The World April 3, 2007
Posted by Colin in HIST471.trackback
So, the movie we are watching in class right now seems to be pulling off a lot of what we were just going over in Streetlife China and Blind Shaft. There is the same subaltern theme, it’s just a new, disaffected one that we’ve never read about, per se. There were hints with movies like China in the Red with Nie Zheng, the Beijing photographer who wouldn’t get a job or money but still manages to live in his parents’ basement, but The World seems to focus on the younger subalterns directly.
I really think that the theme park itself says something about the world these kids live in. The fact that “you can see the world without ever leaving Beijing” is an idea that sells because, ironically, most Chinese people will be lucky to even see the park, much less the actual real world. The parody destroys the reality, and things like the real Eiffel Tower or London Bridge seem nonexistent or at best far away vague concepts they will never see anyway. The best case is when one of the characters remarks that the model of Manhattan still has the twin towers, which were bombed on 9/11. The other guy just turns to him and says in their model they still have them, ending the discussion.
I like the music and the one cartoon so far in this movie, if for no other reason than it really reinforces the illusory theme of this generation.
Good points here. Parody destroys the reality — v. interesting. Q: how broadly are you (and M. Dutton) defining ‘subaltern’?
I think this movie opened up my concept of the subaltern. I saw the subaltern mainly in economic terms while I was reading Dutton, whether or not that was his intention. Dutton sticks to different groups performing different capitalist roles in society and their cultural values that are transformed in the process. The World hints at that market structure which is so prevalent, but I’m predominantly left with the feeling that these characters are numb to their surroundings.
I agree that “The World” also altered my views on the subaltern. These kids seem so modern with their cell phones and just the fact that they have jobs unlike all those people we saw in “China in the Red” and even in “Blind Shaft.” But the employers, particularly the woman seemed trapped still in China. Even the Russian Anna has her passport taken away. They are bound to the Chinese soil, they are bound to jobs which do not fulfill them, and they seem to have no escape. Where is there voice? Who will give them the chance to see the world outside of China?
I get the impression that World Park brings the world to China moreso to have an excuse no to allow people to leave China.