On the beauty of Magical Girl shows...except with my word vomit wandering elsewhere
I'm currently sloooowly working on a Legally Blonde: The Musical post, so in the mean-time, have THE BEST ESSAY ON THE MAGICAL GIRL GENRE EVER, from Tumblr.
On the importance of Magical Girl Heroines & Weaponized Femininity
Although, as always, I have my own questions about if a piece of media's transformative power can be diminished by the way ( Read more... )
On the importance of Magical Girl Heroines & Weaponized Femininity
Although, as always, I have my own questions about if a piece of media's transformative power can be diminished by the way ( Read more... )
That's a real shame about Utena not being more widely watched, but I would also point out that the Mind Screw elements make it a very, very hard show to watch and deconstruct. It is definitely not a show for everyone. But the final episode is basically Utena giving a big "FUCK YOU" to The Man, and Akio's imperative, and Akio's belittling of her because of her sex, and the "men are heroes, womengirls are damsels" world view when she stands up on the power of her own strength and actually saves Anthy . . . or, rather, gives Anthy the opportunity to save herself. This is the message for all the characters in the show, male or female: You have to take the steps to save yourself. Anthy's final act is to reject the vision that Akio imposes on her and Ohtori in her own "fuck you" sequence. But to get to that scene, you have to slog through so much surrealism and shock elements that you may never get to that point. XD
Here's the problem with consumption. The question of "what" we consume or "what" that product looks like isn't the same as "why" we consume or "how" we consume. That is to say, not everyone is going to be conflicted about enjoying certain types/presentations of fanservice. Where some might view a bit of fanservice as a detraction or "guilty pleasure," others may simply like it, outright, no conflict involved.
I'm not making a judgment statement; what is enjoyable, deplorable, or "guilty" for someone is entirely dependent on that person's personal belief system. For someone questioning their sexuality, for example, bingeing on homosexual narratives may feel like a "guilty" pleasure. Because all of this has to operate within value systems, outsider-insider rules make things really hazy. Let's look at the impositions of the idol system upon the idols themselves. It seems extreme on the negative side of the scale when I look at it, but parts of SK society probably see it as positive, possibly necessary. The pressure on K-pop idols to be unsullied, polite, hard-working, and law-abiding may be lauded by such factions as imperatives because idols, due to their public statuses, serve as role models to the young girls and boys and men and women who look up to them. It's not even evil to ask those things of idols in that case, but simply expected.
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I think that's why it's difficult to ask where to "trim the fat." I mean, what if the "fat" is really the writers' fetishes being put on display and have nothing to do, at its heart, with audience/economic appeal? I often come back to looking at who is telling the story, but that doesn't always inform the "perspective" either. No one would say Joss Whedon isn't feminist in his characterizations, or that Miyazaki doesn't love his badass women, or that Ilene Chaikan didn't make some terrible narrative decisions as a lesbian penning and running a show about lesbians.
Layers and layers, in an interaction between artistic source, the work, and the audience. I mean, I love Pride and Prejudice, the novel and the BBC mini-series. As a gay woman, I loves me some Elizabeth Bennet on the page and Jennifer Ehle on the screen. As a straight woman, my sister loved her some Colin Firth eye candy and Darcy broodiness. As a gay man, . . . I'm not sure what my brother loved about it, but he also really loves it and his reasons may not, in fact, have to do with anything about his being gay. XD P&P is a good novel, with some stylistically juicy lines.
What individuals take away from shows/media/art/etc is so complex, whether it's because of or despite the work itself, and the fact that those two sentiments can exist simultaneously in a fandom kind of points to that dichotomy contributing to broadening the shows appeal. This is bringing it back to the economic part, but that's true. It's like "Lost Girl" and it's playing with heterosexual and homosexual partners for its protagonist: some people enjoy both sides of that coin, but even for those you don't (equally do so), the presence of both elements lets the show stick its feelers into a wider audience.
I mean, by argument, the Lesbian Sweeps Week kiss seemed to be an attempt by shows that appealed primarily to women to pull in a larger male audience. A bit of male gaze interjection, y'know? But lesbians may not necessarily be complaining. (Quinntana!)
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(1) A friend of mine who, like me, is in his fifties, knows some men about our age who several years ago were really into playing the Sailor Moon Collectible Card Game. I have no insight into this.
