Rebellion without rebellion, quick return after dissonance
In the film, the name Sacramento and the cultural characteristics of Northern California are constantly mentioned. When we translate the regional environment where Lady bird lives, we will better understand the story.
California is analogous to China, which is quite similar to Guangdong. It is a region with developed economy, far away from the political center and relatively independent culture. Sacramento, then, is roughly equivalent to Shantou, Guangdong's fourth-largest city—a sizeable city with a mediocre economy and conservative culture. There is only a thin line between Guangzhou and Shenzhen (Los Angeles, San Francisco), but it is like two worlds. Her mother wanted Miss Bird to go to the Shantou branch of Sun Yat-sen University, but she yearned for Shanghai even more, so she secretly reported her wish without her mother.
Miss Bird's family background is poor, her grades and appearance are average, her melancholy and cowardly father is unemployed, her mother is strong and not good at expressing her feelings, and her adopted brother is eccentric. According to the time inference, Bird was 18 years old in 2002. Her parents were old enough to have children. She was about 55-60 years old. She was born in the 40s. , Vietnam War, Lennon, Elvis, Bob Dylan, hippies, Beat Generation literature, Cuban Missile Crisis, Che Guevara, Jack Kerouac.
However, judging from the parents' behavior and image building in the film, their youth had "Cold War, Moon landing, Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis". Will listen to "Rock, Lennon, Elvis, Bob Dylan" but not feel their spirit. And definitely no "hippie, beat literature, Jack Kerouac".
In the name of the film, Bird is the name given to herself by the heroine, which represents her inner rebel side, while Lady, a traditional and decent word, not only represents the resistance generated by the conservative environment, but also symbolizes her inner heart. The deep reconciliation side. The story of Lady Bird's youth unfolds in the dissonance of these two words.
Rebellion and reconciliation are common themes of youth films. However, Lady Bird is not such a rebellious girl. Her rebelliousness is always restrained. She will seriously consider "when is it appropriate to start sex", and she will hope that her boyfriend is also a virgin before the first night. The so-called rebellion is nothing more than a quarrel with his mother, and the most outrageous thing he did was to put a spoof note on the nun's car and contradict the teacher. "Bird", which represents the rebel side, caused the dislocation of youth in friendship and family, but "Lady", which represents the reconciliation side, triumphed in the graduation season.
In middle school, there were often such a group of people in the grades. They were handsome and beautiful, from good families, were social talents, and were active in sports and art festivals. They formed a "high society" that most of the other students would feel more or less envious of. In Lady Bird's story, rocker Kyle and rich girl Jenna are representatives of this circle. Miss Bird entered the "high-end" circle by showing her "worth" by pretending to be a good family and taking Jenna to play tricks on the nuns. But the truth of Bird, who lives in a crowded small house, is revealed, so he can't be appreciated by Jenna, a rich girl with a swimming pool at home, and an ordinary girl who takes SEX seriously can't accept Kyle, a beautiful teenager who slept with six girls (not necessarily all girls) at the age of 18 three views. During graduation season, in the face of Kyle and Jenna's decision not to go to the prom, Bird realized that he was only a vassal in that circle and couldn't fit in. So he turned to find his old friend Julie, and went to the dance together. Faced with those popular classmates, most adolescent girls have experienced a process from inferiority, to struggling to squeeze in or resisting the court, and then to taking it lightly, neither humble nor arrogant.
Love and liking----touch and restraint in family affection
In terms of family affection, Lady Bird and her mother also experienced continuous conflict and final reconciliation while loving each other. I have a hard time understanding the delicate emotions and trivial conflicts in it. But I am impressed with the following scene, because it can be compared from a mother-daughter relationship to a father-son relationship:
"I just want you to like me." "I wish that you liked me."
"Of course I love you." "Of course I love you."
"But do you like me?" "but do you like me?"
This dialogue is a dialogue between the heroine and her mother when she is trying on clothes for the graduation ceremony. This dialogue adds a lot of realism to the film, and it also resonates with Chinese audiences.
Generally speaking, the relationship between father and daughter and mother and son is easy to handle, while the relationship between father and son is full of confrontation and the other is full of subtleties. The situation of "love without liking" is also common in the relationship between father and son. The son loves his father and understands him, but it cannot be called liking. A father loves his son and loves his son, but he cannot understand his son. The son cannot open his heart to his father, and the father cannot make his son feel liked. The two sides don't know whether to touch or to restrain. If you go further, you will be embarrassed. If you take a step back, you will be indifferent. This delicate balance also affects the mother-child relationship, and it often occurs in families that meet the following conditions:
1. Parents and children are good people, and they are willing to give their hearts to each other.
2. Parents are deeply influenced by conservative traditional thinking, and they are largely separated from the three views of their children.
3. Family members are not good at expressing, dare not express, or are ashamed to express their feelings.
4. The relationship between parents is not free love but blind date.
In Lady Bird's family, there is a situation of "love but not enough like", but this kind of family situation is even more serious in China. Parents and children are willing to make each other's life better through their own efforts, but they are not used to living under the same roof for a long time. live together. Not much to fight, but definitely not to heart. If you don't contact each other for a long time, you will miss each other, but after the phone call, you don't know what to say. Children will announce the good news, because the good news can make the parents happy. But I won't report my worries, because it is necessary to make my parents worry about not being able to help. As for emotional comfort, well, let's forget it.
At the end of the film, a restrained narrative method was used to express reconciliation. The heroine finally made a phone call to her family, but no one answered and she could only leave a message. In this way, the touching and true reconciliation scenes of mother and daughter in traditional youth film routines did not appear on the big screen. It avoids the embarrassment and bewilderment that the two parties may have during the reconciliation, and also finds another way to achieve a balance between sensationalism and indifference in the perception to the audience.
In the end, Lady Bird's mother-daughter relationship reconciled under the influence of her daughter's growth and success, reaching a level of love and liking, but more Chinese families are still in a situation of only love, until the son's ability is enough It takes being the stronger person in the relationship to return to "like" -- just as his father was the stronger person when he was a child.
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