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This year's summer season is exciting again because of the participation of Shen Teng and Ma Li.

The movie "Catching Dolls" starring this golden pair has grossed 800 million yuan within a few days of its release, and its Douban score is 7.5, so its reputation is pretty good.

But after watching it, I felt mixed emotions.

It's obviously a comedy, but almost all the jokes are wrapped in sadness and horror.The unspeakable pains in Chinese education are presented to us in an absurd and humorous way.

The protagonist, Ma Jiye, was born into a wealthy family with a silver spoon in his mouth, but his fatherMa Chenggang (played by Shen Teng)Because he had spoiled his eldest son, he was worried that his younger son would repeat the same mistake.

So, while Ma Jiye was still young and didn't remember anything, he took his wife Chunlan (played by Ma Li) and moved the family to a dilapidated tenement, disguising themselves as a poor family from the bottom of society.

Fortunately, I didn’t take my son to watch it with me, otherwise, if he asked me these questions, I really wouldn’t know how to answer them, such as:

Mom, are you also a rich person? Is our family very rich?

Mom, why does his father abandon his eldest son because he is disobedient?

Yes, this movie is a bit cruel for children.Ma Jiye lives a life of lies and deception. His parents precisely design every step of his life in the name of "for your own good", and no one cares about his free will.

Today, let’s talk about the discussion about family education behind “Catch the Dolls”. (The following contains spoilers)

01

From an adult's perspective, Ma Jiye is simply"Dream Baby"。

He gets up early every day, does housework, boils medicine for his grandmother, and then walks 5 kilometers to school. He wears simple clothes, eats simple meals, is frugal, never plays video games, and concentrates on reading and studying.

He truly demonstrated the saying that children from poor families grow up early.

But when the camera turned, we found that everything was not that simple.

Ma Chenggang and his wife are not poor people. Instead, they are wealthy people who wear big gold chains and smoke high-end cigars.

This tube-shaped building area, which was built in the style of the 1970s and 1980s, is actually a large-scale education base. The residents inside are all NPCs and actors.

Even the "grandmother" who lived with Ma Jiye day and night and was bedridden was fake.

Grandma is a well-known education expert and the commander-in-chief of the "base". Every day, when Ma Jiye goes out to school, she takes the walkie-talkie and directs other employees who are "watching" on the road like a secret agent.

Ma Jiye needed to practice his spoken English, so his grandmother arranged for two foreigners to "accidentally" meet Ma Jiye at the street corner and have them read out the standard dialogues from the textbook in a pure English listening accent.

When going to buy some vegetables, Ma Jiye has to compete with the stall owner in wits and courage. He must solve a complex mathematical word problem in order to know the price of a certain vegetable.

There was no entertainment or relaxation in Ma Jiye's life. Because of poverty, he consciously stifled his own nature.

The whole movie's jokes revolve around this kind of information asymmetry.Ma Chenggang and his wife knew that everything was fake, the actors around them knew it, the audience knew it, and the only one who was kept in the dark was Ma Jiye.

It's very much like "The Truman Show".

Grandma often taught Ma Jiye: If a person is not trustworthy, he will not stand, and if a person is not honest, he cannot be trusted. But who is the one who is not trustworthy and honest? How ironic!

It feels like,A group of adults bullying a child, can’t think about it too much, if you think about it too much you won’t be able to laugh.

The most mixed scene is when the grandmother’s identity is almost exposed, and Ma Chenggang arranges for the “grandmother” to fake her death.

In the mourning hall, the adults were wailing and wiping away the non-existent tears from their eyes. Only Ma Jiye was truly heartbroken. That was his grandmother, the grandmother who had been with him since he was a child, but she died so suddenly.

The grandmother who was lying there pretending to be dead was also moved by real emotions at this time. Her body was shaking violently. Later, she almost "resurrected" and sat up to hug her "grandson".

