Green hat

Green Hat can refer to:

Cuckold

A cuckold (sometimes shortened to cuck) is the husband of an adulterous wife. In evolutionary biology, the term is also applied to males who are unwittingly investing parental effort in offspring that are not genetically their own.

History of the term

The word "cuckold" derives from the cuckoo bird, alluding to its habit of laying its eggs in other birds' nests. The association is common in medieval folklore, literature, and iconography.

English usage first appears about 1250 in the satirical and polemical poem "The Owl and the Nightingale" (l. 1544). The term was clearly regarded as embarrassingly direct, as evident in John Lydgate's "Fall of Princes" (c. 1440). In the late 14th century, the term also appeared in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale". Shakespeare's poetry often referred to cuckolds, with several of his characters suspecting they had become one.

The female equivalent "cuckquean" first appears in English literature in 1562, adding a female suffix to the "cuck". One often overlooked subtlety of the word is that it implies that the husband is "deceived", that he is unaware of his wife's unfaithfulness and may not know until the arrival or growth of a child plainly not his (as with cuckoo birds).

Green Hat

Green Hat (Chinese: 绿帽子; pinyin: lǜ màozǐ) (also known as The Green Hat) is a Chinese film from 2003 and the debut of screenwriter Liu Fendou. Starring Li Congxi, Liao Fan, and Dong Lifan, the film tells the story of two men, one a bank robber, and one a police officer and their shared problem of unfaithful partners. In China, the phrase "wearing a green hat", refers to a cuckold. The film features full-frontal male nudity.

The film was well received by both critics and festival audiences, notably at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival where it won a prize for Best Narrative Feature.

Plot

Wang Yao (Liao Fan) is a criminal. Along with two friends, he prepares one last heist with the plan that he will head to the United States afterward for a reunion with a girlfriend he has not seen in two years. After the successful robbery of a bank, Wang stops at a small grocery store to call his girlfriend, who ceremoniously dumps him. Distraught, Wang takes the grocery store's proprietor hostage when she demands payment for the long-distance phone call. When the police arrives, one of their number (Li Congxi) offers to take the place of the hostage. Wang agrees, and then promptly commits suicide after asking the shocked officer, "What is love?"