Today I want to tell you a historical story. Especially typical, typical to everyone to see it at a glance.
In 1985, the famous American political cartoonist and journalist Renan Laurie received an invitation from Taiwan. Hopefully, he created a cartoon character that represents "Chinese new image."
To put it bluntly, it was the Taiwan region at that time that wanted to engage in image projects and establish a good image representative of the "Republic of China" itself, in an attempt to compete with Chinese mainland in cultural propaganda and compete for attention.
Laurie is an Israeli-American. Flexible, very skillful, good at investing in speculation, in the press and comic book industry mixed well.
Laurie announced that the purpose of the trip was "mainly to find inspiration for cartoon styling that will shape Chinese new image."
Before Leaving Taipei, Laurie released his initial idea that he would return to the United States to complete the creation of "Cousin Lin" (later changed to Cousin Li), and officially announce this cartoon character representing the image of the "Republic of China" before the Double Tenth Festival.
Double Tenth Day was the anniversary of the Wuchang Uprising, and on September 28, 1912, the Provisional Government in Beijing passed a Provisional Senate Resolution designating October 10 as the National Day of the Republic of China.
At the beginning of Laurie's search for inspiration, the media at the time and Laurie himself repeatedly emphasized that "Taiwan's Chinese have the characteristics of optimism and enterprising, wisdom and courage, and these qualities are more than enough to represent the Chinese scattered all over the world." All in all, very nicely said and very much looking forward to.
Isn't the whole speech of this political journalist and painter also very similar to the rhetoric of some of our fashion models or film directors today, facing the public's questioning?
Eventually this cousin released that the body movements were "kung fu" poses.
At the unveiling ceremony, a bunch of questions came up: not handsome enough, not cute enough, not representative of Chinese, kung fu style is not modern enough...
In the face of surging skepticism, Laurie had to spend three hours at the cocktail party answering questions about "Cousin Lee," saying he didn't expect everyone to like "Cousin Lee" and that it was normal to have objections.
Logically speaking, the leaders of the Taiwan region attach great importance to such an important face project and propositional work, and when Laurie came, Chiang Ching-kuo received him. But by the time it was announced, Chiang Ching-kuo was absent. It was not released before the Double Tenth Festival celebration as originally planned, and the specifications were also reduced.
So what is the final character?
The answer is revealed.
At a glance, no matter the movement or the body hairstyle, it looks like Bruce Lee.
How about a closer look at the slanted eyes? Have you found that there is nothing new under the sun, or the same recipe, the same taste, the same eyebrows?
When Laurie was asked if he had referenced Bruce Lee's image, he was noncommittal.
(Bruce Lee life photo)
Xu Jun'an, director of plastic surgery at Taipei Municipal Ren'ai Hospital at the time, said he didn't like "Cousin Li" very much. He believes that "as far as the 'face' is concerned, we Chinese have always generally believed that 'the heavenly court is full, the jaw is square and round' is 'the main nobility', especially china's political, financial, and academic elites rarely 'fight the chin'."
Zhang Zheshou, director of the Dental Department of Veterans General Hospital, believes that Cousin Lee's chin belongs to the jawbone parastasis, mostly congenital genetic, the proportion of Europeans and Americans with this disease is much higher than Chinese, Lincoln, Reagan, Eisenhower and other presidents have a prominent chin, so in addition to japanese, Koreans, "Lee Cousin" chin makes him look like an American, cartoonist Zhu Deyong said: "Some people say that the painter's pen is a bit like himself, I see Cousin Lee's chin is a bit like Laurie's chin."
In short, it's a four-pronged one.
After the birth of Cousin Li, it can be described as crazy publicity, but unfortunately, the boom soon began to cool down rapidly. The porcelain statues of the peripheral products were not sold at all, and the first batch of finished products totaled 12,000, and only about 200 were sold a month later. The people in Taiwan do not buy it.
After all, Bruce Lee expressed it directly in the past. He was dissatisfied with this kind of slanted eye modeling that discriminated against the Chinese.
Bruce Lee said: "The Chinese in American dramas are all long braids, jumping like monkeys and being chased by the Americans, and the eyes are squinting, which I think is very outdated."
Bruce Lee, who really swept the world, looked like this.
The dazzling kung fu superstar Bruce Lee is charming. It is the object of worship of countless young people, a true inspirational role model.
In the end, the ugly "Cousin Lee" was completely forgotten. The so-called new image that the Taiwan region racked its brains and painstakingly sought out foreigners to paint, relied on foreigners to respect itself, and forcibly propagated it was swept into the garbage can of history.
The story originated from the first issue of Open Times magazine in 2016, and the author Hai Qing wrote an academic article titled "The Transplantation of National Image Personification and Cultural Dilemmas: A Case Study of Laurie's "Cousin Lee" comic." Interested readers and friends, you can go to see a more complete and detailed study.
Today's Weibo, the quarrel is becoming more and more intense. Because of the eyebrows of the characters in an animated film.
Then, the advertising model of the three squirrels jumped out on their own to stir up the muddy waters, taking many people astray. Bring the rhythm to the small eyes that do not accept single eyelids.
In the world-famous fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes", the ministers and servants of the people all said that the emperor was dressed, and the crowd praised him for being beautiful, and only one child said that the emperor was not wearing clothes. Maybe a bunch of idiots on the Internet really think this story is about the problem of "pretty or not pretty" new clothes.
"Deliberately pulling out the slanted eye" and "small eyes" are not the same thing at all.
