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#2 kinds of parenting
welcometogrouchland · 13 days
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[ID in ALT] I've made posts before about Talia/Dick co-parenting Damian moments (will never happen but let me dream) and this came to me in a vision. Took me ages to finish for some reason 😭 and then even longer to post
#dc comics#dc#damian wayne#dick grayson#talia al ghul#batfamily#dc robin#nightwing#anyway. yes im a self-indulgent ''dick as damians secret third parent'' truther#like i DO think it's way more complex and nuanced than the schmoopy affectionate fan portrayal of it#they're brothers they're father and son they're partners they're the dynamic duo except only in past tense etc etc#but consider! I'm not immune to schmoopy affection in fanworks. it compells me despite itself#anyway it's technically not that crazy when it comes to dick and damian. they hug! often! at least they did#it's not as big a leap to these types of scenarios#also talia ''somewhat absent for complex reasons on both her and damians part but very loving and loved by her son'' al ghul#you will always be famous to me#son of the demon origin...bwahhh#anyway. someone made a comic kind of like this/like a post i made abt this topic#but way funnier bc dick and talia starting trying to beat each other up#so go look at that as well#anyway. it's been a somewhat difficult few weeks so I'm. desperately trying to take it easy#i got some reading with me (first vol of kevin smiths GA run that i found second hand and jaimes BB run vol 2!)#so we'll see how far i get through those. considering there's demons in my head telling me to re-read things (LET ME OUT!!!)#when i finish GA and BB i do plan on rereading robin 2021. as a treat to myself#it's a run I've really warmed up to as time went on#I'm keeping up w/ the current b&r run even though it is. admittedly very slow w/ some weird dialogue#i read it for the damian content more than anything. also nikas back so that's neat :]#idk I have a feeling that after absolute power shakes out we might get some more creative team switch ups#so if anyone at dc is interested in taking over the reigns on b&r...that could be very neat#(it's me they should hire me. please DC i have ideas listen to my red hood pitch PLEASE-)
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taxinealkaloids · 1 year
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horrible children who are. so so mean to each other
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m4rs-ex3 · 3 months
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ok but CALLUM WAS THE FIRST SON HARROW EVER HAD OK
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l-e-i-k-o · 17 days
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𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕤.
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tapakah0 · 3 months
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starry-bi-sky · 1 month
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I'm having incoherent thoughts about clone danny again from the clone/clone^2 au (when am I not?) but more specifically I'm thinking about his reaction to finding out he's a clone. The standalone clone au digs into that a little more than clone^2, which is more focused on Danny and Damian's relationship. But neither (so far) really get into Danny's issues about finding out he's a clone after 15 years of thinking he wasn't.
Because he resents his parents for not telling him for so long. He resents the way he found out; through a trivial school project rather than a sit-down talk. He resents the fact that, apparently, they had meant to tell him sooner. But forgot. He resents the fact that they never told him because finding out feels like something was stolen from him when it had the chance to not be.
Danny Fenton, just fifteen, cloned not even half a year ago, knows what that personal violation of autonomy feels like. He knows what it's like to be cloned and while he loves Ellie, he does, she's his sister, and in this au his twin. But he is still left with that feeling of unsafety after realizing he'd been cloned. Being cloned is violating. The onset realization that it's so easy to get DNA without the other party noticing, and that what was stopping someone from trying to clone him again?
Followed only after with the rest of the inexplainable mix of feelings of being cloned, the rest of that inner conflict and panic that's an ugly mocktail of emotions that range from horror to fear. Trying to imagine what it's like to be cloned from the cloned party, and I imagine that it leaves you with the feeling of needing to crawl out of your own skin with discomfort.
And then he gets put on the other side of it. Danny Fenton, only fifteen, was cloned not even half a year ago, finding out he is a clone. And reactions, I imagine, can vary from person to person. But to him, it feels like something got stolen from him, like someone took a hole puncher and stuck it right into his chest and stole a chunk of himself from him.
It changes nothing about him and yet it changes everything. It's a betrayal on it's own to just find out he was a clone and they didn't tell him for fifteen years -- it shouldn't mean anything, because he's still Danny, and yet it means everything. It's him, it's him, it's about him. It's his personhood. It's about the fact that a load-bearing rock in his identity just crumbled beneath his feet and now there's a rockslide.
Because then he finds out that they used the wrong DNA. Its like pouring salt in an open wound. He's not even related to his parents or his sister, when for years he thought he was. It's the fact that pieces of his identity that he's been so secure in for so long just got ripped away from him in an instant. Then they tell him -- only through his own horrified prompting -- that the person whose DNA they used -- Bruce Wayne -- didn't even know he existed. That they accidentally used the wrong DNA, then didn't tell the person whose DNA they used.
The betrayal of being lied to for years turns really quickly into horror at his own existence. Something very similar to the horror he felt at being cloned and the skin-crawling discomfort that made him feel like his own skin wasn't really his. And then its not. It's actually not. Nothing but his own name feels like it belongs to him anymore -- not his hair, not his eyes, not his heart or his lungs, nothing feels like his anymore and he didn't know what that felt like until it was gone.
