This year’s summer schedule is abuzz again because of the addition of Shen Teng Ma Li .
, the golden couple's " catch the baby " starring this pair of golden partners, only a few days after its release, the box office reached 800 million. Douban scored 7.5, and the reputation is not bad.
But after reading it, I had mixed feelings in my heart.
is obviously a comedy, but almost all the laughs are wrapped in sadness and horror. The unspeakable hidden pain in Chinese education is presented to us in an absurd and joking way.
The protagonist Ma Jiye was originally a wealthy son who was born with a golden key, but his father Ma Chenggang (played by Shen Teng) had "raised" his eldest son and was worried that his younger son would make the same mistake again.
So while Ma Jiye was still too young to remember, he took his wife Chunlan (played by Ma Li) and moved the family to a shabby courtyard, pretending to be a poor family at the bottom of the pile.
Fortunately, I didn’t take my son to see it with me. Otherwise, if he asked me these questions, I really don’t know how to answer them, such as:
Mom, are you also a wealthy person? Is our family very rich?
Mom, why doesn’t the eldest son disobey and his father doesn’t want him?
Yes, this movie is a bit cruel for children. Ma Jiye lives a life of lies and deception. In the name of "for your own good", his parents accurately design the direction of his life every step of the way, but no one cares about his free will.
Today, I will talk to you about the discussion about family education behind "Catch a Baby". (The following contains spoilers)
1
From an adult's point of view, Ma Jiye is simply a "Dream Lover" .
He gets up early every day, does housework, boils medicine for his grandma, and then walks 5 kilometers to school. He dressed simply, lived a simple life, was diligent and frugal, never played video games, and concentrated on reading and studying.
personally interprets that sentence-the children of the poor will become rich early.
But when the camera turned, I realized that everything was not that simple.
Ma Chenggang and his wife are not poor households, but rich people wearing big gold chains and smoking high-end cigars.
This tube building area, built in the style of the 1970s and 1980s, is actually a large education base. The residents inside are all NPCs and actors.
Even the "grandma" who lives with Ma Jiye day and night and is bedridden is fake.
Grandma is a well-known education expert and the commander-in-chief of the "base". Every day, when Ma Jiye goes out to school, she takes a walkie-talkie and directs other employees who are "stalking" on the road like a secret agent.
Ma Jiye needed to practice his spoken English, so his grandma arranged for two foreigners to "encounter" Ma Jiye on the street corner at the right time, and read out the standard dialogue in the textbook with a pure English listening accent.
Let’s go buy some vegetables. Ma Jiye still has to battle wits with the stall owner. He has to solve a complex mathematical problem to know the price of a certain dish.
There was no entertainment or relaxation in Ma Jiye's life. Because of poverty, he consciously killed his own nature.
The laughter of the entire movie revolves around this information asymmetry - Ma Chenggang and his wife know that everything is fake, the actors around them know it, and the audience knows it. The only one who is kept in the dark is Ma Jiye.
looks very much like "The Truman Show".
Grandma often taught Ma Jiye: If you have no faith, you will not be established; if you are not sincere, you will not be able to make friends with him.But who is the one who doesn’t believe and is sincere? How ironic!
This feels like, A group of adults bullying a child . You can’t think about it carefully. If you think about it carefully, you can’t laugh.
The most confusing scene is when Ma Chenggang arranges for "grandma" to fake her death after her identity is almost exposed.
In the mourning hall, the adults were wailing and wiping non-existent tears from the corners of their eyes. Only Ma Jiye was really heartbroken. That was his grandmother, who had been by his side since he was a child, but she died so suddenly.
The grandma, who was lying down and pretending to be dead, felt real emotions at this time and her body shook greatly. Later, she almost "pretended to be dead" and sat up to hug her "grandson".
The scene was in chaos. Ma Jiye was crying so hard that he was out of breath. Ma Chenggang and his wife were busy covering up. Grandma still wanted to struggle, but was pushed into the "cremation room" by three and five divisions.
The audience's emotions began to be incomprehensible. They wanted to cry and laugh, but in the end, they were still sad.
If in a child's world, not only is there no reality, but even blood and family ties can be manipulated, what a heavy blow it will be when he learns the truth?
Seriously speaking, it is possible to become insane.
2
The reason why Ma Chenggang went to great lengths to arrange a poor environment for Ma Jiye was because he had been there like this when he was a child, and he felt that his subsequent achievements were entirely due to the hardships he had endured.
Therefore, he came to the conclusion: One must be poor and endure hardships in order to become a superior person. Is this really the case with
?
In fact, Ma Chenggang's arrogance and strength single-handedly caused Ma Jiye's disaster.
Even if Ma Jiye learned that he was actually the son of a rich man when he grew up, the mark of poverty on him would be deep-rooted and difficult to remove.
In order to save money, he figured out a set of "life hacks" to make the faucet drip slowly and the water meter not spin;
He took the whole family to eat "Hua De Lao" hot pot, and ate free snacks while waiting for a seat. By the time the seats are lined up, he will be full and save money for a hot pot meal;
The way he thinks of making money is to pick up bottles from the trash can. He is so dirty that he looks like a little beggar, and is laughed at and teased by the classmates passing by;
He was running on the playground and saw a pile of empty mineral water bottles on the side of the road. He couldn't help but pick them up like a conditioned reflex...
Years of "poverty education" have made Ma Jiye really a poor child. That feeling of psychological deprivation will linger throughout your life.
I think of "Qi Pa Shuo", Xi Rui once said that he grew up in a single-parent family, and the most common sentence he heard since he was a child is: There is no money in the family, and it is not easy for your mother to raise you alone.
Once, he went to the supermarket with his grandma and saw a bottle of canned oranges. He wanted to eat it and couldn't help but stare at it for a long time.
