1. The damage of the original family: a childhood without love and a sense of security that has been pursued
Matsuko's initial injury to her family of origin stemmed from her father giving almost all the attention to her sick sister, ignoring her. In order to win the missing father's love and affirmation from her younger sister Kumi, she studied hard to be the pride of her father, obeyed his father's arrangement for her life, and even awkwardly grimaced in order to win the serious and nervous father's laughter (which caused her to later Unknowingly grimacing when stressed). However, in the end, "Kumi still won." Matsuko has never accepted himself, but lives according to the ideal in his father's heart. Throughout the film, Matsuko doesn't learn to properly express her true emotions.
Matsuko, who did not receive a positive response from her father in her native family, showed lack of self-confidence, low self-esteem and insecurity when she grew up, and her lack of security needs to be constantly obtained from others and external objects. For example, Matsuko would rather be tied up with a scumbag than be alone. The insecure Matsuko's attachment type in the relationship is anxious, and she hopes to get feedback from the other party by continuously increasing her emotional investment. However, most of the time, the anxious pine nuts are attracted to avoidant boyfriends who are equally insecure: from the beginning of domestic violence to her but can't live without her writer boyfriend, to the burning of her passionate love and overwhelmed The gangster Long Zeyi who escaped. The seemingly normal and honest but also confident barber seems to be the only boyfriend who can pull pine nuts to the "secure" attachment type, but unfortunately the timing is not right.
When Oka also abandoned Matsuko, who had a family, he repeatedly emphasized to her that he did not love her, but was only obsessed with her body. At that time, Matsuko understood that she was just a beautiful body that gave out her desire, and that scene was actually the first time Matsuko was materialized in the movie. After being abandoned by Okaya, the impoverished Matsuko becomes an erotic massage girl. During the period of working as an erotic massage girl, Matsuko's sense of security came from the accumulation of money and the affirmation of her own body by customers. In fact, before getting together with Oka, Matsuko went to a massage parlor for an interview, but was ashamed to take off her clothes; but after being abandoned by Oka, Matsuko naturally took off her clothes. Even if Matsuko didn't show the slightest reluctance and pain, selling out her body was a process of self-objectification, and this process started when Oka also threw Matsuko an envelope of money after saying "I'm sorry I played with you".
2. How to get out of the original family’s first step: forgive others and forgive yourself
At the end of the film, the scenes of the river that appeared before are shot from different angles and in flashbacks: from Songzi's death near the river, to Songzi running away from home on a bicycle along the riverside path, to Songzi on a cruise Shang took the students to sing, until Songzi, who was a child, stood by the river and sang happily. In the original book, the river is a theme that runs through the book. In the film, the scene of the river appears at several important life nodes of Matsuko: from the river in Matsuko's hometown, to the river where she tried to commit suicide and jumped into the water-deficient river, to the river behind the small broken house when she lived alone in Tokyo (also her place of death). The river is not only her dream, but her memory, but also a symbol of "the dead are like suffocate".
Before her father and sister passed away, Matsuko never forgave them: she lived with a grudge against her father, and when she came home to see her sister, she would still push her to the ground out of control. Later, when she read his father's diary after his death, she realized that his father was thinking about her every day. Similarly, Matsuko's younger brother, Norifu, has never forgiven Matsuko who ruined their family in his eyes, and it was not until a period of time after Matsuko's death that he showed his sadness. For the injury of the original family, the victim can live with anger and disappointment passively waiting for time to heal, or choose to reconcile with their family and the past by actively forgiving their parents. The price of using time to heal is the passing of life, the consumption of self, and the regret of Songzi that "the child wants to be raised but the parent does not wait". Choosing forgiveness and active reconciliation can be very difficult and bound to meet obstacles, but it can be more active in helping victims to come out of the shadows of the past and forgive themselves in the process of forgiving others.
3. How to get out of the hurt of the original family Step 2: Transcendence and Compassion (compassion)
At the end of Matsuko's life, she walked up the stairs to heaven. When she saw her father and sister, her mood was peaceful. Long Zeyi and the male protagonist's ex-girlfriend Asuka in the original work took the help of "God" to the road of mercy, from the road of "crossing oneself" to the road of "crossing people". And Long Zeyi believes that Songzi itself has the characteristics of "God": as always, she loves those who have hurt her.
Transcending and building compassion is not only through religion, but also through psychological learning and daily practice. Proponents of Positive Psychology believe that, unlike other schools of psychology that focus on individual psychology, this school includes discussions of social psychology as well as the individual level. Compassion, often discussed in positive psychology, is defined as the ability to understand one's own and others' emotions, while compassion is the drive to want to help. Psychologists believe that empathy and compassion are the process by which one person connects with another person or group, while also reducing an individual's sense of being "out of place" in society.
4. How to get rid of the harm of the original family Step 3: Understand and transform the society
Watching the movie without reading the original is easy to miss this line of "criticism of patriarchy". At the beginning of the original novel, Matsuko, who had just become a middle school teacher, optimistically said to Principal Fumio Tiansuo, who later tried to sexually assault her: "In the future, there should be a society where men and women are equal." And "Headmaster Tiansuo has a stunned expression on his face." Later, after the attempted sexual assault by the principal of Tiansuo, he not only claimed that it was Matsuko who seduced him, but also used his power to retaliate against Matsuko in disguise. And Matsuko is also afraid that "the rumors of being violated are spread everywhere, and it is myself who suffers in the end." Later, Matsuko experienced unequal status in the relationship between the sexes, and even after the murder in self-defense, "because the judge was a man, he was sentenced to eight years, not four or five years under normal circumstances." The author of the original work sympathized with the situation of Japanese women at that time, and borrowed the words of the characters in the book to say: "Matsuko killed people, but it is precisely because women killed men, so there must be a reason for this."
Considerable academic research has shown (eg Chakraborty and McKenzie, 2002; Fryers et al., 2004) that minorities, discriminated groups and oppressed classes are generally more likely to suffer from mental illness. Women in a male-dominated society, including Matsuko, have a sense of powerlessness in doing a lot of things without getting corresponding rewards. Ultimately, this feeling of powerlessness and Matsuko's relationship with the family of origin are both internalized into one's body, leading to the ultimate breakdown and self-renunciation. In the book "Psychopolitics", the author argues that the prevailing neoliberalism is to some extent the culprit behind mental illness. I found on the Internet that many friends who have come out of depression believe that sociological theory has given them great help and support. Therefore, I believe that the establishment of a truly mentally healthy society is inseparable from a truly equal society, which requires the joint efforts and collective struggle of the entire society.
To sum up, according to the film and original work of "The Life of the Disgusted Matsuko", it is concluded that there are three steps to get rid of the harm of the original family: forgive the original family and the past self, build sympathy and empathy, and collectively fight to transform the society.
references
Chakraborty, APU and McKenzie, K., 2002. Does racial discrimination cause mental illness?. The British Journal of Psychiatry , 180 (6), pp.475-477.
Fryers, T., Jenkins, R. and Melzer, D., 2004. Social inequalities and the distribution of the common mental disorders . Psychology Press.
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