It's a question of Nature Vs. Nurture -- where does the line of "nature" begin and where does the line of "nurture" end? What of him is actually his? What of him is Bruce Wayne's? It's not logical, it's not supposed to be. It's a load-bearing wall on the house of his identity being destroyed and now everything else is caving down in on him. What belongs to Danny, what belongs to Bruce Wayne?
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arthursfuckinghat · 8 days
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"I was gonna say you're like a son to me.. but you're more than that."
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"It ain't that complicated!"
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How quickly that shoulder pat of comfort turned into a condescending one.
#he makes me feel so emo#this life was never meant for you but your fate was forced#the way dutch (and hosea) talks to arthur like he's stupid will never sit right with me#like they've been by his side over 20 years they KNOW he isn't stupid because if he was he would have been gone a long time ago#not only is arthur incredibly emotionally smart but he's a trained conman vault breaker gunslinger horse rider you name it#the fact that his own adoptive parents break him down like that hurts#it's a manipulation tactic on dutch's end - break your victims self esteem to make them chase your praise and approval#hosea I believe has just gone along with that kind of attitude but in a different way he just likes to jest lightheartedly#arthur doesn't see the difference though and it's understandable but he takes it to heart#the worst part is that hosea sees through his tough guy act and has called arthur out on it#his act is a defence mechanism to protect himself from being too vulnerable - in arthur's mind#and it isn't a sudden thing it's very likely something that has built over the years given the life he has lived#and hosea notices he knows this#but they still jab at arthur#oh it hurts#is he your son dutch? or is he your guard dog? your personal workhorse?#playing through the second time is opening my eyes more and more#rdr2#red dead redemption 2#mick squeaks#mick rants#mick gifs#arthur morgan#dutch van der linde#liveblogging#you guys gotta understand - arthur seeks and longs for dutch's approval he'll never say it but it's the key motive behind his loyalty#and arthur *rejects* dutch's comfort#he doesn't *want* dutch to pat him on the shoulder because he knows dutch is digging them an even deeper hole#he doesn't want that touch he craves#it's so insanely monumental for such a small scene because it shows us how arthur feels without telling us
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raayllum · 4 months
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anyway one thing i think TDP does very very well is how it uses visual storytelling so strongly to indicate character mindset(s) and progression
Claudia's hair is the most obvious example - we don't need to be told she did something fucked up in 3x09 to bring her father back, because as soon as we see more white hair we know, from context and worldbuilding clues, that she did. It allows a lot to be communicated but not directly told, and it carries weight accordingly
Then there's more subtle ones - the sun being behind Janai when she steps up behind the horn ruins vs Karim not having one, because she is the true and fair queen and he is not, as well as her being right in how she handles matters legally and him being wrong in how he handles matters (il)legally.
There are also examples of Rayla's S1 binding - she's literally uneven/unsymmetrical and subsequently off-kilter - as a chain she has to be freed from, and how Callum has the golden bars around his wrists in his arc 2 design that also look like he's wearing permanent quasi-chains (because of course he is)
The crown of Katolis is a literally broken circle/chain, Aaravos walking around being literally heartless, how certain spells appear and a perpetual emphasis on circles (people being surrounded, objects, etc.)
There's a lot being communicated and is one of the reasons, I think, the show is so rich because our brains take it in subconsciously if nothing else, and then we can notice it more consciously on rewatches and subsequently appreciate it, and it just adds to how many layers are on screen at any given time
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itsdefinitely · 3 months
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i wanna know more about the jerries/jeris
do you want to know the most horrific thing about them?
the lords did nothing to make them the way they are.
yes, the jerry jr was turned into the axeman because of the witchwood, which does what it does because of the lords, but everything leading up to that is just human nature. i see the "girl jeri is nibbly" or "they were influenced by a lord to do the thngs they do" and i need people to understand that that's just. not true. they're just like that. they were taught to be like that by their parents and, more accurately, their church. it's horrifyingly accurate how religion has shaped them into non-functional human beings, who would rather potentially lose their child to the many, many dangers of the literal woods than admit that they had sex outside of marriage.
it's only because it's hatchetfield that jerry jr grew the way he did. there was no lord's intervention in their decision to keep the baby, or to drop out of school to care for him, or to keep him seperated from any other people, or to revolve their lives around the idea that they'd committed a sin and needed to pay by pushing celibacy rather than. i don't know. properly raising their child. it was the way they were taught. the toxic pushing of overexaggerated christian ideals is what molded them. can you imagine being in their place? being a scared teenager and knowing that if you told any of the people you care about most your secret that they would shun you and disown you?
the only people they felt any kind of safe around were each other; of course they're going to be codependent. and even then, they're disgusted by each other for leading them to sin. they're stuck together unwillingly, because without the other, they're alone.
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greenerteacups · 2 months
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Hi GT, I hope you are doing well! who is your favorite Weasley?
Thank you! Absolute treat of a question. Oh, man. It's Ron, right? It was always going to be Ron.
