author | Yongzhou
editor | Wu Qing
" Catch the Baby " is not a comedy, then it must be a thriller.
It makes people laugh from the beginning to the end, but in the last ten minutes the hairs stand on end. The smile that left almost no gaps before was more like a massage technique to make you feel the pain later.
"The core of comedy is tragedy" refers to the sharp contrast formed by taking apart the couch of comedy and seeing the sharp and vulgar things in human nature. The greater the contrast, the greater the impact on the audience.
In this sense, "Catch a Baby" cannot be said to be a comedy with tragedy as its core. A more appropriate statement is: it is a comedy that ultimately leads to tragedy. The people in the play and what they do can be given a simple purpose that is extremely warm and positive.
However, good intentions lead to bad ends, just like the rhetoric of "I am for your own good". In terms of education discussed in this film, this is also a metaphor and irony of reality.
The rich man Ma Chenggang, played by Shen Teng, decided to raise his younger son Ma Jiye, who was born to his second wife, because his eldest son was "wasted". When Jiye was still a baby, the couple discovered that raising him richly was not effective, and immediately decided to "raise him poor". In a courtyard house in the 1980s and 1990s, a "sieged city" was built to return to poverty, and a whole team was invited to play the role of poor NPCs in the son's life, secretly serving the child's growth.
A family pretended to be poor and moved into the besieged city, hoping to temper their children by "remembering the bitter and thinking of the sweet". This training lasted for more than ten years. The
movie constructs a "Truman Show" in a sitcom-like structure. Young Ma Jiye has been like a digital product since he was a child, being closely monitored and analyzed. The environment and people around him are constantly adjusted to adapt to and guide his own growth and changes.
Truman finally discovered the fact that he was being controlled and monitored. While feeling unbelievable, he also felt unprecedented fear and anger in his life.
The same is true for Ma Jiye. At the end of the film, when he finally broke into the "secret room" at home and discovered that his parents had manipulated, monitored and deceived him for more than ten years, this educational experiment ended in tragedy.
We can say that this is an educational film that "edutains and entertains", and the protagonist, who seems to be a child who is being educated, is actually his parents who are educators outside the "fourth wall".
In fact, the real protagonists of most educational films are parents, and in the end only adults can be educated.
The rare thing about "Catch a Baby" is that it reflects on the self-motivating educational themes that are common in domestic narratives, and at the same time gives a warning to all educators: whether it is a greenhouse or a jungle, different environments may be different. Different children can be raised. But we often tend to overlook that there are two most basic elements for a person's growth, which are as indispensable as sunshine and water: truth and trust.
Siege education has been based on fiction and lies from the beginning. Whether it is a real siege like in the film, or a siege with concepts imposed by various adults, the chain of trust will eventually break at the smallest point.
01
Experimental subjects
Children are the guinea pigs of their parents’ education.
In fact, there are many parents in the world who think this way, but most people will not admit it. Ma Chenggang in the movie is more straightforward and exaggerated in treating children as experimental subjects for a certain idea. The
experiment requires control variables and observation of dependent variables. As a carefully designed product, the "top-notch configuration" that Ma Jiye had since birth was tampered with, and the big villa turned into a dilapidated old house. There was no chef or nanny, and he had to spend carefully to buy groceries and help the family. The young master who was supposed to be pampered and pampered was artificially placed in a petri dish of suffering education.
The staff who monitored and analyzed this "experiment" were specially hired by Ma Chenggang.They appear in Ma Jiye's life in the form of role-playing, but in fact, among these people are educationists, teachers proficient in physics and mathematics, and bodyguards who do daily chores and follow him.
Therefore, every element that "naturally" appears in young Ma Jiye's life may be carefully designed, and everyone in his life may be an NPC in this experiment.
The foreigner he encountered on the way to school who asked for directions was specially arranged by Mr. Li (played by Sarina ), an English teacher named "Grandma". Even the conversation asking for directions was conducted strictly in accordance with the text. The "good book" he "happened" to hear in the bookstore was called "How Steel Was Tempered", and it was also deliberately implanted to hone his will.
There is a huge one-way glass between the world Ma Jiye sees and the real world.
