It is extremely dangerous to talk about gender-related topics these days.
Since this concerns everyone — the identity of gender encompasses all people, and everyone has the basic attribute of gender, male or female, even if one is mentioned separately, implies a distinction between the other — that leads to anyone being able to generate opinions and express opinions on gender-related issues (who cares about things that have nothing to do with them), so that the discussion on the topic is heated and protracted, and anyone can participate in such a topic.
This is where danger arises – anyone can base one's personal experience and position on an opinion that does not correspond to this. Of course, such a danger does not exist only in this one topic, but in those topics that are personally relevant to everyone and can "take sides", and the topic of gender is not special.
There is a tendency today that when it comes to the topic of "women", people (if still modern) worry that they are not radical enough to appear fashionable enough, are enthusiastic about revolutionary narratives of gender "oppression and struggle", and take pride in holding high the banner of "anti-gender".
There is no doubt that the harm and crime in the context of gender must be taken seriously and combated; from this point of view, it is naturally just to stand with the victims, and there is no doubt about it. The danger is how to define harm and crime, what ethics and laws are needed, whether it is a victim or a "victim mentality", and so on – this becomes complicated, involving a huge number of related issues and discussions that can never be exhausted.
One of the forces fueling this trend is today's films, of which Hollywood was a pioneer, acting as microphones and amplifiers. Paying attention to personal experiences and traumas, and criticizing reality and society, there is no doubt that this is the responsibility of art workers.
The question is whether these works can be justified. If it is only the materialization of cheap ideology, such works are mere propaganda. Here, take two films as an example, the recent topic film "Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always" and the 16-year movie "Tony Erdman", talk about the women in the film.
Abortion, original sin and hollow bricks
"Never" is about the abortion of a 17-year-old girl in the United States, and it is easy to recall the Romanian film "Three Weeks and Two Days in April", and it can even be said that it is imitating this Palme d'Or film, from the subject matter to the form. In Romania under the shadow of communism, the historical perspective has been built into the context alone, so that the idea of creation becomes what happens next if an incentive event like "abortion" occurs in a certain and reliable context.
But the logic of Never is to create a hostile environment around the silent characters. This "hostile environment" is clearly contemporary America, and whether this is true or not, whether it can withstand the test of history, is still inconclusive.
However, the author does not give any explanation for such a "hostile environment", which is like throwing the protagonist directly into a swimming pool full of crocodiles without explaining where the crocodiles came from. Today's movies, it is easy to imagine a utopia, dystopia or the end of the world, but this is to empty reality, even if it can explore many issues in it, but this is always an abstract speculation in the author's mind, and what kind of relationship with reality, the author can not answer.
For example, the cyberpunk series, or even The Handmaid's Tale. My concern is how the reality today has come to such extremes step by step. I long to see the process towards corruption, the result of which can be imagined, and the process is full of accidents.
The question I want to ask about Never is what the protagonist did that led her to be isolated by her classmates, how her family went to such a cold situation, what made the men so disgusting in her town, how her feelings and sex life actually led her to the road of abortion, and so on.
The same is true of the discussion about abortion today, a "result" judgment, yes and no, legal and illegal. In fact, it's not just this abortion topic, it's not just a gender-related topic, it's always a binary choice between two poles, and we never think about how we got here—what puts people in the awkward position of needing an abortion, what makes men and women "at odds," what makes us have to answer the dilemma and whether they require a clear conclusion.
Regarding the prohibition of abortion, it is difficult for Chinese people to imagine, is this not a question of wanting or not wanting, as long as you want, it is difficult for people to understand the logic of banning abortion. So on such an issue, in the final analysis, it is a difference in values and positions, and such a disagreement cannot be reconciled and cannot be discussed to come up with an ultimate correct answer. The logic and value of abortion and the legality of abortion is well understood, and I will not repeat it here.