So here's the thing: the Weasleys are a really well-characterized family in that you can kind of see a lot of character emerge through limited sketches and contextual information. Bill is Number One Boy, the best at everything, oldest child who was always confident and at peace with his indisputable place in the family; so he's a chill, cool, incredibly competent guy who naturally takes-charge. Charlie is a patented never-grew-out-of-your-middle-school-dragons-phase Weird Kid, but like, mindfully and enthusiastically so, because his parents probably still had plenty of time to support and nurture his interests; plus he's also different to Bill and excels in different ways, so they aren't too competitive (as we see). Percy is the first one to suffer from the pressure of mounting expectations, and he's very quickly followed by the twins, who do the classic "if I can't be the best I'll be the worst" late-sibling trick of acting up for attention, so he gets lost in the shuffle. (The fight between Ron and Percy in Chapter 58 is, hence, in substantially about the relationship between the two most-ignored members of the Weasley family, and that's why Ron is so much angrier at him than the rest of them. Like I've said before, Ron always thinks he's got it the worst, but he takes pride in being able to kinda "tough it out," and nothing pisses him off like other people's self-pity.) Ginny is obviously the baby of the family, a girl with everyone wrapped around her finger, and I love her, but I feel like we didn't get enough grit in her portrait— she's just really successful in everything she does, in a way that can read as flat to some people, and certainly read as flat to me my first time through the books. In fact, Ginny reminds me a lot of Bill: first daughter/first son, described often as "cool" and clever and good at basically everything, charming and generally liked by all. Which is lovely. A delight to read, just like the twins are. But my taste in characters ranges way more fucked-up and mean.
Ron is the last boy, "sixth son of a woman who wanted a daughter" (fascinating line that complicates everything we know about Molly's relationship with her kids — and BTW, how the hell does Ron know that, and how old was he when he learned it? And this also comes into play with Molly's cry of "not my daughter" to Bellatrix which like, as a moment obviously fucking rules, but also — there's a reason she says daughter, not "child," right? Do you see what I'm digging at? Anyway). Ron meets Harry and recognizes himself in how Harry defaults to thinking people don't care about him, or won't help him if he asks, because — although they come from very different circumstances, Ron's home was completely loving, just not as nurturing as he always needed it to be — Ron usually goes in assuming people don't care about him, too. So his first instinct is to go: "Alright. Well, I'll care about you, then, weird stranger. Do you want to share my horrible sandwich, and also my life, perhaps?" Goddamn! Sixth of seven in a house with never enough to go around, and he's immediately like: "fuck it, room for one more." Because he could have been Percy — and you can see it in the way that Ron is mean, sometimes, he's not careful with his words and he struggles with empathy and he's got a vengeful streak that comes out when he's pissed — but he isn't selfish enough, he loves too much and too easily, and it takes shockingly little to earn his loyalty. You just have to pay a little attention to him.
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carcasstohounds · 10 months
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ok so like i’ve seen a few posts blaming mira and ephraim for what happened to ezra and i think that is. a weird take. anyway my personally belief is that tzeebo wasn’t their only plan for ezra if they were taken because they feel like the kind of people to have a network of allies if the goddamn governer of lothal was their friend. i also imagine that they weren’t the only people taken by the empire that night or afterwards, because i feel like it’s implied that they weren’t the only people speaking out against the empire? so like, they probably had a network of people to take care of ezra if something happened but that network dissolved due to arrests, people fleeing, etc etc until there was no way for anyone to find ezra or for ezra to find anyone else and then he was on his own and it was no one’s fault but the empire.
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barbieaiden · 1 month
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putting these renders side by side hurts me so deeply you don't understand. like remember that time aiden was kind of getting better and then his brother just dies. like
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mixelation · 7 months
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I love that minato just yeets tori at the problem, no context, no warning, nothing. 😂
you think you learning hiraishin automatically gets you an s-rank and a flle onsight order? WRONG it just gets you yeeted at so many problems
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mainapnifavouritehoon · 9 months
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hi guys i-
#Hey so i wanted to talk about this really bad this has been bothering me for quite some time#i have been busy a lot these days and i dont get time at all to do anything but i can see myself wasting my time just scrolling#I have school and then coaching and then ofc i have to study on my own for which i barely take out time as im highly careless#My last 2 exams went absolute shit and that fucking scares me because i'll be having my JEE soon#Mummy has been telling me to stay away from my phone and ik she trusts me but she but she deserves a daughter that studies ig?#And now i kind of consider that as an option because this phone is very very distracting#I have been thinking about deactivating but i realized it would mean i would lose all my precious posts and interactions#So i wont be deleting this blog as i am too attached (i will be coming back istg)#I will be taking a break and ig thats what yall call a hiatus#I will be giving away my phone to my parents (trust me i have to)#Ik this will be hard for me to just leave all of a sudden so i'll slowly start vanishing if that makes sense?#This message also doesnt mean that i will be shutting down my phone rn at this moment and that this is goodbye#This is just to prepare the people that i love and who love me that i will be highly inactive and not come online for maybe months#This is not an impulsive decisions i have really thought through this#Also just to tell you again MAIN ABHI GAYAB NAHI HONE WAALI BUT THODE TIME MEIN I WILL GO ON A BREAK THIS IS JUST A PRE HIATUS MESSAGE#Also i hope you guys will still love me and remember me once i come back#Because coming months are going to be hard for me#I hope you understand and ily guys okay?#(Oh god why am i so dramatic about everything) xoxo
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m-ushroomtale · 9 months
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Replicated mother-daughter relationships and privatized Chinese American cinema
Qi Xiangu Film Arts Magazine  2022-09-15 17:00 published in Beijing
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This article is selected from "Film Art" Issue 5, 2022
Qi Xiangu
Film researcher, Master’s Degree from Renmin University of China and Master’s Degree from Florida State University 
Abstract: "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is a win-win at the word-of-mouth box office around the world. After "Crazy Rich Asians" and "Turning Red", it once again pushed this kind of Chinese-American film with mother-daughter relationship as the core to the public. It unexpectedly won the favor of Chinese and American audiences. However, this type of film actually caters to the "political correctness" appeal of the American film industry in recent years, which is directly manifested in the conservatism of its content. More importantly, through a mother-daughter relationship that is constantly being reproduced, they strategically shift the audience's attention to the Chinese American family, conceal the survival and struggle problems that these families may face in society, and then personalize Chinese-American films.
