A Study Of The Transmutation Of Father Figures In Post-World War Ⅱ American Cinema

As an art form with wide influence,film not only reflects the aesthetic consciousness and spiritual outlook of a specific country,nation and society,but also forms a correspondence with the public psychology.The family is a miniature political system in which the father is an important ethical player in the family.In patriarchal societies,whose will often represents the will of the entire family,intergenerational relations as an archetype do not emerge in human history but exist in the collective human unconscious.Therefore,starting from film works,this paper uses multidisciplinary research methods to analyze problems,such as psychoanalytic theory,cultural politics,cultural sociology,gender theory and other methods,and carefully analyzes and interprets the transmutation process of the father figure shaping in the film through these theoretical perspectives.American films reveal that the national character of the United States has the characteristics of dynamic pursuit of transcendence and progress,and continuous outward development with a personal posture.Americans have been treating children with the attitude of adults,making them independent and complete individuals,and the younger generation will move out of their original families when they become adults,so Americans’ intergenerational relationships often reflect fractured characteristics,so that each generation has its own typical characteristics.But broken intergenerational relationships have also been challenged differently in different eras,so the father figure in different eras is also different.The thirties and forties of the twentieth century were the period of the Great Depression in the United States,but the film economy was in its golden age,when many directors shot a large number of films showing family harmony in order to express their yearning for a peaceful life,in order to provide hope for the generation traumatized in the era of economic crisis and war.In the sixties and seventies,civil rights were on the rise,and the two sides of the generation often reflected a gloomy,repressive,and extreme posture,and the intergenerational conflict also began to break out significantly at this stage,beginning to dissolve and subvert the father figure.In the eighties and nineties,people began to reflect on themselves,and the turbulent sixties made people realize the beauty of the family,and the father gradually changed the way he got along with his children,so people wanted to return to the family and re-establish the status of fathers.Since the beginning of the new century,the portrayal of the father has moved away from the image of authority and stubbornness,and has begun to become gentle and even humble.However,as far as the father-based image based on the nationality is concerned,such changes still do not have universal significance in the shaping of the father’s image in the film,and the overall is still a manifestation of intergenerational differences based on the fracture.The portrayal of traditional fatherhood in cinema still has widespread acceptance.Under the multiple influences of political economy,legislative policy,social life and multiculturalism,coupled with the continuous pressure of children on their parents,the father has caused a huge identity anxiety of the father,and the relationship between the confused and aphasic father figure and the child gradually drifts away,so the shaping of the father image in the movie gets rid of the characteristics of the controlling father image,and gradually changes from an authoritative dominant father to a gentle companion father.The final chapter of the article is a reflection on the value and limitations of the father figure in American cinema.The father figure in American movies has changed from an authoritative dominant father to a wise companion father,reflecting social and cultural changes,transmitting family values,and promoting social diversification,and Hollywood film creation helps promote the development and progress of social culture.However,under the capitalist patriarchy,it can be seen from the transmutation of the father figure that the father figure often has typical symbolic characteristics,emphasizing the dominant position of men in the family.To some extent,the father figure in American movies further strengthens the existence and influence of capitalist patriarchy,and compared with the impact of liberalism on the extremely individualized development of children’s growth,its limitations increase the discrete characteristics of society,making people lose their relatively unified national value beliefs.