A person's weight corresponds to his social class
Documentary: A group of children aged 7 to 56 are interviewed every 7 years to discover the laws of life differences
A great documentary. A director may have originally wanted to verify that classes are difficult to overcome in British society. Children of the rich are still rich, and children of the poor are still poor. He selected 14 children from different classes to track and shoot, recording every seven years: starting from the age of 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, and until the age of 56 last year. Decades have passed, and it is still the same director-from youth to old age, and still the same group of people-who have moved from children to old age.
I heard that this film has been around for more than a year. Because it is a complete reality show, I was quite curious, but I have never found the source of the film. Now I finally see this film. In 2012, they also completed filming of the 56-year-old, so this latest One of the films is called "56UP" and is divided into three episodes. In these 150 minutes, we can get a glimpse of the lives of ordinary British people.
The lives of those people seem to confirm the director's original speculation. Unfortunately, they really prove that, just like a popular post in Tianya not long ago,"No Small Family Can Produce a Noble Child", a group of graduates 'different performances and final outcomes after interning in the bank are unspeakable but cruel reality. Excellent social resources have long been divided up according to the established pattern, passed down from parents to children. In our country, the group who started working 20 years ago and left their children behind in their hometowns, as parents, are far away from their children and do not have the time and energy to manage their children, nor do they have enough resources to improve their children. They are just living hard, and their children born in the 1980s and 1990s still drop out of middle school after studying casually, and then embark on their parents 'old path to work in cities, and are still squeezed on the edge of prosperous cities. There are still some people in this group who are determined to change their lives, but a small number. This British reality TV documentary is also very sad. It does not analyze the specific reasons. We can only infer the essential reasons through those appearances.
Most of the 7-year-old children are naive and romantic. Andrew and John, who are upper-class private school children, already read The Financial News or The Observer every day. They know exactly which high school they will go to-then Oxford University-and then become famous lawyers and famous figures. Middle-class boys also have some dreams: to oppose racial discrimination, to help people of color or where to go to school, and what career to have, while girls want to grow up, marry and have children; The lower-class children who go to boarding schools in poor areas and slums do not even have any dreams. Some people hope to be horse trainers to make money, and some hope to have the opportunity to see their fathers, eat enough food, stand less, and be beaten less. This has also become their wish.
When they were 56 years old, the 7-year-old children who had gone to private schools had already gone to Oxford University according to the established route, and then they all became famous lawyers. They lived a good life in the upper class, were respected and had happy families. Without exception, their children followed the old path of their fathers-good middle schools, good universities, and good jobs; three middle-class boys also went to college. The first Bruce, graduated from the Mathematics Department of Oxford University, became a middle school teacher. Following his ideals, he helped students in poor areas, and later returned to the UK to teach in an ordinary public school, living a dull and quiet life; Another farmer's son, Nick, graduated from the Department of Physics at Oxford and went to the United States to become a professor at a famous American university. In his second marriage, he married an American wife with excellent figure, appearance and temperament. He was the only one among them who successfully advanced to the elite class. When the boy Peter was young, his political thoughts were very intense and heroic. After graduating from college, he became a teacher. He was criticized by the public and quit filming for making political remarks. He returned to filming at the age of 56 and has become a civil servant. His family is stable, happy and has both children and excellent. He and his beautiful wife founded a band to create and perform in their spare time and achieved good results in the industry. He is slender and elegant. They are still firmly located in the middle class gradient.
However, those girls from the middle class behaved very calmly, and I couldn't even accurately distinguish whose story was: without exception, they married and had children, and their happiness in life was almost completely linked to the happiness of their marriages. As for those children from the lower social class (mostly people of color), when they get old, they all become grandparents to a group of children. Their children rarely go to college and do ordinary service jobs-repairmen, security guards, etc. They themselves are often accompanied by unemployment. Without a good social system, they are actually in a worrying situation.
Group photo taken at the age of 21 in 1978
Group photo taken when he was around 50 years old
Our ancient saying in China says that dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, and the son of mice can dig holes. It mainly refers to inheritance and subtle influence, which probably expresses some insurmountable boundary rules between different species. In addition to the conclusion, which is really amazing and even a little unwilling, I also obviously found the following points that are worth noting.
