Raise the Red Lantern

[Taomeow]

[Vajrahridaya]

I've seen this movie. I also recommend it!

[doc benway]

[gendao]

[Aaron]

I'd say it has less to do with moths to a flame, than it does with basic human needs. The need to feel wanted. The need to feel loved. The need to feel desired. All three are different, but linked to the same thing, a desire to have someone value you, even if in this case the value is based on sex appeal.

 

The problem with most of these girls is that they were screwed up well before they ever arrived at the Playboy Mansion. A normal girl (and I rarely use the word normal, but use it in this context to refer to what most girls might do) would never think of Playboy as a career opportunity, nor would they think of having sex with an eighty plus year old man as a pleasurable thing.

 

In regards to women and men, I think the problem is that we are too wrapped up in differences that we don't realize that much of is only biological. I know women who love football and men who love to sew. The nice thing these days is that lines are slowly blurring, so a man can be sensitive and woman can be tough, without having to feel like they are trapped in a role. This is occurring in the East as well, if a bit slower.

 

Aaron

[Apech]

[Seth Ananda]

Wonderful post.

I hope some of our members take your advice.

One of the most beautiful and haunting movies I've ever seen, and Gong Li will hold a piece of my heart forever.

 

I'm interested in seeing his newest film, A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop which is a remake of the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple, set in nineteenth century China.

Both Awesome movies....

And Great Idea Taomeow

[Taomeow]

Both Awesome movies....

And Great Idea Taomeow

 

Thank you, Steve F and Seth Ananda. I'll certainly check out the other movie.

 

Vortex,

 

I didn't find the kind of numb, flattened emotionality, creative impotence, or flaccid humanism in the movie that would even remotely match the way you perceived it. No silicon-stuffed chests either, or soft pornish infatuations. Perhaps we've seen different movies after all?..

[JohnC]

[Pu-erh]

Taomeow, I just got around to watching the movie based on your recommendation. It was beautiful. I am a fan of Zhang Yimou. I'm not sure if this is the first film I've seen Gong Li in but she is beautiful as well

 

However, I am curious... and perhaps to play devil's advocate for a moment, what exactly was the message you were hoping forum members would get from this film, specifically in relation to all the discussions about men and women on the forum (which I've observed somewhat as a lurker)? In this film, none of the women really seem to have any emotional attachment or love for the Master. They compete for his attention due to a desire for status, power, and various privileges within the household. Actually, the 'customs' of the Chen family in the movie seem like they could have been designed to foster this competition between the mistresses, inducing each to please the master as much as possible. It's good to be the king, right? None of the women are truly happy. Meishan (3rd mistress) may or may not love Dr. Gao. Songlian seems to have feelings for Feipu. Basically the women marry and compete for economic security/advantage even though their hearts are not in it and it makes them unhappy... and ultimately the story ends in tragedy as Meishan is killed and Songlian goes mad.

 

So, what is the moral here?

[Taomeow]

Hi Pu-erh,

 

I'm glad you liked the movie.

 

The message I wanted to convey, and the one I see as the director's main focus, is not immediately obvious. Some critics have read into it an allegory of totalitarian power in society in general. This is how I saw it too. What's going on is power struggles -- the primary set-up being that all power ultimately belongs to the master, the man of the household. Women compete, fighting for crumbs of this power, each doing this not for love -- far from it, there can be no love where the power is one-sided -- but for self-protection, for some survivable security of their position, for a fleeting speck of human warmth, for to chase away monstrous loneliness and meaninglessness of their situation, and for a snippet of free will! A crumb from the master's table... remember, you have to be favored by the husband to have any say in anything, e.g. in order to choose what you can eat -- the favorite of the moment orders that and all other wives and concubines have to eat that rather than what they prefer -- but the favorite is not using her own power either even when having this "choice," it is only as much power of choice as she's handed down by the man, as much as he condescends to dispense -- and none for the rest.

 

Women do not show their best side under these conditions -- on the contrary, they are at their worst. One could say they are horrible women... if one didn't look at the social, economic, family conditions that are dictating their personalities, their behaviors, their convoluted ways of struggling for a modicum of human decency, value, or worth. They will do anything... and anything they do is hopeless. The power is still in the hands of the man. The women may try to manipulate the snippet of fake power he has handed down here and there, but ultimately, everything in their lives is predicated on how he will use the real absolute total power he holds. And he will use it to murder the moment something a woman does falls outside his control.

 

So, what I was hoping at least some folks would see in the movie is the accurate picture of the woman's reality, not just in China of not so long ago but in the world in general that has been dominated by take-no-prisoners extreme, deadly, soul-shattering patriarchy for a few thousand years, the most miserable years in the species' history. I wanted them to understand that any behaviors they happen to see as reprehensible in women today are invariably reactive, and the reaction is to a built-in set-up of powerlessness which has been somewhat reversed only very recently, only very partially, nowhere near completely, and more often than not only symbolically (e.g., out of the 1000 richest people in the US, only 1 (one) is a woman and 999 are men... coincidence?..). And it still is, very much, the sad reality even for the "emancipated" Western women today.

 

A reality so taken for granted as to become invisible to perceptions! -- but if you focus your mind's eye real well you might start noticing... Where's the birth control pill which the man takes (he's the responsible one, right?) which destroys his health rather than hers, in the midst of this emancipation? Where is the testiculogram to screen men for testicular cancer via a squeezing and bruising and irradiating and cancer-provoking procedure to match the mammograms invented by babies who weren't breastfed to punish the breast?.. and they weren't breastfed because mom had to work full time?.. because there's no social acceptance and no social conditions for her mom work actually being valued and rewarded as work, the work of a woman, and therefore she has to do the work of a man, to become an honorary male, in order to make a living and avoid the stigma of "uselessness?"

