I happened to be reading a book about modernity and postmodernity recently. Although I have long admired the name of "Dr. Strange Ai", I accidentally read it on an ordinary afternoon. After reading it, I suddenly felt that many contents in "Dr. Strange Ai" confirmed the modernity. Critical point of view. Let me talk about a little bit of my own opinion.
The plot of the film is not complicated. The background is that during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, a US general Ripper (hereinafter referred to as General R) proactively initiated the R plan and sent a group of aircraft carrying nuclear warheads to attack Russian military bases. The R plan was used as an emergency. The plan is to encrypt the communication channel of the aircraft so that only General R himself can contact the aircraft. After the American president who had a meeting in the command room learned of the news, on the one hand, he asked the army to send people to the location of General R. On the other hand, the Russian ambassador happened to visit and contacted Russian Prime Minister Kissoff through his phone, hoping that the Russian Prime Minister could properly resolve the matter. Unexpectedly, this led to a terrifying plan "The doomsday machine", which is what we know as nuclear deterrence-the terrorist power of nuclear weapons prevents the enemy from launching a war and achieves the goal of "a soldier without a fight." . However, in the film, once this plan is triggered (for example, a certain base is attacked by air), it is completely executed by the machine and cannot be cancelled through human intervention. The President of the United States panicked at the moment. Fortunately, the army broke through the defense of General R's base. Although General R himself committed suicide by drinking a bomb, his subordinate Colonel Mandrake deciphered the password of the aircraft communication channel. Another reversal of the plot appeared on a mission aircraft. Because the Russian missile interception destroyed the aircraft’s communications equipment, the aircraft did not receive the retreat instruction from the headquarters. Although the aircraft was in poor condition, the captain was holding it. With the idea of "can't make a trip in vain", he flew a plane to the nearest Russian military base to drop warheads. In the command room, everyone knew that the matter might be irreversible. As a representative of the scientist, Dr. Qi Ai has begun to describe the "beautiful picture" of the nuclear explosion to the senior officers: the country’s elites are kept in deep mines, and the screening process is all done by computers. ; Nuclear technology provides energy, greenhouses cultivate plants, and can also raise livestock; by controlling the low male:female ratio (for example, male:female=1:10) and reproductive technology, it only takes about 20 years to reach the GDP before the nuclear explosion Value level. The film ends with Dr. Qi Ai getting up from his wheelchair and a mushroom cloud rising up.
There are many interesting aspects of this movie. For example, the aerial refueling scene of the plane at the beginning of the movie. The images of the two planes constantly aligning and inserting while shaking have named the two cores of the movie: war and sexual desire. There is also the encryption code POE of General R, which is both an abbreviation of "Peace of Earth" and an abbreviation of "Purity of Essence". In this film, war and sexual desire constitute a pair of tension throughout. War provides serious and collective tragedy, while sexual desire provides superficial and individual comedy. The two go hand in hand constitutes the most important part of this work. Attractive style-absurd black humor. The more interesting point is that the trigger of war and even "how do I fall in love with nuclear bombs" directly stems from the suppression of sexual desire: General R firmly believes that fluoridation of drinking water is the most terrifying communist conspiracy, and that fluoridated water and food will be contaminated. A man’s precious "body fluids", and the source of this theory is that his deep-rooted sexual obstacles make him regard mating as "females stealing the essence of men"; at the end, the general Turgidson (referred to as General T) in the command room hears After Dr. Qi Ai’s description of the abolition of monogamy, his eyes were shining, and he immediately proposed to the President to immediately start a competition with the Soviet Union for the number of mines. On the other hand, the suppression of sexual desire can never draw a line from war: General T originally wanted to spend the night with a woman, but he had to be called by the president to attend a meeting, and the female partner who connected to the meeting called even more. Unobtrusively showed his inner sex hunger; the captain saw "a pack of condoms, three lipsticks and three pairs of nylon stockings" when he checked the life-saving kits and couldn't help commenting, "Oh my God, these are enough. It’s a great weekend in Las Vegas." In a sense, the film tells the story from beginning to end about the release of sexual repression as the motivation and the nuclear war as the background. If you just look at "Doctor Strange Love" as an anti-war film, it's not just half the fun.