1. A person's weight corresponds to his social class.
The elite classes in the film, Andrew and John, still maintain relatively good shapes and figures at the age of 56; among the original middle class, Nick and his wife, an American professor who were promoted to the elite class, and Peter and his wife, the best among the middle-class civil servants, have obviously better shapes; while the men from the lower class grew up and grew old, although some of them were even quite handsome and handsome when they were young, almost all of them eventually became fat or bald, especially their wives, each of whom was quite out of shape. The children born to these lower-class parents are large in number, and most of them are obese, although they are still only in their 20s.
It can be seen that the elite class is far stronger than the lower class in terms of body exercise, diet control and other aspects. Is this perseverance to maintain their weight also an important trait for their success? Everyone only sees the superior family educational resources and social environment they are born with. In addition to better quality of life and living habits, in fact, behind their body shape is a certain spirit of self-discipline and self-improvement given by their families. This point is actually worth our deep thinking. So now some people say, you can't even control your weight, you can't even get up in the morning in winter, how can you have the perseverance to control your life? What we see is only the body, but behind the body is more content, so we sincerely express our respect for those who can maintain their body shape for many years, those who persevere in striving towards their goals, and behind them, they pay more than we can imagine.
In addition to the maternal family environment, personality is the most important card to reshape life.
Admittedly, as mentioned earlier, most people basically did not jump out of the established curse of social hierarchy, but there were still exceptions. To give two examples, anyone would have noticed a middle-class kid named Neil.(One of his primary school classmates is Bruce, who was admitted to the Oxford Mathematics Department in the movie.) Neil, at the age of 7, vividly recounted his dreams of being a strange swordsman or flying flowers and butterflies in the sky. Even at the age of 14, he showed a sunny boy flying by a good parish on a bicycle with a backpack on his back. After failing the Oxford University exam and entering a different university, he had mental problems. After dropping out of school, he became a construction worker, and then wandered around the UK. He had no fixed place, had no food, and was dressed in rags, which was really sad to see. Although he finally became a congressman in a certain district with a reversed attitude at the age of 56, he was still a poor congressman on welfare. The odd jobs he usually did, such as working as an auxiliary priest in a church, only kept him alive. He never had too high expectations in front of the camera, saying that he didn't know what he could do or what better career he could do to make money. In his bones, he was helpless about his destiny. The film has never said whether his mental problems are his natural genetic problems or later caused by oppression in his family environment. In short, this character is quite sad to see. If he had no problem with his temperament, he would have successfully walked on the track of dignity for the middle class after graduating from college.
There is also a child who lives in a slum and lives in a boarding school. I will never forget the sad face he appeared at the age of 7. His name is Paul. When he was 7 years old, he didn't have any dreams, but he just wanted to be beaten less and punished less. His sad and helpless little face was heartbreaking under the black and white camera in 1964. Although he also found many jobs as an adult, because he had no skills, did not have enough perseverance to persist, or because of the poor employment environment, he frequently lost his job and changed jobs. In his later years, he could only find a small job as a repairman in a nursing home where his wife helped. Is it because of his low self-esteem caused by his family environment, or is it because of his natural character itself? I don't know, in short, his face when he was a child made people pity and chill, because this may just be closely related to the environment in which he grew up.
3. Marriage can save a person, especially a woman.
In movies, women's happiness is mainly related to emotions and marriage, with a small proportion of career in it. There are three classmates in the middle class who have appeared side by side in the camera in multiple eras, and their destinies when they grow up are still far apart. There was an optimistic girl named Sue who was strong and took care of her children after the first divorce. Later, she remarried happily and had a harmonious relationship. Then her work went smoothly and improved significantly. Her family was happy and her career went smoothly. In short, her life was happier; There was a girl who was married twice in her life and divorced twice, leaving behind several children. None of the children went to college and only worked in a humble job. She was in poor health and encountered a series of family misfortunes. She has been unemployed, receiving benefits, and the finances are tight; There is also a girl who is a pessimistic person by nature. She was a very sad and rebellious girl at the age of 7, 14 and 21. She met her husband at the age of 28. From then on, she has become a sunny person. At the age of 56, she calmly said: Although she is a book that may not be very good, since others (audiences) have opened it, they will still have the habit of reading it.
Marriage is a woman's second life. It's hard to say whether it's right or wrong in feminism, but it's perfect for this movie. Those women who happily said they would get married and have several children at the age of 7 have written these chapters in their lives, but the tastes are very different. Marriage even reshaped their second life. Su seemed quite young and energetic among these women. She was the best among these women in terms of appearance and spirit. The man who she met after remarriage made her happy and the career she had made her progress all the way gave her great confidence. Of course, it also created a better material environment. Among them, one woman was aging alarmingly at the age of 56, and her family generally suffered from unemployment. Time ruthlessly carved a deep mark on her face.