We are not against small eyes and single eyelids, but against deliberately ugly and deliberate discrimination - deliberately poking at the corner of the eye to draw that action gesture, deliberately putting fashion models into this kind of oblique hanging eye.
There are many people in our lives who are single-eyelid small eyes, good-looking and not so good-looking, but it is almost impossible to have European and American insults to yellow people.
To paraphrase Lin Daiyu: "Is it only our own country, or do other countries have it?" ”
The domestic protagonists of the Film and Television Anime works in Europe, America or Japan that you have seen, do you have the "squinting eyes" of the current controversy?
If every country has it, it doesn't matter, we can desensitize. If it is specially deducted to the Chinese, it will not be blamed on the Chinese people.
To put it bluntly, as long as Captain America is also squinting and raising his eyebrows, this matter will turn the page, and history will be reconciled. It's a double culture game.
Lin Daiyu also has a famous saying: "The tiger and the wolf are in the ranks, and they still talk about cause and effect." Want to talk about cause and effect, talk about aesthetics, talk about art? Okay, wolf's tooth stick to me, in exchange for you exposing the Celestial Spirit Cover, we have a good talk.
The blood-soaked Nanjing Massacre, the fascist atrocities that have long been decided by the Far East Court and the Nanjing Ministry of National Defense Military Tribunal, the extreme of human evil, and the history of Chinese and foreign media reporting are still there - it was lightly described by a teacher at a certain school as an academic debate about numbers.
One hundred and fifty years of humiliation history, pig braids, yellow peril faces, East Asian sick men, the poll tax, the Chinese exclusion act, the Pacific Railway Chinese workers Bai Bone Sensen, the Chinese and dogs in Shanghai Park are not allowed to enter, the barbaric beastly behaviors that represent the european and American literary heroes who represented the conscience of mankind at that time angrily attacked, and those naked robberies and barbaric Chinese races, specific customary cultural symbols, accumulated years of brainwashing - poking at the eyebrows and deliberately hanging, you Chinese too sensitive, why don't you accept aesthetic diversity?
Those who whitewash specific acts are really turning the cruelty of the butcher into a fashionable chuckle, and smearing grease on bloody violence.
External anti-discrimination and internal criticism are originally two sides of the same coin. Chinese mistakes can't be criticized? There is no such thing.
Specific to the lion boy movie, it has a lot of official praise and praise support, and it also has strong capital support, and it is said to have to make six more. This is obviously not a bad creative environment, the film side has money and power, but at a certain point it is unpopular, repeatedly causing controversy and stimulating the people.
In particular, at first the audience just wondered why the characters were so stylized.
At that time, there was nothing on the line, but what did the producer of the film say?
"Beijing News" "deep reading" report: For this controversy, Zhang Miao never shy away, he said that the realist style is a yardstick for the story, picture, and character image in the movie, and he will never regret making this choice: "In the image design aesthetic, our requirement is to go to the Internet celebrity and remove the filter aesthetic. When the creator paints, there are many times in Guangdong and other places, the simplest way, everyone take out the mirror or mobile phone, turn off the filter of the lens, take a good look, think about the appearance of the people around you. We don't mean to belittle anyone, but we can think about the friends around us, and think about what they should look like if they are cats and dogs. ”
Gentlemen, take out the mirror and look at it, are you and myself and around you looking like this? Who defines this aesthetic confidence? The producer or director of an animated film wants to define thousands of people?
But anyone who puts down the face of the teacher, lets go of the arrogance and subconscious of the indoctrinator, communicates with the people on an equal footing, and really uses the proportion of the face of ordinary people in the shape, will not drive away a large number of potential audiences.
"Deliberately slanted squinting eyes" is a sign of racial discrimination. Those who are ignorant of history have forgotten the blood and tears and are self-deprecating.
There is also a situation that many Chinese art creators, their aesthetic thinking has long been messed up by the Western hegemony PUA, they do not know it.
In order to cater to the international fashion circle, these artists make a large number of such models and paintings, win awards and gild them, and then come back to earn money. Shoot the cover, go to the magazine, play the big name.
It can really be described as a white bone like a mountain of forgotten surnames, nothing more than fashion and movies.
In recent years, one after another international luxury brand advertisements have been turned over, which is a clear example. For example, this advertisement of Mercedes-Benz, please evaluate it in a civilized manner? Is it the old problem that has not changed?
Even after the years of PUA, these brands think that Chinese completely ignorant, fully accept the so-called oriental aesthetic, and must hold the banknote to warmly welcome.
However, the autumn wind has changed the human world today. Say goodbye to "deliberately slanted squinting eyes" to have aesthetic confidence.
An equal perspective is the basis for the exchange and dissemination of all civilizations. When you say Don't judge me, then the counterpart is Don't judge "Don't judge me". This is the real point of praise if criticism is not free.
About Shen Jiake: Writer, scholar, member of The China Education Society, member of the China Miniature Novel Society, member of the Plenary Committee of the Hubei Writers Association, member of the Hubei Youth Federation, member of the Hubei Law Society, and has published nearly 70 personal monographs and edited books. His representative works such as "Life Ferryman" (People's Daily Publishing House), "Shen Jiake Selected Collection (3 volumes) " (Oriental Publishing House) " May You Live Calmly " ( Tsinghua University Press) " The Most Beautiful Ancient Poems: Life is an Elegant Collection " ( Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House) and other literary and cultural works such as novels, essays, novel collections, etc., have sold millions of copies and won the Literary Contribution Award.
Shen Jiake's recent works