The youth culture of Obama’s administration,
"The Hunger Games" and "Divergent", have in common that they pay attention to political system issues. Both series of works conceive a class-fixed sci-fi regime, while the adolescent heroine is conscious or unconscious. Land shoulders the heavy responsibility of subverting the existing order.
Here comes the question: Why are Western girls (or teenagers) interested in political issues today?
The Chinese representatives of youth films are "Little Times" and "Huanzhugege". The latter has full room for political topics in terms of themes, but they do not hesitate to circumvent them. Raising the upper age limit a little bit, young women in our country are obsessed with all kinds of traversal or non-traversal palace fights. Gongdou operas seem to have a factor of "feminism" (this "power" mostly refers to power). In fact, they talk about how women use order, defeat their peers, and finally climb to the forefront of society in a world where men are in power. The courage and tendency to impact and overthrow existing rules. This point is fundamentally different from "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent".
Since 2008 when Obama was in power, the United States has made significant improvements in terms of gender rights, minority rights, and social welfare at the bottom. Female voters are even more important for the Democratic Party. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election in the Democratic Party primary polls, the first was Hillary Clinton, the second was Biden, and the third was Elizabeth Warren, a female professor at Harvard Law School. The United States is very likely to usher in the first female president in the history of the country in 2016. The successful role models of female politicians, coupled with the subtle influence of Oprah Winfrey and Alan De Janice in the media over the years, coupled with the widely publicized business elite woman Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO) and others are living examples. American young women will naturally have grand visions and higher expectations for their future. Girls’ literature and art are mixed with political topics, reflecting that young European and American women (compared to the previous generation who watched "Summer in Jeans") have increased their interest in politics and increased their self-confidence in participating in and affecting social life. This series of ideological fields The changes are based on the new normal of the real environment.
In this sense, the various "small eras", various "styles", and various court battles in our country have not deviated from our own objective environment. "Little Times" pursues making money and buying famous brands, "Returning Pearls" is eager to be loved by parents and beloved by boyfriends. The upper ranks believed in Gongdou drama rely on open guns and secret arrows to harm each other. Nothing has divorced from the real life of our country, which It is also the needs of this kind of children that arise from this kind of society. Mtime’s September 2014 feature "The American Movie "Little Era", which praised "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent", belittled the meaning of "Little Era" and "There Will Be No Time", and the implication is to refer to the youth of our country. The audience is not as high in aesthetic quality as the American youth audience. This comparison cannot be said to be meaningless, but the economic development stage, universal education level, and literary censorship system of the two countries are very different, and no one can make wishful thinking about what kind of audience and what kind of works will be produced. Don’t say that our country’s youth works don’t talk about politics. Even if domestic films are geared towards adult audiences, how many of them have talked about politics in an empty space? How many spectators have seen the fundamental reason why my country shoots less future themes and more costume films?
Girls talk about politics in literature and art, there are limitations
Just as the American drama "Marco Polo" failed to make a good Chinese palace battle, "The Hunger Games" and other girls' literature and art also failed to portray the dictatorship. These authors of American youth literature have straight ideas and lack personal experience. They underestimate dictators, underestimate the operation of the dictatorship system, and have a very single understanding of the political system.
Take "The Hunger Games" as an example. The ruling regime and administrative divisions set in this work are hard to be overthrown. The degree of unfairness is even more outrageous than the Roman Empire and the Mongol Empire. Human beings are created just waiting to fall. As for the dictatorial president inside, the actor’s expressions are far more savvy than the actions written in the script, and his ruling ideas are completely pre-modern. The ill-conceived methods of maintaining stability, such as slaughter and regional slaughter, are full of ancient customs. Relying on a young girl’s live TV program and video promo film, the power of mastering weapons of mass destruction was subverted. This outrageous fantasy can only be believed by Americans who are obsessed with television. Of course, rationality is not the point. After all, this is a fictional work, so there is no need to find faults. Pointing out its naivety is just to point out its essential attributes as a youth art and show that the political ecology it conceives is not worthy of serious discussion.
We can copy the end of the original novel "The Hunger Games 3: Mockingjay" here without spoilers, so that everyone understands where the point is: "Whenever he whispers in my ear:'You love me , Real, fake?' I told him:'really.'" This is the last two lines of the last two lines of the "Hunger Games" trilogy published by Writers Publishing House. "The Hunger Games" succeeded "Twilight" and became the core factor of Lionsgate’s girly movie cash cow. It also puts a love triangle throughout the whole story. It is also a self-proclaimed girl who falls into the same sensitive pale handsome guy and high-strength muscles. In the emotional entanglement of the little brother, and in the end she became the fuse of the huge conflict and was valued by the group of adults. Which girl doesn't cherish spring? Girls’ spring dreams are the real selling point of these pretending girls’ literature and art. "Divergent" is actually filming teacher-student love. After all, "The Hunger Games" is still playing a love triangle, which is similar to those of Aunt Qiong Yao. Perhaps the translation of "Hunger Games" can better tell its essence. If there is no grand and gorgeous costume show, no confession of I love you and you love me, no parting and snot and tears, which girl would be willing to watch the uncle and aunt’s face straighten up and purely talk about politics?
As literary and artistic works for young people, these products of Lao Mei are also instilling positive energy and are also "educating" children. Leaving aside the question of which society is superior in reality, these beautifully crafted products in the United States, like my country’s ridiculously ridiculously-made domestic animations, are praising the current system. In "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent", the protagonists oppose the sci-fi government created by the author using real history. In the end, they affirm the bourgeois revolution experienced by the Western world and many of the existing policies and consciousness of the country. Form justification. "The Hunger Games" was filmed from start to finish. It is nothing more than singing about freedom, democracy and equality. It affirms the American electoral mechanism and the welfare policy of the Democratic Party. It does not provide deeper questioning thinking. Nick’s International Children’s Channel from 2012 to 2014, the four seasons cartoon "Available in the World: The Legend of Kola", based on the fictional plot of modern East Asian history. The 17-year-old heroine Kola fights against radical ideological advocates in each season. , Including military strongmen with moles on their faces who wanted to annex the Independent Special Zone in the fourth quarter to complete the reunification of the country. Cora denies all kinds of extreme left or extreme right tendency to change, overcomes the confusion of puberty, and pulls out of the triangle relationship. What she has done is to keep the Republic City basically as it is. It can be seen that although American youth literature has injected many political elements, it is limited to the age of its audience. It is more inclined to try to make young audiences accept the current mainstream Western values, while denying other ideas and systems that may threaten the status quo. The authoritarian government constructed in works such as "The Hunger Games" is just to allow young people to accept the status quo of life and portray the image of others and aliens. Its effect is the same as our country’s past by criticizing the old society to affirm the new society’s "remembering bitterness and sweetness." In the same way, they all transfer to a foreign land to recognize reality.
Then, another question is: Since these American girls who talk about politics do not provide any deep thinking, do our teenagers just ignore it?
I wonder if you have noticed that the "Democracy" in the line of "The Hunger Games 3: Mockingjay (Part 1)" seen in domestic movie theaters has been abruptly translated into "political system". Listening to the lines and watching the subtitles, even the junior high school girls in the back row laughed.
Although these American girls are very superficial, they are enough for those old guys who dare not even literally translate "Mr. De" during the review of the film to learn for a lifetime. Aunts and grandpas, watch more foreign children's movies.
View more about The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 reviews