Since abortion is a matter of course in the eyes of a considerable number of people, I will give a rather provocative example in order to shake the view of those who take it for granted that abortion is without problems. There is an artist in the history of Chinese contemporary art, Zhu Yu, who completed a work called "Sacrifice" – he agreed with a woman to use his own sperm to conceive it by artificial conception, to abort the fetus when it was four months old, to preserve the baby's body, and to feed it to the dog on the spot.
It's good that almost anyone can feel severe physical or psychological discomfort, which begs the question – is it legal to do so? Is a fetus after abortion a corpse? If a person's dead body is a corpse, is the fetus considered a human being? Is abortion murder? Through this performance art, if you instinctively feel disgusted by it, then taking it for granted that abortion is legal doesn't seem so innocent.
Is a fetus human? This is another difficult question, from the molded embryo to the first heartbeat of the baby, jurists, ethicists, biologists, sociologists, psychologists and other relevant professionals, can give countless answers to this, behind all this is the ultimate philosophical question, life, man, existence, this is a question that can not be well answered, then any kind of question about abortion is certainly untenable.
Some red states in the United States have the so-called "heartbeat act", that is, the fetus has its first heartbeat (six weeks of pregnancy) and is considered a person, and abortion is prohibited. The bill caused considerable controversy, being attacked by feminists for the fact that the United States is bringing The Handmaid's Tale to life.
The controversy over this bill illustrates the fact that the law is not omnipotent, that the law does not solve all problems, and that rigid laws do not fully adapt to the vagaries of reality. And when people argue about such difficult questions, the root of the problem is often not the problem itself, but the manifestation of the broader and deeper problems of this society.
"Never" mentions such a hot spot as the "Heartbeat Act", and does not develop on this basis, the author is very clever to anchor the audience, then such a work will be very popular with the target audience, but this will also be such a work tightly under a certain label.
Since the characters in the film have no emotional arc and cannot perceive the inner world of the characters, there is only one strategy to attract the audience to win empathy - to guide the audience to guess the past, present and future of the characters, so that the audience's imagination of themselves is projected onto the characters.
We know nothing about the heroine's past, and when she is faced with the multiple choice question of "never, rarely, sometimes, always", as soon as she cries, the audience begins to imagine, and the results of the imagination are at least these four, there is always one that can move you, and the film is also named after these four imaginations. But these four imaginations are not the answer, because the author has no choice at all, and the seemingly stark position comes from the creation of a hostile environment — men are predators in the jungle — without any insight into the women themselves.
There are not a few such films, which at first glance seem very profound, and there is nothing behind such an appearance - like a hollow brick, where it needs to be moved, mechanically building an ideological wall, which is harmful to any art discipline.
In fact, I don't reject portraying men as predators, and the predator's instinct to aggressively prey may be deeply rooted in genes. If such instincts are restrained and guided, they can nurture qualities such as bravery, risk-taking, responsibility, and the ability to eradicate the strong and the weak. Further, then with regard to the essentialism and constructivism of gender, one of them alone cannot explain all the problems.
In observing and reflecting on a series of vicious events, I deeply realized the rationality of the "male original sin theory", and as a man, it is difficult to say that there is no evil thought for a moment, and the difference between thought and behavior is only a subtle driving force. This is not to defeat men, but rather to make men proudly raise their heads, just like women do- to recognize their distance from barbarism, to see their limitations, and to confidently say: I am a civilized person.
Further, "original sin" is not unique to men, but rather the inherent fragility of human beings themselves, and everyone should see the subtle difference between the length of the spirit and the animal. It would be okay to add the word male before "original sin" for a specific gender issue.
Self, nothingness and solid balls
The opposite of the hollow brick, I would like to recommend the 16-year-old German film "Tony Erdmann", which tells a small story between a long-separated father and daughter, and Tony Erdmann is the name that the father made up when he roughly and clumsily broke into his daughter's life. From the basic plot setting, we can see the gender-related symbolism in it.
The film's perspective switches between father and daughter, and the audience benefits from this, gaining the perspective of an all-knowing and all-powerful God. Through this perspective, the information we obtain overrides the mutual knowledge of the characters, so we can understand the motivations of the characters' behavior, and over time, we can clearly see the subtle changes in the relationship between father and daughter, a linear process of development.