 

Anyway... I could go on and on and on and on and on and on but I'll spare you... So, basically, that's what I was hoping people would see in the movie as clearly as I did. Trampled femininity which starts out with the man destroying it by ownership and ends up destroying itself.

[Birch]

http://www.shametojo...he_shackles.pdf

 

See also http://www.sexatdawn.com/

 

Excellent post TaoMeow!

[Desert Eagle]

Good film, thanks for sharing. (I want foot massages everyday)

[Pu-erh]

Thanks for the explanation, Taomeow. Now I see what you were getting at. I think it can be hard sometimes for us younger guys to keep the whole history of patriarchy in perspective, when the reality we are surrounded with (and which we were raised in) is a post-feminist reality (at least here in California, anyway). Not that patriarchy isn't still there (your example about the 1000 richest people is a good one), but... there are reasons why guys are so frustrated, giving rise to bizarre cultural phenomena like the "seduction community" etc. which seem to come out of men's sense of powerlessness and desperation. I sincerely wish for a future when neither women nor men will have to experience so much suffering related to dating and mating.

 

K, thanks for the e-book... it looks very helpful especially since I'm starting an M.A. in Counseling Psych soon and hope to eventually work with young men in my practice. I couldn't find the "Sex Before Dawn" website... is it related to the Sex At Dawn book that just came out in paperback?

[gendao]

I didn't find the kind of numb, flattened emotionality, creative impotence, or flaccid humanism in the movie that would even remotely match the way you perceived it. No silicon-stuffed chests either, or soft pornish infatuations. Perhaps we've seen different movies after all?..

Lol, you forgot the part about how Hef's real-life story reveals how some women more than willingly and voluntarily "prostitute" themselves for status without male coercion or oppression.

 

Which unfortunately doesn't fit your narrative of man as perpetual oppressor and woman as hapless victim for X,000 years (hence you discredited it "artistically").

 

But what it actually fits is the evo psych alpha/beta male thesis and how it always took 2 to tango, baby!

 

And I cited his example because if we want to talk about real gender-based behavior, it is best to start off with actual examples today and not a fictional story set 100 years ago. Getting real isn't always pretty...but we all know what Laozi had to say about that:

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful.

So no, same movie, just different viewpoints..

 

Respectfully,

Edited July 19, 2011 by vortex

[Immortal4life]

Yeah, I can understand that women in many ways, have it hard. I personally would not want to be a woman, and that is one fear I assume many men have, if reincarnation is true.

 

To play devils's advocate, or to play the role of Non.....it's not right to take out frustrations that stem from experiences with so called stronger males, on weaker males. I have certainly seen women who were in relationships where they weren't treated well, then go on to be with nicer and kinder males, and treat them badly, while secretly still loving their old mean ex.

 

Personally I don't care about social issues, economic issues, what happened in the past before I was born, or what will happen when I'm gone, for the most part. I care about the things I like to do, and I gear my life towards my goals and values. I could care less what societies goals and values are. I care about getting the most out of my life here and now, and achieving my full potential. I don't make compromises or allow myself to be held back in my life for anyone or anything. All I know is this, if a girl says to me "my ex this, or my ex that", she's done.

[Birch]

Thanks for the explanation, Taomeow. Now I see what you were getting at. I think it can be hard sometimes for us younger guys to keep the whole history of patriarchy in perspective, when the reality we are surrounded with (and which we were raised in) is a post-feminist reality (at least here in California, anyway). Not that patriarchy isn't still there (your example about the 1000 richest people is a good one), but... there are reasons why guys are so frustrated, giving rise to bizarre cultural phenomena like the "seduction community" etc. which seem to come out of men's sense of powerlessness and desperation. I sincerely wish for a future when neither women nor men will have to experience so much suffering related to dating and mating.

 

K, thanks for the e-book... it looks very helpful especially since I'm starting an M.A. in Counseling Psych soon and hope to eventually work with young men in my practice. I couldn't find the "Sex Before Dawn" website... is it related to the Sex At Dawn book that just came out in paperback?

 

It is the 'Sex at Dawn' book :-) Whoops Sorry uncle Freud

 

http://www.sexatdawn.com/

[Aetherous]

I think it can be hard sometimes for us younger guys to keep the whole history of patriarchy in perspective, when the reality we are surrounded with (and which we were raised in) is a post-feminist reality (at least here in California, anyway).

 

Yup. In fact, I don't think there was a worldwide patriarchy over the last few thousand years. Such a view is extremist and false...and it's too bad that it's commonly accepted as truth.

 

Not that patriarchy isn't still there (your example about the 1000 richest people is a good one)

 

I don't think that is a good example at all. Rich men don't rule the common people in our society...they simply have a lot of money.

[gendao]

Yup. In fact, I don't think there was a worldwide patriarchy over the last few thousand years. Such a view is extremist and false...and it's too bad that it's commonly accepted as truth.

The ironic counterpoint here is that for half a century up until a decade before this movie was set...China was effectively ruled by a woman, Empress Dowager Cixi..

And that's actual history...not some fictional narrative, folks!

Edited July 27, 2011 by vortex

[Immortal4life]

Good point vortex. In some times, in some places, it could concievably be better to be a woman than to be a man.

 

I believe if men today can't develop some softer qualities that people often view as feminine qualities, it is possible that women will overtake men, because women today are definitely developing active and masculine qualities more and more.