The scene was in chaos. Ma Jiye was crying breathlessly. Ma Chenggang and his wife were busy covering her up. Grandma still wanted to struggle, but was pushed into the "cremation room" in no time.

The audience's emotions also began to become inexplicable. Sometimes they wanted to cry, sometimes they wanted to laugh, but what finally settled down was sadness.

If in a child's world, not only is there no reality, but even blood ties can be manipulated, how heavy a blow will it be for him when he learns the truth?

To put it more seriously, one may even suffer from mental disorder.

02

The reason why Ma Chenggang went to so much trouble to create a poor environment for Ma Jiye was because he had lived like this when he was a child, and he felt thatHis later achievements were entirely due to the hardships he had endured.

He therefore concluded:You have to be raised in poverty and endure hardships, only then can you become a superior person.

But is it really like this?

In fact,Ma Chenggang's arrogance and dominance led to Ma Jiye's disaster.

Even though Ma Jiye learned when he grew up that he was actually the son of a wealthy man, the mark of poverty left on him was deeply rooted and difficult to erase.

In order to save money, he figured out a set of "life hacks" to make the faucet drip slowly and the water meter stop running;

He took his whole family to eat at "Haode Lao" hot pot. While waiting for a seat, he ate free snacks like crazy. By the time he got a seat, he was already full, saving money for a hot pot meal.

The way he thought of to make money was to pick up bottles from the trash can. He was so dirty that he looked like a little beggar, and was laughed at and teased by the students passing by.

He was running on the playground and saw a pile of empty mineral water bottles on the side of the road. He couldn't help but pick them up as if by reflex...

Years of "poverty education" have made Ma Jiye a real poor child, and that sense of psychological deprivation will haunt him throughout his life.

I remember that in the program "The Debaters", Xi Rui once said that he grew up in a single-parent family, and the sentence he heard most from childhood to adulthood was: There is no money at home, and it is not easy for your mother to raise you alone.

Once, he was shopping in the supermarket with his grandma and saw a can of oranges. He wanted to eat some and couldn’t help but staring at it for a long time.

Grandma noticed his action, hesitated for a while, and finally bought the can.

On the way back, grandma kept saying: This can of food costs 7.9 yuan, which is enough for us to have a meal.

Xi Rui's originally excited mood suddenly fell to the bottom.

Xi Rui didn't taste any sweetness in that can of food, only bitterness, and that bitter taste remained in his heart from then on.

When he grew up, Xi Rui changed his family's predicament through his own efforts. Poverty was a thing of the past for him, but a strong sense of insecurity still followed him.

If he goes to a consumption place without bringing enough money, he will feel nervous, as if he is not worthy of that place; unless he is seriously ill, he will not spend money to go to the hospital.

Poverty itself is not wealth, and there is no necessary connection between it and success. In fact, more often than not, it has the opposite effect.

Parents who overemphasize poverty and use tragedy to kidnap their children may force their children to be sensible and mature early, but who can see the scars in their children's hearts?

I saw a particularly heartbreaking Douban movie review:

"They killed Ma Jiye, so that Ma Jiye can continue to enjoy his life as a rich second-generation and do what he likes. He will always be a rich second-generation.

But ordinary children who are truly killed by guilt-based education do not have such strong confidence. They will only become psychologically distorted and become people with personality defects, or spend their whole lives pursuing unconditional love, or even really die. "

Outside of the movie, the ordinary, real victims are even more heartbreaking.

03

At the end of the film, on the day of the college entrance examination, Ma Jiye exposed all the lies surrounding him.

He saw his grandmother’s photo hanging on the wall, with the name “Teacher Li”; he saw his familiar neighbors, all teachers of various subjects; he saw that his life was full of cameras, he was being monitored in all directions, and his micro-expressions were magnified and analyzed frame by frame…

He collapsed, disillusioned, and stood there at a loss.

