you or not, we must also give encouragement and inclusion while thinking. After all, we ourselves are like Xiaoqing, crouching in the torrent of the times, meandering forward, constantly transforming.