A parent's bad marriage can hurt a child and leave a very bad mark on their life, but in fact, a good marriage can also save a man. For example, Paul, the white poor boy with a sad face at the age of 7, who was described in the previous paragraph. When he was a child, he always said that he would not get married because his parents divorced. Later, he went to Australia and looked very handsome. When he grew up to the age of 28, he was lucky enough to meet a sunny woman. This woman supported him through the decades to come. Although he always wanted to escape and disappear when he encountered problems, in the end, his wife fixed him in her own way, perhaps because of children, perhaps because of warmth, and let him stay in this complete family and continue to fulfill his duties. Without this wife, this man, who has always looked sad and afraid of life, whose self-esteem has been hurt and who has no confidence, has no idea how sad the evening scene will be and it is difficult to predict. His daughter finally entered college to major in British history, and it was very impressive when the family returned to the UK to visit.
4. The number of children in a family is indeed closely related to the quality of life.
In the movie, people in the elite class basically only have two children. In addition to eugenically raising their children, they have more time to enjoy their lives and make their own ideal plans, such as loving gardening, leading a cricket team, forming a band, etc. Their children all go to middle school and college step by step, and have decent and high-paying jobs after graduation. Those in the lower class can easily have three to five children when they grow up, two marriages or even more, because their children are born more disorderly because of their impulsiveness and disorder when they are very young. Even their young sons will have three to five children when they are also very young or even less than twenty years old. Therefore, before they reach aging, they are already grandparents of a lot of children. The economic pressure and the quality of their life can be imagined. In the movie, they are busy with a large family and have no time to spare. There are white people and people of color. They are very pleased that they found a decent job for their children at the age of 56, such as mailmen. If occasionally a college student appears in the family, He looked even more glorious. According to speculation, his children should basically be what we call the post-80s generation.
Those who get married basically find people of the right class. This is normal. A person has a wider range of crowd intersection and value resonance in the class to which he belongs. Among them, the elite class and the upper middle class are more stable in marriage. Is it because of rational choice or material guarantee? Many others went through the process of divorce and remarriage when they were around the age of 35 to 42. Of course, a failed marriage can make life more unfortunate. In addition to causing people to lose certain beliefs in marriage and make people feel depressed, it is also because it takes longer time and energy to correct a mistake. If the upper marriage leaves behind a bunch of responsible children and the fathers don't know where they are, this life will be even worse.
So, are rational people more likely to have a happy life, be orderly, and have everything under control? Or is it easier for emotional people to have a happy life, do whatever they want, and do whatever they want? Or, the order on the surface may seem boring and boring, but in the order there is room for wandering blades, while the freedom on the surface brings subsequent chaos. Whether you can ultimately have freedom and comfort is unknown. So this makes us think deeply. What we envy is not only the richer material foundation and social resources that the elite class has on the surface, but also the potential characteristics that they can possess and maintain inheriting this power.
Since the age of 42, their lives have basically remained unchanged. Everything in life seems to have become a foregone conclusion. The children have grown up and re-educated, and they have no time to pursue careers and love when they are old. Those aspiring teenagers who used to be high-spirited and pointed at the Jianghu have become today's calm and peaceful middle-aged and elderly men with sparse hair. Those once cynical girls have now become middle-aged and demure who are now lightly commenting on their lives.Women. At this age, the good times of life have passed. Looking back, they are all very surprised at what they looked like when they were young. They seem to be basically satisfied with their lives today. So what if they are not satisfied? They won't regret it on camera. Although, in the movie, it was under the British welfare protection system, and those people's lives could still be effectively protected. In our country and the security system we have now, if we all knew when we were young who we were and what kind of life we would be in the future, would we be more confident or depressed?
Perhaps as the people in the play said, no matter what kind of book we are, it is exciting or boring, we will continue to read it while reading it; or as the people in the play said, the so-called happiness means that we are still here steadily without encountering bad luck; or as the people in the play said, if there is a chance to start over, we will study hard when we are young, because no one can take away knowledge, so that we can control life more effectively; Or as the person in the play said, if you can start over, you will not be as lazy as you were back then, and you will work hard to seize every opportunity, so you can still change your whole life.
"If... if..." However, there is no ifs in life. At this age when destiny is known, everything has become a foregone conclusion.