Key words: Chinese-American film, mother-daughter relationship, privatization, "Turning Red", "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
American movies have always been a mirror for observing American society, history, and culture, and it is also a manifestation of its social symptoms. During Trump’s tenure as President of the United States (including a long time after he left office), the various crises encountered by the United States have been presented in American movies, among which the most prominent and most likely to attract attention are Sino-US relations and “#MeToo" movement, and the immigration issue is also sandwiched between these two phenomena or issues.
The connection between these three is not only the fall of the myth of American superheroes (mostly white males) in the Chinese and American markets, but also the global coronation of Asian female directors and actors, represented by Zhao Ting and Sandra Wu. The "re-popularity" created by Asian women, specifically, the survival and encounters of Chinese women immigrant, "Crazy Rich Asians", "The Farewell", "The Half of It", "Turning Red", "Everything Everywhere All At Once", the continuous achievement of "amazing" results in box office and word-of-mouth by movies such as "Crazy Rich Asians", "Turning Red", and "Everything Everywhere All At Once", has repeatedly brought this kind of movie to the fore. Chinese-American films centered on the relationship between mother and daughter have been pushed to the public.
It is also here that American films, especially Hollywood films, integrate the aforementioned three major issues in their own way, and try to use this to regain their status as "universal language".1 It became a sharp weapon for a new round of siege. However, the appearance of Chinese-American female protagonists seems to not only support the "#MeToo" movement fermented from Hollywood, but also observe the successive "Stop Anti-Asian Hate" movements to a certain extent, which is absolutely "politically correct" ", but in fact none of them responded to or dealt with these social issues directly or indirectly, but circumvented them skillfully and strategically avoided the risk of being further questioned; the ordinary mother-daughter relationship in creation is achieved by further personalizing this type of creation.
The reason why the term "re-popularity" was used to limit this type of film creation is because the essence behind it is the old tune of Chinese mother-daughter relationship, and the prevalence of this "old tune" can be traced back to "The Joy Luck Club". 
The double sales of "The Joy Luck Club" novel and movie not only verified the American society (readers and audiences) to the parents of Chinese immigrants, especially the story of how a daughter representing Western culture can get rid of the oppression of a Chinese-style mother, and even carry out reverse education through books and movies, and this relationship between reading tendency and watching movies has been consolidated by taking advantage of the "best-selling" stories of the commodity economy.2
We may even find that the "re-popularity" of this type of creation shares many power logic relations of representation with the Hollywood Walk of Fame of Huang Liushuang (Anna May Wong) and Guan Nanshi (Nancy Kwan): who is "represented" and who is manipulating this "representation", who consumes this "representation," who benefits from this manipulation of "representation," and so on. 
In other words, "Chinese-American mother-daughter conflict" (a relationship), following "Oriental Beauty" (an image), has become a shortcut for American society to interpret or imagine the Other/"China (culture)"/Chinese-American.
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Still from the movie "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
Replicated mother-daughter relationship
In the aforementioned intricate matrix of power relations with regard to representation, this so-called manipulator points to the entire social environment in which this type of film production takes place. As Foucault puts it, "The status of a discourse and its reception are affected by the social context in which it circulates"3
The latest Chinese-American films are all set in contemporary times, which is related to the starting point of view of the creators. Although the history of Chinese immigrants has a long history, the present is obviously closer, and many heavy political and historical burdens can be stripped away, especially considering the injustice and suffering that Chinese immigrants have encountered in American society, as a ‘model minority’ seems to be more easily accepted as an object worthy of being filmed.
Even so, the selection of the location is more thought-provoking than the natural setting of the time. Different from "The Joy Luck Club" and other early films of the same type, where China, the United States, and the social and cultural poles are set in space, recent films of this type are set in multiple spaces. 
