The much-anticipated Swedish Nobel Prize ceremony night. At the banquet, the guests and the host enjoyed themselves as everyone talked and laughed. The literary prize winner Joe Kalsman had an argument with his wife in public, which made the audience stunned. This is a dramatic scene in the movie "The Wife" (The Wife). Joanne, who has always been a wise man, left the scene like a demonstration, and even broke her silence and filed for a divorce with her husband. The myth that the legendary literary husband and wife file has been operating for half a year has seen it fall apart. This is very different from the image of their love and mutual support in the beginning of the movie. Joanne's rebellion is reminiscent of "female leaving", which points to women leaving the comfort zone where the family is the core, breaking the shackles of space and family relations. Most of the autonomy of action hides the cognition and awakening of self and gender identity.
The climax of "The Good Wife" is fixed at the chaotic moment when the wife is about to leave but has not yet left. She tried to separate herself-tear herself from the cocoon of the family full of inequality and depression. "Exiting" is like the process of "breaking the cocoon", focusing on the birth-rebirth of the individual. Qian Mansu said in the article "After the Awakening", "Many women only gain independence after more than half a hundred years of age, and then discover their submerged self... Is there any human power to control her." When a woman has endured time, experience, and hardship, she will understand her needs and values. In her late years, Joanne's refusal to be the "woman behind a successful man" also broke the family's community of shared destiny. Just as she smashed the walnut with love poems at her husband in anger, while the pure and innocent snowflakes were still falling one by one outside the window. Snow and Walnut, it is between these two symbols that the black holes of ghostwriting, extramarital affairs, unethical love, betrayal and oppression were born.
"I am me, plus my environment. If I don't keep the latter, I can't keep myself.-"Don Quixote""
What is a community of destiny? In the context of family, the consciousness of community of destiny forms a contractual connection between husband and wife. It means a form of mutual cooperation with the outside world: it is no longer a personal will but a group status as the only image facing the public space. The behaviors of men and women are subject to the unified discourse of the family system. Entering a family and marriage establishes a territory and space for co-existence, sharing common resources and sharing risks with each other, reducing pressure and cost of survival. The choices and actions of any one person affect the mood and state of another person. The sanctity conferred by the modern family seems to lie in this: the idealized combination model based on similar temperaments, and the maximum emotional, economic and social security that it brings. The family is also a complex aggregate. The longer the time of living together, the greater the density of the family. In addition to the close entanglement of personal relationships, there are also external relationships involved, that is, interpersonal relationships from work and social levels. As a community with a shared future, husbands and wives must not only maintain internal problems, but also continue to shape the overall image of the family.
The life journey of writers Joe and Joanne from being impoverished to obtaining the highest literary honor is probably the best representation of the concept of a community of shared destiny. The movie uses a lot of details to sculpt the concept. For example, at the Nobel Prize celebration reception for Joe Karlsman, the whole family must face the media neatly. In another detail, the ghostly biographer constantly probed Joanne, trying to dig out the gossip and privacy of the first literary family from her. The vigilant Joanne immediately activated the psychological defense mechanism. As a wife and mother, she is duty-bound to maintain the integrity of the family. In private, Joanne learned that Joe was flirting with the photographer ambiguously. But all she can do is hide behind the pillars and peep, never allow herself to lose dignity in public places or embarrass her husband. Although they were upset in the deluxe suite, once they heard that their grandson was born, the two immediately reconciled like children, leaving all contradictions behind. From the high light in front of the person to the dimness behind the person. The external consistency shown by Joe and Joanne, the way of internal digestion of internal problems is almost the standard template for all husband and wife and family relationships.
"When he heard the snow falling faintly in the universe and falling faintly, his soul trembled slowly. Just like all the living and the dead, their previous deaths came.-Joyce"
There are distinct interests and differences in a community with a shared future. Both Joe and Joanne regard writing and literature as their lifelong careers and goals. This activity is both a daily work and a part of life. The community of marriage and family allows the identities and actions of two people to overlap with each other. Trivial and inertial daily affairs and couples' daily disputes have become an extension and inspiration source of writing, and the lines of writing are also saturated with intermittent human relations accidents. Joe's writing blueprints and Joanne's brilliant pens and flowers together create a brilliant work. They published in the name of Joe Karlsman, and gradually created an unparalleled master in the literary world. The success of publishing also brought unlimited glory to the family and rich financial returns. The assembly-line production of the two gradually became a kind of tacit understanding, obeying each other's positions and roles. Over time, they dare not even break this cooperative model.
With the official announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who is truly worthy of this pinnacle of glory? Under this moral questioning, the film turned to a more profound discussion and thinking about the behavior of "collusion". With the help of the relationship between teachers and students, the living conditions of female writers, and the historical retrospect of social gender norms, it is not difficult to see that behind the success of the brand management of "Joe Karsman" are two difficulties each encountered in writing, being oppressed and being oppressed. The victims of exploitation.
This contradiction stems from the peer pressure that Joe and Joanne cannot break apart from their life partners and family relationships. Joe cannot break through the rigidity and mediocrity in her writing, and must accept the fact that his wife is better than him; while Joanne has a flexible mind, but her female identity makes her fear secular prejudice and ridicule. The two are partners as well as competitors in writing. Anxiety and anger have multiplied due to the squeeze and restrictions of the common living space.
In this unique community, differences also stem from gender inequality and a blind obedience to collectivism. Joe has extramarital affairs with many women in the name of avoiding pressure, but he can still enjoy the praise and praise from the outside world. What it squeezes is the time spent by marriage partners in maintaining the internal order of the family, nurturing the next generation, and for individual growth, which is a total consumption from the spirit to the body. As a male, Joe is a party with a gender dividend in the family community. In a male-dominated family unit, he owns Joanne’s writing results, uses her as free labor, and justifies violent sexual claims in the name of a conjugal community. In this typical patriarchal discourse, the wife is not a wife, but a part that extends from the individual male. Therefore, when Joe read his son's first novel, "Gritting Teeth, Suppressing Angry Wife", he knew that his son was writing a story about his parents. The story of him and Joanne. Their disagreement is that one is always evading reality, and the other always regards male recognition as their goal.
(To be continued)
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