The home he saw since he was a child was poor, frugal and struggling. My father wouldn’t change the soles of a pair of shoes even after wearing them off. All his savings were handed over to him, which only amounted to more than a thousand yuan.
And his real home is the 24-hour security surveillance outside the house. There is a professional operation and maintenance team occupying an entire floor underground of the house. The home-cooked meals at home are actually disguised by the chef using expensive ingredients. Ma Jiye runs to school every day, followed by security guards in disguise.
Just listening to the description, such a childhood is suffocating, but the movie is shot with a comedy narrative grammar, allowing the audience to laugh passively while temporarily ignoring the nature of control and surveillance, just like many parents in the name of protection and love. Control of packaging.
This is also the difference between Ma Jiye and Truman. The besieged city in which the former is located is composed of the starting points of love and education. The ultimate goal of all monitors and controllers is for him to "grow up and become a successful person."
The problem lies in adults' definition and understanding of "becoming a talent".
When Ma Jiye was a child, his parents and "grandma" would also pay attention to some character and moral education. For example, when faced with the temptation of cash in the cash register at a convenience store and everyone was worried about whether he would go astray, Ma Jiye took back his hand; another example is that in order to help his family save money, Ma Jiye took his mother and grandma to take advantage of Haidilao's free Snacks while waiting. After returning home, I received my grandma's sincere teachings about "you can't be friends with people you can't trust".
The irony is that adults who are always concerned about the moral development of children complete their own education plans by constructing a long scam that lasts for more than ten years.
As Ma Jiye grew up, a common problem of traditional Chinese parents gradually became apparent: the adults' only expectation and requirement for Ma Jiye's success was that he should be admitted to a prestigious school. "Qingbei University" has become the only task for adolescents to grow up. All the details Ma Jiye experiences every day and everyone he meets are like repeaters, ubiquitous and moisturizing, silently reminding him: You want to go to " Qingbei".
This curse-like symbol was artificially implanted in his mind, which became the only life mission of the adolescent Ma Jiye. Even if the grandma with whom she had deep feelings passed away, she would take the opportunity to give her a lesson.
Rich parents’ obsession with their children going to prestigious schools is similar to that of ordinary families: their unfulfilled wishes when they were young are imposed on the next generation and transformed into sustenance in the name of love. On the surface, Ma Chenggang hopes that his son will succeed. On the surface, he hopes that Ma Jiye can get ahead, but the actual purpose is centered around his own selfishness as a parent. For example, because the eldest son failed to live up to expectations, he needed the second eldest child to inherit the family business, but he did not care about the children's own hobbies, and even tried to stifle Xiao Ma Jiye's love for track and field.
They firmly believe that famous schools can change their destiny, just like they believe that hardship can temper their will. Requiring my son to go to Qingbei instead of a sports school is also due to the pride and prejudice in my brain. I subconsciously believe that outstanding children should study business administration in top prestigious schools. If a child becomes a sports athlete, it seems to give him family fortune and status. Shame on you.
Rich people like Ma Chenggang and his wife, who have no worries about food and clothing, also suffer from many of the most common misunderstandings and shortcomings of Chinese parents.Even if they don't mean to do so, they use themselves as the center and starting point to control their children's lives through cooking, almost completely ignoring their children's personal will and hobbies. Can the experiments incubated by
in such a closed experimental base really achieve the desired educational results?
The results proved that this experiment failed, a complete failure.
02
"Which two teachers are you?"
When a child grows up in "falseness", how will he feel "real"?
When Ma Jiye was in high school, he began to doubt the authenticity of the world. In his youth, he was building and feeling his "self" while trying to establish the relationship between himself and the world around him. However, he found that everything in his life was filled with a strong sense of unreality.
Ma Jiye began to think about philosophy and questioned his teacher's theory that "matter determines consciousness". He even imagined that there was an invisible force or a higher-order creature controlling his life. His reverie was regarded as insane, and everyone around him, including his closest parents, resolutely denied his suspicion.
They continued to deal with Ma Jiye: You are just under too much pressure to study.