"Crazy Rich Asians" chose multiple geographical spaces, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, etc. have been included in the landscape, but the Chinese mainland has been absent. "Turning Red" chose Chinatown with the most transnational characteristics, and "Chinese culture" was replaced by an ancient myth and a dull old ancestral hall. 
In "Everything Everywhere All At Once", Michelle Yeoh's Evelyn shuttles through countless universes, but China has always been only the place where "prehistory" took place, that is, all the universe splits occurred after Evelyn left China. Different from the presentation of China in the Chinese-American films of the 1990s, these new films all deal with "China" as a blank index.
In this sense, the "ethnic Chinese" in "ethnic Chinese disapora" has been exiled into the background, or even out of the background, and such banishment behavior and visual choices have inspired us to think: what kind of social context has given birth to such The narrative setting? In order to answer this question, we must first clarify: Why is the relationship between Chinese mother and daughter selected by American movies again at this time?
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Still from the movie "Crazy Rich Asians"
The mother-daughter relationship is not only an intergenerational relationship, but also a relationship of cross-cultural communication. Although the problem of Chinese and Western cultural conflicts has become so common in movies that recent films no longer use it as the only theme, in fact this problem has always existed, but it has only been put on a mask-the relationship between mother and daughter.
Although "Crazy Rich Asians" is about the dispute between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, its essence is the debate between the older generation of Chinese female immigrants and the younger generation of Chinese female immigrants debating the purity and insufficiency of Chinese sexuality, and is no different from the other two films about the conflict between blood-related mother and daughter.4
In view of the dominant position of the tense relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in Chinese society and culture, the presentation of such a (type of) mother-daughter relationship is more likely to be recognized as a typical representative of "Chineseness". 
These (types of) mothers more or less carry the influence of Chinese tradition and culture, and represent China, while the daughters who grew up overseas are undoubtedly the spokespersons of American culture. The personalities of the two are also shaped as opposite ends mainly around the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, and the dramatic conflicts unfold and advance from this.
This kind of narrative mode has defaulted from the beginning that the mother-daughter problem is not simply a communication difficulty or an intergenerational gap, but is based on the premise that Chinese and Western cultures are different. Therefore, no matter what era it is, how globalization develops, and how much mothers are soaked in the culture of settlement, Chinese and American cultures are different, and the similarities are completely erased. 
This "difference" not only exists, but is selected, amplified, and circulated, while "similarities" are "disappeared" in the reproduction production of this media age. Therefore, the cultural conflict between China and the West is "a pre-publicized confrontation" hidden in the inner layer of mother-daughter relationship. 
The result of the confrontation is often the reconciliation of mother and daughter, but before that, the mother must go through a process of inward self-examination, and this process also points to the family. 
In these movies, from the daughter's point of view, the mother often has no empathy and is superior, but at the same time she stubbornly thinks that she is doing what is good for the child.5 Such an image is directly or indirectly derived from Western culture's deep-rooted cognition of "tyrannical and authoritarian" Chinese parents. 
This cognition is based on the fact that Western culture believes that Western civilization is more modern and enlightened, and it is also based on the fact that American daughters who have been influenced by Western culture absolutely cannot identify with and understand the Chineseness represented by their mothers.
In "Crazy Rich Asians", the superficially gentle but extremely bossy, Mandarin-speaking mother-in-law played by Lu Yan is a typical Chinese parent, far more traditionally Chinese than Eleanor Young (played by Michelle Yeoh). And Eleanor Young's contempt for Rachel Zhu (played by Constance Wu) is actually copying her mother-in-law's behavior. 
The red panda and the curse-removing ceremony in "Turning Red" also appeared among several generations of women as an intergenerational inheritance.
The repetition of history is actually an intergenerational practice of so-called "inheritance". This kind of "inheritance" is manifested as a fixed, rigid, and oppressive practice, and the content of the practice is often incompatible with American culture's ruthless attitude towards Chineseness.
No matter how far or how long the mother in the film is away from home, the imprints and genes of her previous generation will not disappear due to changes in time and space, but instead become stronger and deeper, so that they themselves begin to believe that is their way to survive, the foundation of their foothold, and it is a precious thing like a "family heirloom". 
Therefore, they look forward to their daughter's inheritance, and then hope that the family in a foreign country that they have worked so hard to support can be maintained through this treasure. Daughters often become "ungrateful daughters" because they cannot bear the weight and constraints of such expectations.6
Under Eleanor Young's repeated attacks, Rachel Chu finally fell into self-denial because of the "embarrassing" experience of her biological mother and her boyfriend's rich background. In "Turning Red", the mother wept silently and threw herself into Xiaomei's arms; when Joy was about to come out to grandfather, Evelyn rushed to declare her own identity for her daughter.
Once the antagonistic mother-daughter relationship intertwined with the issue of family inheritance is locked as the core of the story, the social relationship connected with the characters will be greatly compressed and simplified. As a result, many problems faced by immigrants, such as racial discrimination, gender discrimination, public violence, etc., are all generalized as problems within the family, or are all traced back to the original family, and blamed on the parent-child relationship.
