1034873732 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:47 pm
Final Essay
Appreciation of Smile of Mona Lisa and And the Spring Comes from Feminism
For a long time, men in the west and the east have a higher position and voice in the family and society, while many women in subordinate positions have been taught traditional and conservative ideas since childhood. However, with the development of the times, women began to fight for their right to speak and social rights, breaking the shackles of old customs and backward ideas and striving to become independent. Feminism is gradually forming and developing. From the movies Smile of Mona Lisa and And the Spring Comes, we can find women's dissatisfaction and resistance to male chauvinism from the content and details. Although the two films have other connotations, this time we intend to analyze the two films from a feminist perspective.
In both films, men's status and right to speak are reflected, while feminism requires a mode of equal coexistence between men and women. In And the Spring Comes, Wang Tsai-ling faces men with more courage than ordinary women. On the train to Beijing with Huang Sibao, she said without hesitation after being refused to confide her true feelings: "You treat me like a friend because I am ugly! I don't think I'm ugly, just a little weird." This sentence shows the hidden rules of men's choice of spouse, and the strong eyes also destroyed the hypocrisy of men immediately. She is resisting the potential desire of men in an aloof way. In Smile of Mona Lisa, Catherine's boyfriend left her to join the army after Pearl Harbor broke out. In the course of the war, their feelings changed somewhat, and they no longer loved and understood each other, so they separated. But Catherine did not resent these things, but continued her dream. At Wesleyan University, Catherine has many similarities with her students. They gradually attract each other. But then she found out a lot about joining the army, so she couldn't stand cheating and broke up with him. Based on her independent pursuit, Catherine chose a mode of getting along with her men and women equally. From these two fragments, we can find that both protagonists have awakened feminism and are pursuing equality between men and women. They are not afraid of other people's strange eyes but insist on being themselves.
Then, the two films also show women's struggle against secular marriage and fate. Most people think that women should accept the fate of marrying men and become fetters of secular families. Resistance is tantamount to throwing eggs at stones. Because once a woman enters a powerful male-dominated society, she will become the object of men's desire and the victim of traditional marriage. In And the Spring Comes, Wang Tsai-ling also wavered, but when she rejected Zhou Yu and Hu Jinquan, we can see that she still sticks to her ideal. This shows that she has abandoned the influence of the existing cultural awareness and male voice and has become an independent woman. After Wang Tsai-ling's dream was shattered by lies and her love was buried, she chose to adopt a child, which showed that she still rejected the invasion of male society with strong female self-consciousness. In Smile of Mona Lisa, Betty, a student of Catherine's, once firmly abided by the traditional morality and ideas, and also used male voice to set up a certain degree of representation for her own value in her heart. She made sharp remarks in the school newspaper, and also criticized as harshly as possible those men's voices and women's ideas with challenging characteristics. However, the feminism taught by Catherine greatly influenced her thoughts. After getting married, Betty became a good woman according to the requirements of society. But she can speak for herself from her own standpoint and live on her own. She has established the female's self-consciousness and has also learned to argue for herself from the standpoint of women. For many women, it has become their obligation to marry and have children, and after marriage they can only become slaves to their families. However, it is obvious that feminism requires women to have their own rights, so they can choose not to get married and can continue to do what they like after marriage instead of becoming housewives.
In addition, there are many places in And the Spring Comes that can reflect the unequal status of men and women. First, Hu Jinquan pulled Song into the men's toilet to try to rape because he was laughed at by Song's husband. This shows that when men are insulted, innocent women are often the targets of vent and revenge. And it shows that women's status is subordinate to men and society, and that men and women are not equal. Second, teacher Zhang has a good face, which is in line with the aesthetic requirements of "male-dominated society" for women. But she still didn't get the love she wanted, and her husband ran away with all the money. She said to Wang Tsai-ling, "What should I do in the future", which also shows that women are subservient to men and that her self-consciousness is not awakening. Third, Gao Beibei went to the competition because her boyfriend wanted her to be famous. So she even sold her conscience through cheating and other means. This can reflect the effect of male voice on women and thus contrast the weakness of female voice. Almost every woman in the movie can deeply reflect her desire and demand for equality between men and women and women's rights, thus extending to feminism.
In Smile of Mona Lisa, the damp and cold basement is no longer Catherine's stage alone. The students are filled with sunflowers painted by themselves, which are full of vitality and courage as gifts to the teachers who will leave soon. Catherine said in her letter to Betty, "If you want to change here, you have to change yourself first." As a result of one year's education, Betty chose to end her unhappy marriage, Connie rushed into the boys' dormitory to save her true love, Giselle decided to develop in new york, etc. When Catherine left, the students rode bicycles and ran after miss Catherine's car for a long time. The last scene of the film is fixed on Catherine's charming, calm, relieved and touched smiling face, which is meaningful. The liberal feminine spirit illustrated in the film makes women seem to find self-worth and re-examine their self-orientation under the equal education system and political system. It also makes many women in the new era find a window to break through the traditional soul. The free spirit in the film is far from stopping, and it is further deducing and changing with the changes of the times.
The feminist theory is in the final analysis a word: to achieve equality between men and women in all mankind. For a long time, women have always been a vulnerable group deprived of their right to speak, and their fate is dominated by a male-dominated society, which cannot be shaken off. Driven by this fate, the awakened are succumbing while resisting, which has a tragic fatalistic philosophical meaning. A small number of awakened people want to awaken the sleepers, but their efforts have resulted in alienation and failure. None of them won the perfect victory, and the mediocrity was the final winner. However, they will not give up the pursuit of gender equality and truth.
Changes in social material conditions and production relations have made gender inequality unnecessary and outdated systems and concepts. Therefore, there has been a criticism of traditional social gender concepts and male chauvinism. Nowadays, gender equality is a general trend that no one can stop.