At this time, what Ma Jiye felt from his parents was no longer love. Children at that stage may have a greater need for respect and equal dialogue than for care and attention. But Ma Jiye's confusion and confusion were not taken seriously or responded to. The adults still treated him like a child.
After Ma Jiye's doubts about the world around him accumulated to a certain extent, he finally could no longer tolerate being at a loss. Relying on clues and reasoning, as well as the rules of life taught and taught by his father since childhood, he finally broke into the "dark room" at home and found the truth.
What was spread out in front of Ma Jiye was the 24-hour surveillance footage of his home. From his birth to childhood, every step he took, every big and small thing he experienced, and even every assignment and homework from childhood to adulthood. The diaries were analyzed word for word. In this secret room, I am like a sophisticated product. Design requirements, risk prevention and control, strengths and weaknesses are all digitized in this terrible place.
At this moment, the barrier between the constructed reality and the real reality was broken. The various comedy effects previously prepared also made the audience sweat when Ma Jiye stared at the truth.
This scene is probably the most horrifying scene in the whole film. A child who thought he had lived in love since childhood found that every step he took along the way was carefully controlled. Of course there is natural love in it. The proportion and priority of cuteness have all been questioned.
Once doubts begin, the chain of trust collapses. For a teenager who has not really stepped out of the world, the blow is almost devastating.
When Ma Jiye suppressed his anger, looked at his parents and asked them, "Who are you two teachers?", the young man's inner collapse of faith was revealed in an easy way. He could not believe that he had loved and loved himself. People are all designed. At this time, it no longer matters whether love is true or not, because the premise of love is trust.
If placed in a real-life situation, it would be a blessing to the parents if this child does not have a mental breakdown.
The most inevitable thing is emotional deception. Apart from the parents themselves, the most dramatic part in the movie is the relationship between Ma Jiye and his "grandma".
The education expert played by Sarina pretends to be Ma Jiye's grandmother and has been pretending to be Ma Jiye's grandmother for more than ten years. If a play has been performed for more than ten years, the people in the play must be deeply involved in the play. In this play, the passive one is the grandson Ma Jiye, and the active one is Teacher Li, who plays the grandmother. When
was asked to "pass away", while she was lying in the mourning hall and preparing to be sent for cremation, "grandma" was suddenly touched by her grandson's grief, and she couldn't help but think of the true love between her and Ma Jiye for more than ten years, and burst into tears. Embankment, almost "fraudulent corpse".
People's relationships, wealth, and circumstances can all be forged, but only feelings cannot be forged. Ma Chenggang and his wife cannot feel this kind of harm.Because in the past ten years, they have been able to treat their son as a son as usual and release their father's and mother's love. They don't need to pretend to be emotional, and they don't feel the tearing and pain caused by this fake and real emotional scam. The parting scene between
and his grandmother brought not only sadness to the audience, but also not only humor, but also more anger. Why should a good child, a child who values love and justice, have to experience this kind of artificial grief? As deep as the mourning for his grandma he felt at the moment, the anger and collapse he would feel when he discovered the truth in the future would be intense.
is fake, it cannot become real. The emotional harm has dug a big hole in the child's heart, which cannot be filled by academic achievements or wealth.
has seen the consequences of this tragedy, and let’s analyze the initial “cause” of this tragedy.
03
After the movie "The Besieged City of Misery"
was released, I saw a review in which the audience shared their own experiences. The audience member claimed that, like Ma Jiye, he thought his family was poor when he was a child, and he was used to frugality, hardship and low self-esteem since childhood. It wasn't until after graduating from college that my parents finally told me that my family was actually quite wealthy. While the audience member felt thunderstruck, he also felt helpless anger and grievance welling up in his heart: "I didn't have to suffer a lot of pain."
Even today, "hardship education" still has room for survival. One of the most common psychology among parents is that they are afraid that their children will be too comfortable when they are young and will not be able to bear the hardships when they grow up.
Ma Chenggang in "Catch a Baby" also has this thought. As a self-made "rich", Ma Chenggang was a child who experienced poverty and hardship when he was a child. He naturally attributes his today's achievements to the hard work and perseverance of his childhood. And if his son does not grow up in the same environment as himself, will he become pampered and lose his fighting spirit?