In other words, it seems that the education of children is only the responsibility of the family, or even the responsibility of the mother. Therefore, motherhood has become the best spokesperson for the crime. From here, we have to think about at least two questions: first, where is the father, and what did the father do? Second, where is the United States and what is the United States doing?
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Still from the movie "Turning Red"
In the films mentioned above, the father is, if not completely absent, then silent, powerless, indifferent, and even a direct persecutor. Nevertheless, the father’s negative influence on the family seems to only affect the mother, making the mother appear more masculine and socialized, thus losing the (maternal) softness and affinity that the world expects, and becoming an agent of patriarchy; it has no similar effect on daughters, and even daughters will get closer to their fathers because of this, thinking that fathers are the ones who understand themselves and can help them resist mother's dictatorship.
This kind of family model has both a credible side and a false side in the life of Chinese immigrant to the United States, because women will encounter more difficulties than men no matter where they go, especially in immigrant culture, women seem to naturally echo the world's admiration for the tenacity of survival in difficult situations, as well as the vigilance of the accompanying temperament such as toughness and utilitarianism. 
American society has enough space for imagination when it comes to Chinese women, but shows little interest in Chinese men. Naturally, there are historical and political factors, and the role of media representation cannot be ignored.
Firstly, Chinese-American fictional writers in the United States are dominated by women, or female writers are more exposed in the public eye, and most of their brushstrokes fall on female characters. The subsequent film and television adaptations will basically continue to use the original storyline and character relationship, and the image of the father is mostly single and flat in both literary texts and film and television texts;
secondly, most of these stories are set within a framework of family ethics, and their target audiences (readers and viewers) are mainly middle-class American women and Asian women. The father who is out of focus is blind and indifferent.
In reality, take the husband-and-wife Chinese restaurant that is most well-known to the public as an example. The male owner is the chef and the backstage manager, who is not seen or known by the guests, and the role of the cashier and lobby service is often played by the female owner.
Among the people coming and going, everyone knows more about the woman with great social functions, while the man becomes a shadow hidden behind the curtain. As clear as the former is, so vague is the latter. This is how the production of popular knowledge about Chinese immigrant families is constantly copied, disseminated, and stereotyped.
The second question is perhaps more worthy of investigation. Although most of these films set the story background in the United States, the real face of American society is rarely presented. Even though Chinese immigrants like to live together, this does not mean that they have no contact with Americans, nor does it mean that they live in a self-contained and monolithic heterotopia7 that is not connected to American society.
Compared with China's geographical absence, the United States has not played a substantive role despite its geographical presence. All important stories and plots take place within a family or among several families, and even if there are outsiders, they will not lead the insiders to break out. The United States seems to have become an empty place, and the influence of Western culture on the daughter has also become a "factory setting", which has never changed, and is only fine-tuned when the last scene comes. And such a design actually serves a certain invisible operation shared by these films, that is, domesticating Chinese-American films.
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Still from the movie "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
Privatized Chinese American Cinema
There is no doubt that the popularity of these films has internal market, political, and economic reasons, but they still largely continue some of the previous content of the Asian American identity crisis, intergenerational relations, and cultural conflicts. They are more family-oriented, which means that they condense many problems in one family, and even tacitly strip away the influence of American social problems on Asian-Americans.
American society is relatively open, but these films almost all default to Asian-American families, especially Chinese-American families, as being very homogeneous. The struggles faced by the characters almost all come from their mothers, and they all come from within the family. Such acquiescence privatizes the lives of Asian Americans and the problems they face as a single family problem, and behind it is not only the privatization of cultural differences, but also the privatization of the real social context.
The selection of the laundry room as Evelyn's living space and working space in "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is an audio-visual presentation of this kind of private domain. Although the laundry room is the most common means of survival for Asian-Americans, washing machines, washing clothes, and tidying clothes are directly regarded as housework activities, and have been tied to women for a long time, so the movie actually domesticates Evelyn's identity as a woman. She is a mother herself, and all her problems come from her family. At the same time, her identity and work are all related to her family.
Whether as a housewife or as a professional woman, the movie sets up a double private domain for Evelyn. The scene at the beginning of the movie fully reflects this point: in the dark light, the mirror that once reflected the picture of a happy family of three leads the audience to the interior of the family; the picture instantly turned into a messy dining table and desk. The camera advances in depth along the mirror, and Evelyn carries the bag into the painting, hangs the bag quickly, and then sits in front of the table surrounded by various furniture and home decorations. The camera slowly zooms in from a panoramic view to a close-up view, and finally fixes on her, making her seem like a trapped person.
In front of her was a pile of laundry bills, while she was actually sitting in her living room. With the arrival of her daughter and customers, we see that the next step she takes out of the living room is actually into the laundry room. Her home and her workplace are so inextricably linked that her work and household chores become one, and she herself is completely confined to this private space. 
Under such a design, the social space where the story takes place is completely reduced to the background board, and our eyes are completely directed to the contradictions within the family—the relationship between mother and daughter, without being able to trace its social and institutional roots, and the United States was thus exonerated.
