Every year, so many Hollywood action movies are reduced to money-losing goods. What makes Marvel so unique? I don’t know how many people still remember the "Avengers" Easter eggs. A group of superheroes who "save" Manhattan just now sit in their uniforms and eat burgers in a fast food restaurant. From this lens, it can be seen that the Marvel movie In addition to "selling bloody childhood memories" and "using love and stubbornness to kill fellow people", the nirvana skills of "Spitting out one's own groove make the audience have nowhere to vomit." What is the whole movie about
Ideology
Beauty Team 2? In my opinion, the whole movie is a complaint about the concept of "Captain America" (extreme leftist). Captain America was originally the person who represented the main theme in the entire Avengers series. It is not an exaggeration to even say that he is a symbol of nationalism and mainstream values. His identity itself is an official ideology (which is criticized by many , A "false consciousness" based on official interests, a lie based on mainstream values).
If in Team US 1, the captain of the US in uniform holding a prop shield (the lines are written on the back of the shield) and a group of beautiful legged beauties peddling treasury bonds on all continents of the US, that stage performance that is too shameful is already Marvel’s official awareness of this. A ruthless mockery of form. Taking him as the protagonist, to talk about a plot that deconstructs, reflects on the official ideology, and emphasizes the awakening of personal will against collectivism, this is simply an extreme of self-ridicule. So this kind of self-disintegration and destruction appeared in this movie in various forms: the US team lost his shield, Director Fury burned all his credentials, and S.H.I.E.L.D. directly knocked down its own building.
Why is the US Team 2 a film that speaks naked ideology? Because the core of the whole movie is to become the computer robot Zola said, “Use force to seize people’s freedom, people will resist, and guide and control their thoughts, they will voluntarily surrender their freedom.” This is basically It is a brief retelling of Althusser's ideological state apparatus (ISA).
When the justice and freedom that the American people believed in was used by the rulers as "justice" and "freedom" based on their interests, this lie-packed values became a way to govern them. Substituting the specific plot of the movie is to compromise with totalitarianism for the execution of justice (punish terrorists), and for the order of most people (the big boss line, the death of 2,000 people in exchange for 700 million people "freedom") compromise to obliterate humanity Utilitarianism. There is nothing wrong with the values of justice and freedom, but these concepts are by no means as simple as imagined. It will always require endless reflections from individuals to distinguish what lies from the outside world, what comes from the heart, and from strict logical judgments: Who controls the justice and who decides the freedom?
From this point of view, the relationship between Baqi and the US team can have a symbolic annotation: in the process of being brainwashed, Baqi projected the official ideology of the entire country’s people. The US team itself, as a symbol of national consciousness, is upright Awakening can be interpreted as an affirmation of the individual’s agency. He and Baqi are like two sides of the same coin. There are two possibilities for the same individual: on the same path of pursuing justice and freedom, one is unconditional obedience to being told. Command, one is to reflect, choose, and then follow the heart to make individual choices. The American team has the ability to awaken Ba Hao's memory, which made him ask questions, just to affirm and emphasize a kind of hope and belief: the ability of human beings to think independently may bring us closer to the truth.
As two old popsicles that survived the Second World War, they can also be seen as a testimony throughout history. The hell on earth of World War II has raised huge doubts about the state apparatus and the cult of personality. After the war entered the so-called postmodern society, it became an even greater phantom (simulacrum). All the "truths" may be just one thing. A kind of simulation, a kind of acting, the world is becoming more and more elusive. In such a chaotic world, the US team is like every individual struggling. He does not know whether he should continue to obey orders and how to judge right or wrong, but he is at least willing to recognize the chaos and dangers of this world, and be cautious. One's own judgment ability, willing to admit that one might be deceived, and not make arrogant decisions lightly.