Pointing out the two cores of the film, the next question falls on the relationship between the two, what makes sexual desire directly lead to war? What is it that, as the subtitle says, prompts "I learn to stop worrying and fall in love with nuclear bombs"? In my opinion, modernity and the culture of domination are the roots behind this phenomenon. Let's talk about modernity first. What is modernity? As far as I understand it, from the perspective of ideological history, modernity is a set of emphasizing systems, rationality, and progress that have been gradually formed with the development of science and technology and the popularization of human rights awareness and secular values since the Reformation and Enlightenment. Theory, grand narration, etc. emphasize the ideology of central and subjective thinking. There is no doubt that the impact of modernity on human civilization is earth-shaking and completely reborn. The technology backed by modernity has almost reshaped the entire human society. While bringing people great material enjoyment, modernity is also dark. The earth laid the bane of the two subsequent world wars. And post-modernity is a comprehensive liquidation and reflection on the increasingly exposed shortcomings of modernity’s rationality, progress theory, and anthropocentrism. In the film, we will find that, as a politician and representing the interests of the broad masses, the President of the United States has no resistance under Dr. Qi Ai’s eloquent scientific and rational preaching. The happiness of human life is determined by eugenics, GDP and mines. The quantity is directly quantified, so it sounds like nuclear bombs are not so worrying, but rather look a little cute. What's even more frightening and dumb is that the so-called "The doomsday machine" project has completely maintained the fate of mankind on the machine. All of this is due to the instrumental rationality in modernity. Human beings rely on rationality to create tools to improve their lives. The rationality that teaches people to calculate is also confined to the instinct and conscience of love and sympathy. This is the alienation of people. Under the shadow of the Cold War, this alienation has become more serious: General R, who obeyed the orders of American soldiers to kill each other, would rather commit suicide and never reveal the password, roared to bury the Soviet Russian rivals. General T. The dark side of modernity is vividly reflected.
The other part is the thought of male power. There are only two places where women have appeared in the whole film, namely when the army T is in the room, and when the general T is in a meeting, the female companion calls. But even if there are only two places, women are all It's just acting as a microphone and an object of male desire. If you say that "war is a man’s business", then this is what I am going to criticize. In fact, the anthropocentrism and instrumental rationality brought about by modernity can be regarded as male power thinking behind it. Therefore, the term "male power thought" is used to avoid endless debates about gender issues between men and women. The meaning is the thought dominated by male power. In my opinion, the essence of male power thought is to conquer, conquer women, conquer the weak, and conquer. Nature and even conquer yourself. To conquer is to allow yourself to survive, to reproduce more and faster, and to conquer can also be just for pleasure and dignity. The male power that constitutes the thought of male power, as represented by the word "Xiong", is strong, unrestrained, and wild. It is a mouth, a claw, a penis, a libido, a hunter, a monarch, and everything upright and sharp. The thing is the sun. Male power is not derogatory, but the idea of male power dominated by male power is an absolute disaster. The idea of male power often goes hand in hand with the zero-sum game. In the zero-sum game, the gain of the winner will inevitably be accompanied by the loss of the loser. The Cold War Thinking is the outstanding representative of Xiongquan thought. When we watched the movie, the Cold War mentality had penetrated into the brains of General T. His eagerness to defeat the Soviet Union had reached a frenzied level. He worshiped absolute power. He heard the Russian ambassador introduce The doomsday machine and said, "I really hope we have one too"; He only wants to win, which is acceptable for 10 to 20 million casualties; his desire for sexual intercourse, especially the rapid breathing and blinking after hearing the change in the ratio of male to female, reveals his ambition. In the eyes of the male powerists, conquest is the only purpose, and anything that is contrary to or irrelevant to the goal of conquest is an obstacle and dissident, and needs to be eliminated and eliminated; everything that is consistent with the goal of conquest is a boost and needs to be used. It's because of the domination of thinking that it is a big mistake, and this kind of thing must not only happen in the movie. In my opinion, male power must be reconciled with female power. As for the blending and reconciliation of female power with the two, I will leave it to later.
The title of "Dr. Strange Ai" is not because of his multiple roles, but because Dr. Strange Ai, as the incarnation of science and the Nazi's "resurrection", is condensed with the real fear and "beauty" of the nuclear bomb. Meaning, he finally got up from the wheelchair, raised the shouted sentence with his right hand, announcing the "restoration" of an old nightmare.
At the end of the film, we ushered in the explosion of the nuclear bomb. Will The doomsday machine allow humans to enter the "mining society"? How will the President, General T and Dr. Qi Ai respond to the challenges and crises that follow? In fact, I really look forward to the sequel of this film, but in terms of the educational significance of the film, blank space is the best choice. Let Dr. Qi Ai as a wake-up call to hang on human heads forever.
View more about Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb reviews