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Still from the movie "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
If the film provides the father's way of survival—be kind, then what is the mother's way of survival? In these movies, the mother's survival strategy is the opposite of being kind. They have to be strong to survive in America because their immigrant status is indelible.
The parental relationship we see in Chinese-American movies is different from the division of labor between men and women in general Chinese/American movies, because in the process of survival in Chinese families, the mother’s role is often forced to be kind, otherwise the whole family will find it difficult to survive, but this series of movies do not demonstrate this truth well.
Chinese mothers seem to always be tiger mothers, overwhelming their daughters to the point of suffocation, but no one goes into the social reasons for the formation of this personality or temperament, and no one asks: these mother characters were originally conceived as transnational "Nara" so why do they doubt the validity of American culture and try their best to suppress their daughter's rebellious spirit when they arrive in the America they yearn for? And why did they turn from being traitors of the family order into defenders of it?
There is also a core setting in these films, that is, the characters in the film are anti-diaspora, but this setting is exactly at odds with the development of the plot. In the classic studies on diaspora, even if the diaspora group is in a foreign country, their hearts are still attached to their homeland. What connects the two places is the suspended mentality of this group who wants to go back but can’t go back, and this also constitutes a certain collective unconsciousness, collective imagination and collective temperament of this group.
Although diaspora studies in recent years have moved beyond this scope to include critical discourses such as cosmopolitanism, hybridity, and flexible citizenship8 the so-called "hometown of mind" has also begun to turn to reflections on assimilation into American culture.
However, in these films, separation is the premise for the development of the story, that is, the mother is still influenced by "China" or "Chinese culture" to some extent (this is also an important reason for the mother-daughter confrontation). Paradoxically, this situation never actually unfolds in the story.
Therefore, no matter how diverse Chinese-Americans are experiencing diaspora outside the screen, the end button has already been pressed for diaspora on-screen. This also means that neither the real China nor the imagined "China" is available as the selected object, since US is set to be the only visible option from the start.
This setting, which is different from the earlier films of the same type, not only implicitly blurs the complexity of the contradictions involved, but also subtly diverts the audience's attention from the reality of Sino-US conflicts, immigration, race and other related issues.
In addition, these recently hotly discussed films also intentionally incorporate stories of growth education, and "Turning Red" is the most prominent. This change implies a problem of perspective adjustment. This is not to say that earlier films of this type only started from the perspective of the mother, or were more empathetic to the mother, but rather the perspective of the "daughter" (including not only the perspective of the daughter in the film, but also the perspective of the mother in the film when she was young, as another family's "daughter") becomes more prominent in these films.
Moreover, the mother's own growth process from daughter to mother is pushed to the narrative foreground, and will play a vital role in the "last minute rescue". For example, after the mother-daughter battle in "Turning Red", Xiaomei redeemed her young mother. It is also in this sense that "before the mother became a mother" constitutes an important part of the problem, and the mother's own growth story actually points to how the daughter who left the country can get rid of the bad influence of the Chinese native family.
Taking women as the main characters and combining the two narrative models of bildungsroman and melodrama not only indicates that such films have entered a new round of creative context, but also implies that "the urgency of the task of "saving the city/saving the world" seems to further illustrate that only when the crisis9 occurs, women will be given the responsibility of saving. 
The emergence of these recent blockbuster films is evidence of this situation, and "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is the most obvious and powerful example of it. Evelyn was directly set as the "chosen one", shouldering the heavy responsibility of saving the universe, because the fact that she couldn't do anything well proved that she had great potential.
The logic of this is worth digging into: the man from the Alpha universe—Waymond (played by Ke Huy Quan believes that the woman—Evelyn is the savior, so she is. This is exactly the same as "God said let there be light, so there was light". It even reveals a certain disdain for women: what I say you are, you are, why doubt this? The appearance of a male savior is always touted, while the appearance of a female savior only requires confirmation from a male. From this perspective, these films are no more meaningful than "The Chair". The motive is to find a puppet, or even a scapegoat.
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Still from the movie "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
In Conclusion
Based on the above analysis, American movies choose Chinese female immigrants to rescue the market, which is the most "politically correct" choice. In the confrontation between mother and daughter, the American-style daughter finally won, and thereby stopped the inheritance of Chinese culture that lasted for several generations, while American society became the key field to resolve this confrontation, but was completely absolved. 
However, the Chinese-American film, which has been widely accepted, recognized, and promoted by audiences in China and the United States because of the loud voice of "stop anti-Asian hatred", not only failed to respond positively and deal with this imminent social problem, but instead cleverly circumvents it and strategically avoids the risk of being questioned, which just exposes the real contradiction.
Of course, this does not mean that we should stop eating because of choking, and regard these Chinese-American films as meaningless creations. Instead, they make sense. Regardless of whether it is in terms of genre mixing, character image creation, or the application of film technology, these films have made some progress. 
At least the female savior broke out from the male saviors and was seen by more people, and these female saviors hold the initiative a lot of the time. Xiaomei escaped from the family's curse-removing ceremony, returned to her friends, and defeated her "demonized" mother with her "red panda" in her arms, saving everyone.
