I was so eager to see the military parade. When I was a child (I don’t know what year it was), there was a military parade held in Tiananmen Square on TV. I watched the premiere and the repeat, and I couldn’t get enough of it. Like most boys, I was a weapon lover at the time, familiar with the classic names of firearms, the latest fighter models, and the different classes of American aircraft carriers. I still remember that I loved to read a magazine called "Ship Knowledge", which contained many detailed structural drawings of warships. I looked at it eagerly, took out a pen and paper and copied it carefully, and then designed my own ship "Guo 001" on the white paper.
The interest in war and weapons has at some point waned and almost died out. I no longer open "100 Famous Pistols" and "100 Famous Tanks" on the bookshelf, I no longer close my eyes before going to sleep and imagine the super chariots that I only see in sci-fi movies, and I no longer draw on the drawing paper again and again. Painting to simulate the "China-US Final Battle". I'm no longer interested in military news, and I'm no longer interested in military exercises on TV. When another grand military parade came, I had no desire to watch it. I knew an American when I was studying abroad, and he said his last name was "Colt" - I subconsciously asked him if it was "Colt" for a Colt pistol, and he said yes. After asking, I was surprised: I still remember the Colt pistol! ?
Although I can still happily spend a few hours on the computer playing a "Civilization 5" commanding the army to fight and kill, I have to admit that my interest in the military has worn off for the most part. I wondered why childhood interests waned, just as I wondered why boys like planes and cannons and girls like to play house - is there really much innate to that?
Boys' parents will always buy him war toys and military books with ease, just as girls' parents buy them dolls and dolls. I wonder if the interests of boys and girls would be markedly divided if parents treated them non-genderly. Obviously, a boy who likes to play with dolls will be ridiculed as "girly" by adults, and a girl who dances with knives and guns will be considered "boylike". Children grow up with mechanisms that keep them interested only in what they "should" be interested in.
I'm also puzzled as to why an adult clamoring for war might be seen as a dangerous militant, while a boy who studies weapons every day and dreams of fighting would not be seen as a crooked seedling. A society can prohibit exposure of children to images of violence and blood, while allowing and even encouraging boys to take an interest in the military - isn't war where violence and blood are most concentrated?
Of course, what children receive is mostly an abstract "violence". The weapons book will tell you how destructive a missile is, but it won't show you pictures of the homeland destroyed by the missile; it will boast about the accuracy of a pistol, but not the bloody bullet it shoots on human flesh hole. Children with a penchant for sabotage are suspected of having psychological problems, and talking about military weapons is considered perfectly normal.
Society educates us to express a great deal (if not excessive) sympathy and hatred for scenes of war, but it also educates us on the glory of "going to the battlefield to defend our homeland". No matter how clever an explanation is given, people's attitude towards war is ultimately self-contradictory: I hope everyone is a peaceful person who categorically rejects war, but I also hope that when war comes, enough people can come forward—— That is, to have enough people who don't hate war so much.
Not just a movie like "Wolf Warrior 2", but society as a whole is tirelessly imposing that old "warrior" image on men (just as they impose another equally old stereotype on women). Leng Feng, played by Wu Jing, is not so much an ideal soldier as an ideal man: he is upright, loyal, protective, and has a strong sense of justice, ready to take risks for others. Soldiers are the protectors of the people, just as men in primitive societies acted as protectors of families and tribes. Soldiers are ideal men because they protect others. I'm not a woman, but I absolutely believe that a typical woman will always have hormone levels up when she sees men who are willing to stand up to protect others and who are capable of protecting them as well. After all, the most fundamental need of a woman for a man is protection—a protection that long ago was by force, but now it is largely dependent on money, power, and status.
Because of this, there are many boys like me who have dreamed of "being in the People's Liberation Army" since childhood - this is of course the result of adults' hints. We are taught that soldiers in uniform, with steel guns, standing upright and striding neatly, are the real "man" (I've grown increasingly disgusted with the extremely gendered word "man"). Since we were young, we have heard countless clichés like "a man should be a horse and his body will be wrapped in a corpse." Similar words are either the wild words of the soldiers themselves, or they are just propaganda by the government to entice people to die for it.
Indeed, soldiers are a group with a strong sense of honor, which is not only related to their relatively independent social status, but also influenced by their vocational education as soldiers. I do think that being in the military and defending one's home and country has its glory, but other legitimate occupations also have their own "honor", but there is little of the strong sense of pride that soldiers have. In contrast, the dangers faced by the police may be less deadly but more frequent, and the same is to protect the safety of the public, but this profession does not seem to have the noble status of the military. Soldiers die in action as "death for the country" - certainly the police die in the line of duty, but the term is used significantly less frequently. Although the police have also been established as a very positive image, they are ultimately the same service-oriented role as other civil servants - "it is difficult to find the police". The People's Liberation Army is the so-called "cutest person" - this is already trying to establish a religion of "military glory".
Compared with other major countries in the world, although China's militarism has risen in recent years, it is not too serious; although there have been many times in history, she is a literati after all. nation. When I see Hollywood films boasting about American armaments tirelessly, the novelty of the beginning has long since worn out, and all that remains is a secret laughter in my heart; this kind of laughter is similar to seeing a whole set of small soldiers proudly playing with themselves. Little boy with toy laughing. In most countries, enlistment is advertised as the most honorable option for men - it is said that the duty of the military is to obey, and I don't think there is much honor in obedience. (More than once I've read in books that real war veterans say that the glory of war is a myth: When one man lifts a gun and tries to kill another, there is no glory.)
Don't get me wrong, I It's just the unreasonable indoctrination of our brains by the government propaganda machine, not the military community or the military profession. I believe that all legitimate professions deserve equal respect. Soldiers are not productive and sometimes have blood on their hands, but they do maintain and protect a relatively peaceful environment that is still necessary for this society. It's just that when we see films like "Wolf Warrior," we see a warm-hearted ode to the military and the nation. This kind of Acura also carries traditional male chauvinism and male worship, the latter marching openly in front of the audience under the banner of patriotism, showing off his arm muscles and drinking.
Under such values, only a man is the real protagonist of a story, and all women and children are just fine furnishings for him to protect, secondary, even lacking subjectivity. This kind of value emphasizes "the difference between men and women" in the narrowest sense, and ridicules everything that it considers "sissy"—the white-faced little boy with splendid fists and embroidered legs, who can only become true fighters under the leadership of tough guys in the People's Liberation Army. Wolf Warrior 2 may be a decent Chinese version of Rambo, but I'm vaguely uneasy enjoying its gripping action.
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