I recently watched "The Joy Luck Club" again, and the film begins with a floating swan feather and ends with the long-lost three sisters' affectionate embrace on the pier. It symbolizes a state of wandering from a foreign land, ultimately reaching a happy reunion with loved ones. At the end, I couldn't help crying.
Women in old China were under the oppression of male superiority over females. Lin Duo was forced to be betrayed by her mother as a child bride because of her poverty in her childhood; Yingying suffered a mental breakdown and drowned her baby in the bathtub because of her husband's betrayal and insult; The grandfather in the family raped and was discriminated against by the whole family, and committed suicide; while Amei's mother was overwhelmed in flight because of the Anti-Japanese War, and could not bear to abandon her two babies.
The four women in the film, in their similar circumstances, either obey or resist in order to survive. Lindo, who is stubborn by nature, refuses to give birth to her husband. After her mother-in-law scolded and slandered, she had a plan: pretend to be crazy. In this way, Lin Duo escaped from her husband's family and got rid of her own destiny; Yingying gradually awakened her consciousness after losing her child and years of depression, remarried a man who loved her, and lived a happy life; An Mei's mother She committed suicide because she couldn't bear the family's discrimination against her; Amei's mother made a cruel compromise of abandoning her child due to the hardships of fleeing and the poverty of war.
The "Four Sisters of Sorrow" each traveled across the Pacific Ocean to the economically developed America in the 1940s. In the process of raising children, they quickly adapted to Western society. After they stabilized, they pinned their expectations on their children: Lindo's daughter, under the strong education of her mother, worked hard and achieved outstanding achievements in order to please her mother. However, she found that she had to let her The mother is satisfied, but it is even more difficult; Yingying's daughter was extremely lacking in love due to her mother's long-term depression during childhood, which also directly affected her daughter's relationship with her husband after marriage; An Mei's daughter married a woman. A child of a rich family, her likable personality makes her husband tired of her marriage; while Amei was publicly insulted by her friends at a party, and her copywriting was criticized. Amei's self-esteem hurts.
The experiences of mothers and children, family education and the relationship between the two generations have become the main thread of the Joy Luck Club. The oppression suffered by the mother's generation stems from the turmoil of the times and the injustice of the society itself; the pain of the children's generation stems from family education, which brings an excessive obedience to the rules, and the ultimate solution to the problem is With mother's love as the healing power, this power runs through every story in the film. Whether it is wronging yourself, pleasing your parents, losing yourself in marriage, or having a low self-esteem personality, you find the answer in reconciliation with your mother.
I don't think women in the real world can reach a complete reconciliation simply by going back through history and communicating with their mothers. A movie is a movie after all, and it needs to please the audience within two hours and usher in a happy ending. The story is beautiful, but the reality is far more complicated. Mention of the concept of feminism is not uncommon in today's society. Women have found their new strength in the process of going deep into society and the workplace. This strength mainly comes from the changes brought about by economic independence. Modern women are different from the past, and they are no longer subject to excessive male power. However, the development of society has driven deeper needs, and a more complete emancipation of women is still in progress. I think that a woman's true independence and emancipation does not depend on excessive attachment to a relationship: she does not need to go to Deliberately satisfying her parents' wishes, just to avoid being scolded and praised as a "good boy"; she doesn't need to be overly ingratiating to her partner to ensure that she is loved; she doesn't need to be overly tolerant in a social relationship to This saves her from being hurt by others; she doesn't need to compare everything with others to keep her self-esteem in check.
It can be felt that this film has a kind of over-ingenuity for the American market: the bitter plot, blunt lines, and symbolic character design all make the story appear rigid and distorted, but I think its thematic expression is still worth thinking about. We can find a resilience in every woman, which makes them either resolute and resolute, rides the wind and waves, or kind-hearted and tolerant, but makes them unknowingly, too demanding on some things, for the sake of The originally simple life has added shackles.
This shackle was placed in the hands of the mother in the past. After it was released, it was placed in the hands of the daughter again. Finally, it was released by the appearance of the mother.
And the shackles of women in today's reality, I think, still need them to untie themselves.
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