Grandma noticed his actions, hesitated for a while, and then bought the can.
On the way back, grandma said: This can is 7 yuan and 9 yuan, which is enough for us to have a meal.
Xi Rui’s original joyful mood suddenly fell to the bottom.
Xi Rui didn’t taste any sweetness in that bottle of can, it was all bitter, and that bitter taste stayed in his heart from then on.
After growing up, Xi Rui changed his family's predicament with his own efforts. Poverty was a thing of the past for him, but a strong sense of insecurity still followed him.
When he goes to a consumption place, if he does not bring enough money, he will feel flustered, as if he is not worthy of that place; as long as he is not particularly ill, he will not spend money to go to the hospital.
Poverty itself is not wealth, and there is no inevitable connection between it and success. Even more often, it has the opposite effect.
Parents overemphasize poverty and kidnap their children with sadness, which may force their children to be sensible and mature prematurely, but who can see the holes in their hearts?
I saw a very heart-wrenching Douban movie review:
"They killed Ma Jiye. Ma Jiye can continue to enjoy his rich second generation life and do what he likes. He will always be a rich second generation.
But he is really guilty. Ordinary children killed by traditional education do not have such strong confidence. They will only become psychologically distorted and become people with personality defects, or they may pursue unconditional love all their lives, or even go to death. "
Outside the movie. , those ordinary, real victims are even more heartbreaking.
3
At the end of the film, Ma Jiye exposed all the lies surrounding him on the day of the college entrance examination.
He saw his grandma’s photo hanging on the wall, and her name was “Teacher Li”; he saw the neighbors he was familiar with, all teachers of various subjects; he saw cameras all over his life, and he was being monitored from all directions Then, his micro-expressions were magnified and analyzed frame by frame...
He collapsed, was disillusioned, and stayed where he was at a loss.
Ma Chenggang and his wife came over, and he asked them blankly: Which teacher are you? I don’t see you two on the wall.
Finally, Ma Jiye woke up and walked out firmly.
Chunlan asked him hurriedly: Where are you going?
Ma Jiye didn’t look back and said: Go to a real place.
And Ma Chenggang was still arguing: White lies are never deception, but love, the greatest love!
Until this moment, Ma Chenggang didn't have any reflection or guilt in his heart. He was so confident. Because he didn't treat Ma Jiye as an independent person at all.
He never asked Ma Jiye what his dream was. He only stubbornly imposed his unfinished dream - admitted to Qingbei University - on Ma Jiye.
Under the long-term influence, Ma Jiye also subconsciously regarded being admitted to Qingbei as his goal.
One day when he was a child, he discovered that he was particularly interested in running. He was discovered by a coach and wanted to send him to a sports school to develop into a professional athlete.
Ma Jiye was very excited, but Ma Chenggang was extremely anxious. His son was going to take the Qingbei exam, so wasn't he going to a sports school as a wrong track?
He pretended to agree, secretly applied anesthetic ointment to Ma Jiye's feet in the middle of the night, and cooperated with the fake doctor, making Ma Jiye mistakenly think that he could no longer walk, and voluntarily gave up going to sports school.
After coming out of the clinic, Ma Jiye was sitting in a wheelchair. Suddenly he felt that his feet could move. He was about to stand up and walk on his own. Ma Chenggang held him down and said lovingly:
Dad pushes you, you can walk further.
Take a closer look, this seemingly tender sentence is really chilling.
Children come into the world through their parents, but they are not appendages of their parents. They should use their own hands and feet to explore the world instead of parasitizing on their parents their entire lives.
Only when parents know how to let go can children fly higher and further.
4
Children are waiting for their parents’ apology, and parents are waiting for their children’s thanks.
Faced with his father's stubbornness, Ma Jiye was filled with disappointment, and he continued to walk towards the real world outside the door. Ma Chenggang chased after him and yelled: Do you think we are the only ones who control your life? You also control our lives!
This sentence made me think for a long time.
It is undeniable that Ma Chenggang loved Ma Jiye. For the sake of his son's education, he had to give up the enjoyment of life. He did not dare to show his wealth, worked hard to pretend to be poor, and spent a lot of time, money and energy to train his son.
His and Chunlan's lives were also about sacrificing for their son.
Ma Jiye chose to break through the confinement and seek the truth. Ma Chenggang thought that he was ungrateful, that he did not know the blessings in the midst of blessings, and that he had failed to live up to his efforts for so many years, and felt aggrieved.
Not only did he not treat his son as an independent person, he also did not treat himself as an independent person. A kind of "pathological symbiotic relationship" has been formed between him and his son, and he has lost his sense of boundaries.
I often hear some parents say: I have lived for my children all my life and have never enjoyed a single day of happiness.
When children hear such words, most of them will not feel happy, but will feel heavy and stressed.
During Mother’s Day this year, blogger “Jiang Wenyu” posted a video that resonated with countless people. The blogger
compared a mother and her daughter to two trees. The mother provides nutrients for her daughter by sacrificing herself. But her efforts made her daughter feel distressed and suffocated.
After the mother raised her daughter, she hoped that her daughter would give everything she had to support the next generation of saplings, just like she did.
The daughter’s words made the mother fall into deep thought: Didn’t you say that this is very painful? Why do you ask me to do the same?
At the end of the short film, the mother left, and the daughter asked her where she was going. The mother turned around, smiled brightly, and said: I want to live the life of Zhou Haifen, and my branches will bloom with lush flowers.
Excessive sacrifice and blind dedication are not the obligations of parents, nor are they what their children want to see.
A healthy parent-child relationship should be one in which each has its own life, does not owe each other, and supports each other.
Only when parents are optimistic, positive, happy, and love themselves well can they raise children who are independent, relaxed, and full of happiness.
