Many literary works will split into two types when they portray female images, one is pure and sacred, and the other is sexy and fresh. For example, Ayanami and Asuka in EVA, or Maria and robots in Metropolis, or Zhang Ailing's "Red Rose and White Rose". The expression of this masculine perspective represents two imaginations of men about women. If you go further and push the two characteristics to the extreme, you can compare them to the Virgin and the prostitute. The Virgin represents the mother, the party of order, morality, and the sacred, and the prostitute represents the sexual desire, the party of temptation, danger, and uncontrollable. In a novel or movie, if there is no middle ground role, these two roles generally appear in pairs. And the most typical representative of this polarized character is this "Big Brother Tangshan".
In the film, the role of Xu Jian’s sister Qiaomei is defined as the former type: portrayed as asexuality, the clothes are also neatly dressed, there is no extra decoration, and the hair is braided, with a Chinese-style conservative, Dignified and reserved. Exuding subtle and fragile femininity, kindness, simplicity, and gentleness. Among the workers, she is not a playful little sister at all. She can wash clothes and cook for everyone, and she will patiently persuade everyone to reconcile everyone's relationship, and is respected by all the workers.
In terms of role setting, Zheng Chaoan's feelings for Qiaomei are pure and restrained, and he has shown respect to her from beginning to end. As a symbol, Qiaomei is not only the sister of the elder brother Xu Jian, but also the clone of Zheng Chaoan’s mother. It is a moral image that symbolizes inviolability. It is also like a jade pendant, a buffer zone between Zheng Chaoan and reality (after the jade pendant was broken, Zheng Chaoan gave up A promise to fight; in the end, Qiaomei was kidnapped by the boss, which aroused Zheng Chaoan's fury). This character symbol is a kind of beautiful imagination that Zheng Chaoan carefully guards, and it is the moral order he originally trusted.
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Contrary to Qiaomei, the prostitute Uman is a sexy, provocative female character. In this film, she is brought into the wine bureau by the director. At the wine table, she will take the initiative to toast, flirt, and devote herself to the director's instructions. As a representative of a prostitute, she is different from other people's dullness. She will please men and enjoy sexual pleasure. When Zheng Chaoan has a hangover, she will touch his naked chest and undress and sleep with him. In her second appearance, she even unabashedly lifted her top in front of Zheng Chaoan and showed her breasts to him. Although the ending is sympathetic, but most of the time she is only a man's toy, and exists to satisfy men's desires.
The prostitute Uman is obviously the embodiment of Zheng Chaoan's desire in reality. Sex represents an unknown danger. Sex can confuse and intoxicate heroes, so that they can relax their vigilance and temporarily forget the external world and hidden dangers. At the same time, the existence of sex itself will bring conflicts between men. In the film, all the sexual scenes symbolize or point to potential or subconscious dangers, such as being killed behind naked breasts in a brothel, abusing a maid in the manor, and then fighting. It should be noted that although sex is not the cause of the conflict, it is indeed a warning that the conflict is about to appear, exaggerating the tension in advance.
From the perspective of casting, the director chose an actress who was not beautiful in appearance. (From a later interview, the actor was found temporarily, and the shooting time of the two scenes in which she appeared did not add up to one day) On the whole, this character cannot be too beautiful, because she can't challenge the heroine's status. More importantly, she should reduce other characteristics of the character, and one-sidedly strengthen her "sexual" attributes and weaken the tragic sense of her death.
It is said that there is another scene that has been cut off in the film: Zheng Chaoan’s eve of the decisive battle is known to be very bad, so he spent the night with a prostitute in a brothel, but the director thought that this plot would weaken Zheng Chaoan’s heroic image, so it was finally removed. The authenticity of this statement is unknown, but it is obvious that if there is this scene, the characters will be richer and more real. As for whether to add or not, it is the creator's own consideration.
"Big Brother Tangshan" was released in 1971. The film has the unique simplicity of that era, its visual expressiveness is very weak, and the characterization is very concise and thin, but it is an excellent example. Binary characters like Brother Tangshan are in Similar shadows can be seen in countless works. For men, women symbolize mothers on the one hand, and sex objects of adult men on the other hand, and sex contains temptations and dangers. Therefore, the role of women in literary works is either as sacred and sublime as the Virgin, or seductive as a disaster. For thousands of years, the collective subconscious has followed like a shadow.
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At the end of the writing, I thought of some film and television works during the Cultural Revolution. Because the women in the revolutionary team in the film must be Gao Daquan and Wei Guangzheng, the sexy and charming image can only be performed by female agents in the enemy team. It is interesting. Yes, the charm of these female spies overwhelmed the protagonist and became the youthful memory of many young men. It is said that many old people still remember female spies in black and white films.
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