On April 26th, the much-anticipated Oscars were unveiled, and Chinese director Zhao Ting, who had already won many international awards with “Land of the Uninvited”, lived up to the expectations of the public by winning the prestigious “Best Director” award, becoming the first non-white woman ever to win this award; she was also the second Chinese director to top the Oscars after Ang Lee. She is also the second Chinese-American director to win the Oscar after Ang Lee.
Zhao Ting’s award is a mixture of love and hate for the country and community behind her, which has long been waiting for the Oscar – love because the West, represented by the U.S. Empire, has finally put aside its cultural arrogance and prejudice; hate because they have given the award to a woman who does not like to talk about positive energy. is a person who does not like to talk about positive energy.
As we all know, the Chinese people have two famous complexes – can also be said to be tangled, that is, Nobel complex and Oscar complex. As the two top laurels in the scientific and literary worlds, they have always been the highest honor coveted by scientists and literary artists. It is this authority that also makes these two awards with a strong national honor color. Do not say get, even if the nomination is shortlisted, can be a great long ambition. In the Olympic gold medal is not rare, Nobel and Oscar for many people, up and down the country have a strong thirst. But unfortunately, the two awards had no connection with the Chinese for a long time – occasionally, the winners have also become “Chinese”, not their own people.
So for a long time, the national people have a love-hate mentality to face the Nobel and Oscar after their pockets have been bulging with self-esteem. Can not get, is the West completely according to their own standards, with colored glasses to see the achievements, bias; get, but not to the people we recognize, which is another ulterior motive of insulting China. It is possible that only Lei Feng such a moral model to take the prize, in order to make people satisfied.
The only less controversial to win the Nobel, Tu Youyou, or a member of the two academies can not even be assessed, and has not previously taken the weighty honor of the scientists in the field.
Back to Zhao Ting, where is her controversy? Zhao Ting is actually a rather inspiring example, although we know she has a very famous stepmother, Song Dandan. But as you can see from her life trajectory, although family factors have helped her, her later efforts and talent are evident. There are countless richer Chinese kids in the U.S. than her, but none that have been able to reach her level of achievement.
As a niche film about RV culture, vagabond culture and nomadic culture, the artistic significance of “Land of the Uninhabited” will not be evaluated here, and interested readers can review the film on their own. However, as someone who grew up in China until her teenage years, it is not easy for Zhao Ting to understand a completely unconnected foreign culture so deeply and express it in an authentic way. It is as difficult as a foreigner making “Furong Town” in China. So Zhao Ting’s win is well deserved, as the previous Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the 78th Golden Globe Awards, including this Oscar run, all show. The last time a female director won an Oscar was in 2010.
So how did Zhao Ting go from being the pride of China in the limelight to being the “insulting Chinese” that some people are gnashing their teeth at in the midst of a sharp turnaround in public opinion?
As we all know, people who have spent a long time in the West often lack positive energy irrigation, so it is inevitable that they will take a big step backward in their values, making it difficult for some people to accept. After Zhao Ting won the Golden Globe Award and showed signs of winning the Olympic Games, a large number of official media reported that “Zhao Ting made Golden Globe history!” “Inspiring!” A number of popular stars also congratulated her on Weibo. But questions soon arose about Zhao Ting’s alleged insult to China – in a 2013 interview with Filmmaker magazine, she said that her youthful China was “a place full of lies”. And Zhao Ting said in an interview with Australian media in 2020 that she was an American and that “today, my country is America.” ……
That’s more like it. You and your country should not be divided for a moment, you criticize a few sentences even, but also forget the ancestors, sister-in-law can tolerate uncle can not tolerate well. Immediately afterwards, some netizens on Douban called for a boycott of Zhao Ting’s movie. The “Land of the Unwanted”, originally scheduled for domestic release on April 23, is suspected to have been withdrawn, and some movie and cinema-related APPs have taken away the release date of the film. Even the next comic book hero movie she directed, “The Eternals”, is in doubt if it will be released as scheduled.
Are Zhao Ting’s few words really that incriminating? In today’s view, maybe. But magnified a hundred times, they are just a few words of truth that many people have said, and can be classified as “whining” at best, not even criticism.
For the people of China, who have witnessed cultural, economic and even military conflicts in an increasingly cramped international space, the growing national pride has partially turned into a shaky, untouchable glass heart. Not to mention the truth, even the most well-intentioned criticism may have been unacceptable, and a thousand responses are hysterical “boycotts”. The old ancestors said, “Hear the fault is happy”, “there is to change the no is to add encouragement”, but now only “hear the fault will be angry”, “there is no no is to scold the ” ……
On the one hand, I hope that the West according to its value criteria in the evaluation of the award to take care of themselves, so that the face of the light, to prove that we are really great; on the other hand, and can not understand and recognize these criteria, resulting in repeatedly very different results, only the usual anger and regret. But Nobel and Oscar, never for positive energy. The clash of cognitive systems is somehow the gulf of civilization.
In her acceptance speech, Zhao Ting quoted the famous three-word sutra – “The beginning of man is good by nature.” “This is for those who have faith, and have the courage to remain good. No matter how hard it is, hold on to goodness in each other. This award is for you, the ones who inspire me to keep going.”
This passage, in a distant homeland, may have only five flavors.
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