The compressed space, blurred background, and ambiguous sense of time create a paradoxical experience in which the audience follows the characters through dialogue, always asking "Where are we?" "Confused, we are confused about where we are in time and space right now.
If it weren't for the subtleties of the lines, we would have completely lost our judgment of time and space when we see it— we are in a homogeneous space-time, from Berlin to Bucharest, but we can also be Shanghai, which is not yet in the film, and Singapore that will appear in the future.
This is perhaps the most accurate depiction of modern life – such precision is not from the external social landscape to achieve visual reproduction, such as "Playtime", but from the internal personal feelings, to restore the psychological level of the impression - from one side on the screen to reproduce the psychological feelings of modern urban people.
With "Where are we?" The confusion that arises along with the question is "Who are we?" We always want to locate our position by the external axis of time and space with ourselves - but when we develop a vague sense of space-time, we also have doubts and wavering about ourselves.
In "Tony", it is the loss of the daughter's self, not only the loss of the daughter of the father and the loss of the adult woman, but also the loss of being a modern person.
The vague treatment does not empty reality, but makes the film like a solid ball, heavy on the audience's chest, of course, to throw a beautiful curve in the air requires the author's super high skill. Although this is the work of a female director, she does not limit her gaze to a single gender issue, but understands it as a representation of a more fundamental problem.
The director may not have considered any women's rights at all, or maybe he just wanted to make a father-daughter story that touched on the essence of modern society, and it is precisely this way that transcends ideologically narrow thinking and shows women to the fullest. Of course, this brings in the experience of women, and it is very convincing, such as wearing and taking off women's slim skirts, while she tries to build a bridge between the sexes, especially father and daughter.
The father's sense of humor – which of course is an atypical German temperament, which adds another dimension that can be interpreted – subtly conveys a truth to his daughter: "Don't lose your sense of humor."
The sense of humor, in this film, refers to the self. The daughter, as a business broker, is alive and well in the workplace, a typical strong woman – which seems to be a lone soldier breaking into a men's club – but such "living like a man" does not solve women's problems: estrangement from the family, let alone starting a family, abnormal sex, being occupied by work, being bound by identity, unable to answer whether she is happy or not.
The sense of humor is a dissatisfaction with modern life, and through a sense of humor to regain the subject, to fight against nothingness - humor comes from the rupture between results and expectations, humorous people clearly distinguish themselves from homogeneous landscapes, and humor marks the self: "Why do I think I am the me?" "A nude party answered the question — I am who I am, the original me, the me I can control and get out of control.
However, the last long shot of the film once again subverts the previous text - the smooth reconciliation between father and daughter is of course somewhat cheap, and whether the problems of gender and life are really solved, just as humor can really plug the hole in everyone's heart, and the end of the hole is endless nothingness.
We see our daughter at the end of the film still running around the corner, still living the previous life, only to adjust her mentality, and after the climax of the embrace with the long-haired monster, we usher in a quiet and desperate reality - life has to go on.
It can be seen from this that modern society has a strong disciplinary ability for individuals. And when the daughter took off her dentures and took off her felt hat, her firm and empty gaze showed quite complex emotions, on the one hand, the self was maintained through a sense of humor or others, on the other hand, she had to face the low and noble head of nothingness.
The whole film, then, is talking about the idea that, if we start from gender, women's problems are not just women's own problems, nor are they just problems in the binary narrative of men and women, but appear together with many other social problems, as social structural problems.
This seems to indicate that patriarchy is a structural problem, that such expressions seem to be fine if one examines the question of gender, and that if one examines another question, one only needs to replace the word "patriarchy", but in the final analysis, no matter what noun is used to refer to it, in fact they all refer to the same thing.
To sum up, what is the difference between "Never" and "Tony" films, we can start with the two songs sung by the characters in the film - the former singing about indifference, hostility, hurt, hatred, and the latter singing reconciliation and love, The Greatest Love Of All.