(2) In my Drunken Tiger review back in 2000 I have an episode at the end where a five-year-old American girl is lip syncing and acting out a Drunken Tiger album despite not knowing Korean. That episode was entirely invented, but it was based on a real girl and drew on the sort of shows she and her next older sister would put on for their mom (my ex gf) and friends down in the rec room. At one point in the review I mention her having practiced Powerpuff Girls moves in front of her TV. In actuality, it was Sailor Moon she'd practiced, over and over, the transformation when Serena twirls and becomes Sailor Moon. She would rewind the video, twirl as Serena twirls and turns into Sailor Moon, then rewind the video again, twirl as Serena twirls and turns into Sailor Moon, again and again and again.
I'm very proud of that review, by the way. I managed simultaneously to be upfront about my not knowing what I was talking about, to nonetheless give some idea how the album sounded, and to talk about the myriad ways we can use music even when we're not part of the audience the music was made for, and don't have a great idea what's going on.
(3) We can't assume that male gazes are monolithic, or that it's clear from an image how it's being gazed at. That's greywing's point, I take it. Also, the issue for "progressives" (or whatever) isn't that men gaze at attractive women, which is not a bad thing in itself (being gazed at and attracting men), but that there's a social imbalance. Everyone needs to appeal to others to survive. Otherwise you don't get fed and don't get people to protect you. But there's a power imbalance that makes women more likely to be economically and socially dependent on men than vice versa, hence more likely to be in a position where they must appeal to men. Even if they're cartoons. But we're all socially dependent on each other, the poor and the disenfranchised being the most dependent. This isn't going to go away. The social gaze is always going to be fraught. But equal pay for equal work and equal rights under the law, and so on, are still the crucial issue. If we get gender equality there, the gazes will be in a different context.
(4) Let's not forget these two:
(Found the Elizabeth in the book to be the most attractive, as opposed to the Elizabeths on TV and in the flicks, though I'd have trouble explaining the sort of attractiveness that lives on the written page. Reading, we're in Elizabeth's head, no matter what sex we are. But also, in the amazing passages when she's over at Bingley's attending to her sick sister, the novel gives us - even while we only hear and see what Elizabeth hears and sees - a sense of her attractiveness, and of Darcy being attracted, despite Elizabeth herself being unaware of all this (either of her own appeal or of Darcy becoming smitten). I assume that most people who love the book feel the attractiveness of Elizabeth especially, but of Darcy too. I can't imagine what the book would be like for someone who didn't feel this, how such a reader could comprehend it.)
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Of course people can personally take away good things from each piece, (such as my enjoyment of all of the series I listed) but the way that the anime industry has become slanted more and more towards moeblob fare for money's sake, and more telling, the sales of sexualized merchandise that accompanies shows, indicates that the primary customer of the industry is not really all that inclined towards a promotion of gender quality in reality.
The individual take-away is one thing, but when it's known that the greater reception of a piece of media is a problematic one, does that reflect on the piece itself? And does that change with time, if the general reception later is different? There are many male fans of anime who explicitly said that they got into anime as horny teenagers because of Sailor Moon's short skirt boobies, but have come to appreciate the artistic/narrative value now, as their priorities in consumption have changed.
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It can be argued that "fat" would be things that distract from the value of the narrative and characters. So there's fanservice of the kind that reinforces character personality or relationship dynamic quirks, and those could be beneficial, and thus not fat, unless it interferes with the narrative value, as what happened with Rinne no Lagrange. (The character fanservice, harmless otherwise, became annoying filler that messed up the pacing of the show)
The more importance there is on the narrative value of a piece of media, the less room there is for fat. A character driven piece has more wiggle room because character-based fanservice is less likely to be fat.
Tentacle monsters will always be fat, unless the value of the media as a whole is explicitly comedy.
The problem here, then, is that the industry's priorities are in favor of fat because the customer is demanding it, even at the expense of narrative/character value. The otaku that support the Battle Royale manga aren't looking for manga/anime to be as well regarded as The Hunger Games, because they love the fat.
But as I said in the OP, can I really condemn them, with my own tastes tending to avoid Oscar-bait media and enjoy my own kind of fanservice shows?
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Can the power of the "weaponized femininity" as described in that magical girls essay be diminished by a majority consumer base that only sees them as dehumanized objects of desire? Is the positives of girls learning to take power in their agency outweighed if more people only reinforce their own views of gender inequality when watching magical girl shows? (It's hard to imagine how they'd do that with Madoka Magica, and yet porn fanart and sexualized merch for them is still popular)
Is there a point at which one has to stop supporting the idol system if it refuses to fix its problems, problems that are a majority part of it? If I focus on the positive elements, but my support will inevitably help the negative elements, isnt' that akin to sticking my head in the sand?
Yes, there are practical points to enforcing a dating ban that are not problematic. However, the reason why the idol dating ban is wrong is that in reality, the existence of the idol dating ban is NOT due to those practical points, but the purity system rooted in gender inequality.
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