Dangal’s success in China: Chinese Family Relationship in the New Generation
The summer of 2017 is the summer of Dangal in China. Although few Chinese had heard about Indian wrestling before the release of Dangal, this Indian movie miraculously became a hot topic in many Chinese families’ daily life and occupied Chinese social media. The hidden message of modern time family relationships reflected in Dangal resonated with million of Chinese audiences. The successful depiction of kids challenging their parents and the eventual compromission of the two generations in the families due to love made Dangal a miniature of the millions of family relationships in China, and it told the inner voices of today’s Chinese parents and children under the growing pressure in acquiring education resources and seeking fine jobs. The resonation of Dangal with today’s Chinese values and concerns led to a total collection of 1.295 billion RMB (approximately 0.154 billion dollars) in China, almost three times the box office in India (0.35 billion RMB, approximately 0.054 billion dollars). The globalization of cultures made the box office miracle of Dangal possible: we can see an Indian movie that talks better about Chinese family relationships than most Chinese ones.
The plot of Dangal doesn’t make it unique from other foreign classical sports movies imported to China. Like the plot of the 2022 Oscar best actor winning film King Richard, which tells how the Williams sisters’ father Richard trained them to be great tennis players, Dangal also tells a story of how a father trains his daughters to become great athletes. The former wrestler Mahavir, who once was the national champion, trained his oldest and second daughters, Geeta and Babita, in wrestling to achieve his dream of winning a medal for India. With the support from her father, Geeta became a world wrestling champion and her experiences inspired millions of Indian women to chase their dreams and live the lives they want. Although Dangal and King Richard share similar plots, the attention in China on King Richard is much less than that on Dangal before it was released. Compared to Dangal, which focuses on the growth of the daughters and how Geeta overcomes challenges with the help of her father, King Richard spends lots of time depicting the strict father character of Richard and how he overcomes difficulties to train his daughters to achieve success. The strict and commanding but caring father character depicted in King Richard is a typical Chinese traditional father character. In the Analects of Confucius, Confucius says that “父在，观其志。父没，观其行；三年无改于父之道，可谓孝矣,” which means that a great father should not laugh in front of his kids and should require his kids to strictly follow Confucianism rules, like “don’t challenge your father and treat your lord as your father.” However, some of those traditional Chinese values are abandoned and even hated by today’s young people in China. According to a survey from Douban, 78 percent of the Chinese audience in Shanghai who watched the limited release of King Richard don’t like the character of Richard. I see comments like “He reminds me of my middle school math teacher who scolded me whenever I got my answers wrong, and he made me hate math,” and “I would never want to have a father like Richard”. In contrast, from the Douban comments, most Chinese audiences like the similarly strict father character of Mahavir and appreciate his way of education. So how does Mahavir differ from Richard and helps Dangal win the approval of millions of Chinese parents and kids?
Different from Mahavir listens to his daughters and gives them a chance to quit dangling, which wins the appreciation of many young Chinese audiences. In the movie, when Mahavir found out that Geeta and Babita were not passionate about wrestling and slacked off during training, he had a long talk with his daughters, asked them whether they wanted to continue the path of becoming wrestlers, and promised to stop the training if they gave up wrestling. This is a hard choice for Mahavir since he has always been dreaming to win a medal for his country, had high expectations of Geeta and Babita, and put great efforts into training them. However, for the happiness of his daughters, Mahavir is willing to give up his own dream. Today, many Chinese parents neglect their children’s own ideas and train their kids with extremely strict requirements to achieve their own expectations of becoming scientists, politicians, or doctors, which are the most dignified jobs in China. Realizing the great pressure of getting into good high schools and good universities, many parents send their kids to lots of extracurricular courses and assigned extra homework to ensure their kids can have great performances at school. Many Chinese young people suffered from a torturing childhood doing things they hated and found no meaning, so they want to have a strict but considerate father, like Mahavir, who cares about their interests instead only expecting them to become successful. Many Chinese kids had no free time at all: they are forced to take piano or violin classes from a young age, practice for at least an hour a day, take Olympiad mathematics and physics courses when they grow older, preview what would be taught at school in extracurricular courses so that they are able to succeed at school where other students also take extracurricular courses. Suppression from their parents made many young people in China resonate with the movie Dangal.
What’s more, the scenes of challenging the authorities resonate with the young generation in China. From Douban, the cut that Geeta wrestled with her father is many young people’s favorite cut. Geeta did the things that many young people want to do but are not allowed under traditional Chinese morale of listening to respecting your parents. Compared to Mahavir, who is old and fat with a clumsy round stomach, Geeta is as robust as a bear, agile like a cheetah, and proud like a lion, challenging the old king and authority of wrestling. Undoubtedly, Geeta won with all the new wrestling techniques she learned at the National Sports Academy. She proved that her father’s wrestling skills and training methods are out-of-date, became the pride and role model for the villagers, and taught the girls in the village the latest wrestling skills. In a society where elders occupy the mainstream voice, like in China, young people want to have an opportunity to challenge their parents and the traditional values held by the older generation and prove that they are mature and independent enough to make their own choice. What’s more, the corrupted and inefficient government officials, the useless coach of Geeta at the National Sports Academy, and the bias against women all resonate with the young people in China. They want to challenge the authorities and traditional ideas that they disagree with and change the present systems.
Middle-aged couples also see themselves from Mahavir. Many Chinese parents devote most of their time and spend tons of money on their kids’ education, but their kids don’t always understand them and sometimes revolt against them, which break their hearts. Also, those parents must face the reality that they can not always be with their kids as their kids grow older and more independent. In an interview conducted by Maoyan, a mother said she cried when she saw Mahavir stumbled back home when he lost to Geeta in wrestling, which reminded her of herself. Parents are getting older, while their kids grow up, take responsibilities, and replace their roles in the families and society. In the movie, Mahavir did not insist on Geeta using his way of training and just trusted her. Most Chinese parents are glad to see their kids have their own ideas, although they are sad to see that their kids accuse them of being over-controlling. As a result, in 2017, many parents in China took their kids to watch Dangal. They wanted to show their kids that their strict control of their kids is for the good of their kids, like Mahavir. Mahavir killed all of his chickens to ensure his daughters’ nutrition absorption, spent money buying all the training equipment, begged the local government for help, and got up early every day to train his daughters. Chinese parents also devote their free time after busy work with their kids and spend lots of money on extracurricular courses so that their kids can acquire better education resources. With higher education, they can have better opportunities in their future life and have the right to choose the life they want, which is worth the suffering in childhood. As Geeta finally realized her father’s efforts and acknowledged that his training methods are the best, Chinese parents hope that their kids would understand them more after watching the movie. After constant failures in international contests, Geeta called her father for comfort and advice. The father and daughter finally make peace with each other. With Mahavir’s help, Geeta won the gold medal in the Commonwealth Games and achieve Mahavir’s dream of winning a medal in an international contest for India. Both Chinese parents and kids want to make peace with each other, which made the movie Dangal the best movie for a family to watch in 2017.
With the globalization of cultures, we can see an Indian movie that talks better about Chinese family relationships than most Chinese ones. The conflicts between parents and kids and the final reconciliation depicted in the movie resonate with many Chinese families and made the summer of 2017 the summer of Dangal.
http://www.360doc.com/content/22/0309/14/31755909_1020763013.shtml