In this desperate situation, no one can easily believe that in a blockbuster like Team US 2, what is ultimately traced back to the instinctive conscience and kindness in human nature. Therefore, as a mainstream film, the values advocated are still more positive than Althusser's completely anti-social theory. At least the movie affirms the hope of thinking outside the frame and the possibility of gaining independence and freedom. Of course, this emphasis on individual freedom outside the system has always been a relatively mainstream value in Hollywood movies, but the US team 2 relies on discussing ideology and discussing "freedom" may be an illusion, which complicates it and also insinuates it by the way. The "Prism Project" is already surprising for the literary drama of an action film.
Feminism
I have always been interested in the Marvel series' handling of feminist issues. As a "superhero" series, of course, the one that has received the most criticism is the individual heroism in the concept of "superhero". Traditionally, the role of heroism is generally inseparable from "heroes saving beauty", so another step is almost impossible. It is equal to patriarchalism. Laura Mulvey once believed that the obsession with "saving the heroine" in mainstream Hollywood movies embodies a subconscious presupposition: women are born guilty or inferior (because of the lack of phallus), so they always need to be rescued by men. .
Therefore, in Laura Mulvey’s 1975 paper, there is a section of brackets that can be said to be very forward-looking. It basically means that there has been a "buddy film" trend in that era, that is, in the movies of these groups of men. Here, women are no longer used as a tool to promote the development of the plot and embody male heroism. Instead, a kind of homosexual eroticism (original words) is used, and the influence of this model on feminism is very positive. Presumably she will also give the Marvel series a high evaluation of respect for female characters. Of course, Laura Mulvey and her paper are very controversial.
Although the topic of feminism seems to be outdated, the society now seems to be in a post-feminist period, but the biggest feature of this period is the infiltration of various feminist concepts into popular culture. Why is the same goddess, Natalie Portman's role in Thor is loved far less than Scarlett Johansson's widow sister? Why are so many girls scrambling to become female men, and then scrambling to marry a widow sister [not]? Why did the Hobbit 2 give the traditional, fetish-like heroine to the King Thranduil, a group of women are so chicken-blooded [something strange seems to have gotten in]? Because these have largely subverted the traditional screen image of women: from the male gaze perspective, the weak, passive, obscene vases and unconscious flat images. Even Thranduil, as a symbol of kingship and patriarchy, can be broken down into a lens like Steinberg's depiction of the female body. This actually challenges Laura Mulvey's theory of male perspective to some extent. The beauty to be viewed may not be a passive object. This beauty can also be a carrier and subject of power. Just as women do not have to obliterate all their own characteristics and become exactly like men, then it is considered equality between men and women, and feminility itself can be re-empowered.
Although the widow sister’s black outfit is still the same as in the second wave of feminism, she tried her best to avoid any so-called socially anticipated female dress features (such as skirts). As the nominal heroine of the US team 2, in addition to various bunkers of not humble or overbearing ability, She basically doesn't need to be rescued, she is still a real woman with very feminine charm. Her feminine charm has not become her defect, but has become another kind of power for her.
Of course, this movie cannot be truly so "perfect." Elevator play and various types of gymnastics performances in Team US 2, the protagonist’s halo is shown off by the widow sister in a missile pile, and the clichés of saving the world at the last second [and attached to the real aircraft carrier repaired with taxpayer’s money Twisting with the childhood sweetheart villain for more than 1 minute] These are still very uninspiring "superhero" actions, and will inevitably be ridiculed by a large group of scholars, and even disdain to bombard them. [But I don’t want so much, I’m so happy to watch it]
++++++Finally +++++
When I watched it, I was thinking, why must there be no analysis of Hollywood action movies? I have always felt that any form of prejudice hinders our perception of the world, whether it is the high-level prejudice of the elite against Hollywood blockbusters or the public's prejudice against art films. I can neither watch Hollywood for the rest of my life, nor Godard or Tarkovsky for the rest of my life (both these two options are both terrible to think about). Movies, or even everything in our lives, should be like the simple truth of Russell’s favorite quote by Wang Xiaobo, “variation is the source of happiness”.
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