Ma Chenggang and his wife came over, and he asked them blankly: "Which teacher are you? I don't see you two on the wall."

Finally, Ma Jiye came to his senses and walked out with firm steps.

Chunlan hurriedly asked him: Where are you going?

Ma Jiye said without turning his head:A real place.

And Ma Chenggang still argued stubbornly: A white lie is never a deception, but love, the greatest love!

Until this moment, Ma Chenggang had no reflection or regret in his heart, he was so confident because he did not regard Ma Jiye as an independent person at all.

He never asked Ma Jieye what his dream was, but stubbornly imposed his own unfulfilled dream - to be admitted to Peking University and Tsinghua University - on Ma Jieye.

Under the influence of his surroundings for a long time, Ma Jiye subconsciously set getting into Peking University or Tsinghua University as his goal.

One day when he was a child, he found that he was particularly interested in running. He was discovered by a coach, who wanted to send him to a sports school to develop into a professional athlete.

Ma Jiye was very excited, but Ma Chenggang was extremely anxious. His son was going to get into Peking University or Tsinghua University, so going to a sports school would be a mistake!

He pretended to agree, secretly applied anesthetic ointment on Ma Jieye's feet in the middle of the night, and worked together with the fake doctor to make Ma Jieye mistakenly believe that he could not walk, and voluntarily give up going to the sports school.

Coming out of the clinic, Ma Jiye was sitting in a wheelchair. Suddenly, he felt as if his feet could move. He was about to stand up and walk by himself. Ma Chenggang held him down and said lovingly:

Dad pushes you so you can go further.

If you think about it carefully, these seemingly warm words are actually chilling.

Children come into this world through their parents, but they are not appendages of their parents. They should use their own hands and feet to explore the world instead of relying on their parents all their lives.

Only when parents know how to let go can their children fly higher and farther.

04

Children are waiting for their parents' apologies, and parents are waiting for their children's thanks.

Faced with his father's stubbornness, Ma Jiye was filled with disappointment. He continued to walk towards the real world outside the door. Ma Chenggang chased after him and yelled:Do you think we are the only ones who control your life? You control our lives too!

This sentence made me think for a long time.

It is undeniable that Ma Chenggang loved Ma Jiye. For the sake of his son's education, he had to give up the enjoyment of life, dared not show off his wealth, worked hard to pretend to be poor, and spent a lot of time, money and energy to cultivate his son.

He and Chunlan also sacrificed their lives for their son.

Ma Jiye chose to break free from the shackles and seek the truth. Ma Chenggang thought that Ma Jiye was ungrateful and did not appreciate what he had, which was a waste of all his efforts over the years and he felt very wronged.

Not only did he not regard his son as an independent person, he also did not regard himself as an independent person.“Pathological symbiotic relationship”，Lost sense of boundaries.

I often hear some parents say: I have lived my whole life for my children and have never enjoyed a single day of happiness.

When children hear such words, they probably won’t feel happy, but will feel heavy and stressed.

During this year's Mother's Day, blogger "Jiang Wenyu" released a video that resonated with countless people.

The blogger compared the mother and daughter to two trees, and the mother provided nutrients for her daughter by sacrificing herself. But her sacrifice made her daughter feel distressed and suffocated.

After raising her daughter, the mother hoped that her daughter would give everything she had to support the next generation of saplings, just like she did.

The daughter's words made the mother fall into deep thought:Didn't you say that this is very hard? Why do you ask me to do the same?

At the end of the short film, the mother left. Her daughter asked her where she was going. The mother turned around, smiled brightly and said: I want to live Zhou Haifen’s life, and my branches will bloom with lush flowers.

Excessive sacrifice and blind devotion are not the obligation of parents, nor are they what children want to see.

A healthy parent-child relationship should be one in which each child has his or her own life, owes nothing to each other, and supports each other.

Only when parents are optimistic, positive, happy and love themselves well can they raise children who are independent, relaxed and full of happiness.