But it is still worth noting that this limited subjectivity is still based on a subject position given by the male or patriarchal system. Therefore, this is not an excuse for us to give up our vigilance. On the contrary, we should get closer, take the initiative to reach out to uncover that layer of illusion, carefully see the dark hand behind this subjective position, and seriously think about why it pushed the female savior to power at this time, and what it intends to do.
Only in this way can fundamental changes really take place, and we can expect Chinese-American films to usher in a new turn, which is to break the prohibition of private domains, enter the depths of society, and even go to transnational, in the context of globalization, we should face up to the problems that need to be paid attention to and solved urgently.
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Still from the movie "The Joy Luck Club"
At the same time, outside the screen, represented by the directors of these films, the new generation of Chinese-American directors, with a mixed attitude different from the older generation, described the curse of "sandwich survival" suffered by Chinese-Americans. It is understandable to turn it into an in-betweenness10 survival advantage of great flexibility and fluidity, and promote the discourse of cosmopolitanism, so as to seek a more flexible and resilient creative path. 
However, the middle leap as both a survival strategy and a marker of the subject’s identity is not an inscription-style preaching, but a practice deeply rooted in the specific social and cultural context, which always requires us to stay alert to structural restrictions and potential compromise costs. In other words, the price to be paid for privatizing Chinese-American films and winning the embrace of the mainstream American film industry, is the long-term accumulated criticism of such film creation.
For example, Wayne Wang’s discussion of the so-called Yellow Peril and racial identity stereotyped reflection, the richness and heterogeneity of Chinese Americans shown by Alice Wu through "Saving Face", Ang Lee's filmization of the process of self-disintegration and self-suture of a solid cultural tradition through the "Father Trilogy" (Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman) etc.
Then, from the film creators to the film recipients, maybe everyone should carefully re-evaluate the gains and losses, and promote the entry of new criticism from a historical and contextual perspective.
Notes:
See also: Hansen Miriam. Babel and Babylons:Spectatorship in,American Silent Film.Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1991:173-187.
Rey Chow.Women in the Holocene: Ethnicity, Fantasy,and the Film The Joy Luck Club.Feminisms and Pedagogies of Everyday Life. Carmen Lake(Ed.),New York:State University of New York Press,1996:204-211.
Michel Foucault. What Is an Author?. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Vincent B. Leitch(Eds),New York:W.W.Norton,2018:1394-1409.
See also: Xiangu Qi.Mahjong,Chinese Diaspora Cinema and Identity Construction.East Asian Journal of Popular Culture,2021,7(2):223-240.
In contrast to this type of mother image is the traditional Chinese mother image in Asian male mythology, that are gentle and loving, such as Chen Fala in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, played by Ying Li.
See also: Erin Khue Ninh.Ingratitude:The Debt-Bound Daughter in Asian American Literature .New York: NYU Press,2011.
See also: Michel Foucault.Of Other Spaces.Jay Miskowiec(Trans),Diacritics,1986,16(1):22-27.Originally published as Des Espace Autres (Conference an Cercle d'hudes architecturales. 14 March 1967).Architecture,Mouvement,Continuire,1984(5):46-49.
See also: Aihwa Ong.flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality.United Kingdom,Durham: Duke University Press,1999.
It includes both the crisis of American movies and the crisis of American society.
See also: Xiangu Qi.Mahjong.Chinese Diaspora Cinema and Identity Construction.East Asian Journal of Popular Culture,2021,7(2):223-240.
被复制的母女关系和被私域化的华裔美国电影
#well now i just. am glad i didn't waste any time on this movie cos i wouldn't hav been able 2 relate at all. validating cos no matter how#good the acting n story is -- it's still shit painted in gold. i've never been able 2 relate 2 any western movie since i was a child wc was#frustrating back when i did want 2 assimilate but physically couldn't (cos i'm not wh*te wc thank fuck). the closest they came was disney's#animated little mermaid cos 'i wanna b~ where the ppl r~ I DON'T BELONG HERE THIS ISN'T MY HOME CAN I LEAVE NOW???' that was my childhood ya#anyway my disabled baba had been abusiv 2 my ma n so i looked down on him 4 being cruel n ungrateful. n my ma was indeed 'forced 2 b kind'#'otherwise the whole family will find it difficult 2 survive' n i looked down on her 4 being soft-hearted n WEAK. how 'abnormal' was my fam#they never were abusiv 2 me / pushed any of their beliefs on2 me tho i probs qualify as a neglected child i knew they adored me#n sent me 2 the best brainwashing school they could afford (yay!) i had sympathy 4 my parents i knew instinctively that they did not deserve#the lot they got in life. i never felt any 'lov' 4 them it's mor like i can't abandon them i'm the only 1 they hav in this shitty ass world!#anyway i hate the west. i hate : ) like i'd never let my son raise his future children outside of china : ) only the best 4 my grandchildren#hollywood#hollywood propaganda#orientalism#western cultural imperialism#article#thesis#putting a dent in the language barrier#china#us#film
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