His own experience not only formed Ma Chenggang's proud outlook on life of struggle, but also directly contributed to his outlook on education and the source of worries about his son.
At the end of the film, after Ma Jiye discovered the truth, Ma Chenggang cried and tried to regain his son's trust, but he still shouted at his son in an angry and strong tone: "You must go through hardships to become a real man!"
is talking to his son. During the training, Ma Chenggang has always instilled the "steelmaking" thinking that he firmly believes in. He hung the words "Young men don't work hard, old men will be sad" written by Ma Jiye while practicing calligraphy on the wall of his home. However, his son could not enjoy the mansion where the words were hung.
The question has never been about whether to endure hardship, but whether it is necessary to endure hardship.
The hardships Ma Jiye endured were completely artificial. He chose the latter between buying shoes for his father and buying a beloved tablet. This is the natural nature of a child. But the parents have to kidnap him emotionally and make the child fall into self-blame and depression. Later, out of shame, Ma Jiye went to pick up bottles to support his family. He was laughed at, humiliated, and even beaten by his classmates.
Is it really necessary to experience such low self-esteem and helplessness in childhood to "make steel"?
Zhang Ailing said through the words of a character in "Little Reunion": "I don't think poverty is normal. My family is so poor that even eating a piece of fruit becomes a moral issue." This sentence perfectly shows the impact of poverty on a child's growth. Impact. It is often said that "poor children become masters early", which may sound like praise at first glance, but the so-called "mastership" is just forced early maturity at the labor level. At the age of mental development, education for self-esteem and freedom, education for love and beauty all give way to sensitivity and tension about material things. Such education cannot make a complete person.
In the view of parents like Ma Chenggang, the necessity of enduring hardship is to temper the mind and be ready to deal with crises that may come in life.
But what's the risk?
The belief of a generation of "remembering hardships and thinking of sweetness" and "being prepared for danger in times of peace" may have specific factors of the times.Our parents and ancestors grew up in periods of social turmoil or change. Their lives were full of hardship and the possibility of falling, but they were also full of countless opportunities that could change their destiny through hard work.
Products of a special era are reproduced one-to-one in the next generation of children, which will inevitably lead to rejection.
Today's young people may encounter a deeper crisis on another level, including a spiritual crisis and, of course, a crisis of trust unique to modern society. And then using the method of half-coaxing and half-deceiving children to walk on a thorny road that they don't need to walk will only cause this kind of trust crisis to appear early on the road of growth.
Whether it is the competition for studying and taking exams, the hidden class solidification, or the employment pressure and other risks that are objectively faced at the individual level, in order to cope with these more modern crises, those qualities that can nourish people's hearts and spiritual strength should instead be in emphasized in education. For example, the basic ability to love and be loved, the courage to be honest with oneself and dare to face the truth.
In the hard education, all these things are erased. The laws of education based on material will only collapse even more sparingly when one day in the future we leave the measuring stick of material.
For our parents who have experienced material difficulties, even if they change their destiny through their own efforts, that generation may still often go back to the past when they are comfortable today, and feel that everything they have now is not real enough. The shadow left by
on children is also a part of the tragedy.
The experience of picking up bottles as a child left Ma Jiye with a strange inertia. Whenever he saw waste bottles, he couldn't help but want to collect them. At the end of the film, when Ma Jiye, who finally left the control of his parents, was participating in a long-distance running race, he suddenly veered off course and turned towards the waste bottles on the roadside.
Although this scene uses a slightly dramatic comedic treatment, it still expresses a terrible metaphor: Ma Jiye’s long childhood left eternal traces on him, and no matter how hard he tries to escape from his parents’ arrangements, he “walks his own path” "Road", the past that has been imposed on oneself can never be denied or erased.
At the end of the film, the parents at home were watching the live broadcast of long-distance running on the TV with a frown, and they were talking about "getting a new account". If it weren't for Shen Teng and Ma Li's proficient handling skills, this would really have brought the film to a close as a thriller comedy.
-end-
editor-in-chief on duty | Zhao Jinghan
typesetting | Qiqi
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