Poster 312-19-99
Personal Comments
The name of this poster is Receiving of the Bride, and it looks like an image of traditional Chinese bridal ceremony many people handing with red flags were exciting to welcome the coming of bride in a small boat. But if you look this poster carefully, you cant find the bride in the boat instead of a tractor. Of course you think that tractor was part of the dowry of bride, but it is a poster during Cultural Revolution so it was impossible to only show a happy bridal ceremony in a public poster.
First of all, posters during Cultural Revolution were impossible absolutely to show any private happy things without any relations with revolution, for example only a happy bridal ceremony, otherwise they would be forbidden to public because they tried to propagate those rotten bourgeois ways of life. Almost all posters in Cultural Revolution had red flags and the word or meaning of revolution, and if you do anything not for revolution only for yourself, you would be criticized by your friends and family.
In decade of Cultural Revolution, all clothes had only two colors: army green and worker blue, because colorful clothes mean you were decayed by the bourgeois way of life; all clothes had only one style: famous Chinese tunic suit, named Zhong Shan style in China, which was designed by Premier Sun Yat-sen, the man over the emperor history of China, because other styles were not enough revolution; all movies and operas were forbidden to show except 8 revolution stories, and all songs would praise for Chairman Mao and CCP. It is creasy thought by current young man that you could only watch 8 movies in 10 years again and again, but it was true at those years.
Second, at that time, a tractor was impossible to be a private property, so it could not to be show as the dowry of brides family. In middle of Cultural Revolution, all countryside villages was changed to many Communes a big village became a commune and some small villages merged into a commune. All fields and tools did not belong to persons instead of to commune, and it was said that commune could show completely the advantage of socialism, which had been proved by Soviet Communes. But because Chinese Communes hadnt clear and efficient management system, they didnt show too many advantages but to show many disadvantages, for example, a labor doing few works could get same salary with one doing many works, or a female labor could not get more salary even she did more works than a male labor. After Cultural Revolution, commune system was stopped and village system came back, but until now old man always say village as Commune.
Therefore, the meaning of this poster is not to show a happy bridal ceremony, I believe that the tractor is just the bride. In fact this poster tried to show that the people were welcoming a tractor as a bride, and it was just the most popular view in Cultural Revolution Giving traditional ceremony as a new revolution meaning this view is also accepted and often used by current China media, for example CCTV, to show the great and difference of CCP China.
Back to catalogue.个人评论
这幅宣传画的名字是“喜迎亲”，看起来很像一个传统中国婚礼的场面：许多人手拿红旗，激动的等待小船上新娘的到来。但是如果你仔细看，你找不到新娘在哪里，却只能看见一台拖拉机。当然你可以认为拖拉机是新娘的嫁妆之一，但是不要忘了这是一幅文革宣传画，在当时一幅公开发行的宣传画上，单纯的展示一场幸福婚礼是不太可能的。
首先，文革时期的宣传画绝对不可能展示那些与革命无关的纯粹的个人幸福，比如说一场幸福的迎亲场面，否则它将被禁止发行，因为这是在宣传腐朽的资产阶级生活方式。几乎所有的文革宣传画都有红旗或者“革命”的字眼，如果你做什么事情，不是为了革命而是为了自己，朋友和亲人将会批评你。
十年文革中，所有的衣服只有两种颜色，“解放绿”和“工人蓝”，因为色彩绚烂的衣服意味着你正在被资产阶级生活方式腐蚀；所有的衣服只有一种样式――著名的“中山装”，据说是国父孙中山总理设计的，他领导人民推翻了中国数千年的君主独裁制度，其他样式的衣服则不够革命；所有的电影和戏曲都被禁止演出，不过八个“革命样板戏”除外，所有的歌曲都是歌颂毛主席和共产党的。按照现在年轻人的观点，10年期间只能一遍又一遍的看这8个样板戏，简直是疯了，不过这就是事实。
其次，当时拖拉机是不可能作为私人财产的，所以它不可能作为嫁妆来炫耀。文革中期，所有的农村都被改编成了一个个公社：大的村庄独立成为一个公社，小的村庄则几个合并成一个公社。所有的土地和农具都被上缴归公社所有，因为据说公社制度更能展示社会主义制度优越性，苏联就是这么做的并且效果非常好。不过由于中国的公社没有清晰有效的管理制度，导致优点并不突出反而缺点一大堆，比如一个劳力干多干少工分一样，再比如说女劳力干得再多也不能得到比男劳力更多的工分。文革后，公社制度废除，村镇制度恢复，但是直到现在老人说起村庄来还是习惯说公社。
所以说，这幅画不是用来讲述一个幸福的婚礼，我相信拖拉机才是真正的新娘。实际上这幅画描述的是，人们用迎接新娘的标准迎接一台拖拉机，而这正是文革中最流行的观点：给传统的习俗赋予革命的含义，这种观点仍然被现在的中国媒体广泛采用，比如CCTV，总是努力展示共产党领导的新中国的伟大和与众不同。
