Random Utena thing written in response to something else kept for my notes
Good job noticing the importance of recycled animation in Utena. I think it also ties in to this image of ‘revolution’ not in the sense of social revolution, but in the sense of things revolving. It isn’t just the animation that gets repeated in Utena, imagery (time pieces, eggs, butterflies, cars, elevators, the rose borders around characters) are repeated, characters make the same mistakes over and over again, and there is a lot of imagery of things that spin or make other repetitive movements (like the tablecloth in the Black Rose Saga) or repetitive sounds (the record player Touga listens to in the Black Rose Saga).
Ikuhara said in one of the interviews that the school is supposed to represent society and the way that social ideas and norms are spread and propagated is through repetition. Wish I had some references on this, but people tend to believe things because they are repeated, not necessarily because they are proven to be true. These repetitions become the web that surrounds us and we are, in a sense, bound inside of these meanings. So these repetitions could be seen as the boundaries of the egg that nurtures us (the egg’s shell from the student council’s elevator speech) and at the same time the coffin that contains us. Breaking out of these cycles and finding new meanings outside of the ones that are continually being reproduced in the world around us is, I think, what the revolution in Utena is about.
Of course, if you reject the status quo, then you’re bound to become a social pariah. You can leave society or disregard it, which is, I think, what Anthy does by leaving the school. If you don’t leave on your own, though, you’ll end up being cast out, like Utena is, often through violent means. I think what people sometimes forget is that Utena also made a choice. If she wanted to remain within that world, she could have, as long as she became a Rose Bride (aka a girl). She did not reject this identity as such because she found it unpleasant but because she recognized that it required a sacrifice in the form of Anthy. In seeing Anthy’s pain and in seeing herself in Anthy, Utena was able to reject the identity that Akio wanted to give her, an identity that most shoujo heroines, regardless of how tomboyish they are, often accept in return for the love of a princely man. So in a sense, both Anthy and Utena were able to recognize the problem of their position in this society through each other. If Utena had a hand in saving Anthy, then Anthy also had a hand in saving Utena.
Ikuhara said in one of the interviews that the school is supposed to represent society and the way that social ideas and norms are spread and propagated is through repetition. Wish I had some references on this, but people tend to believe things because they are repeated, not necessarily because they are proven to be true. These repetitions become the web that surrounds us and we are, in a sense, bound inside of these meanings. So these repetitions could be seen as the boundaries of the egg that nurtures us (the egg’s shell from the student council’s elevator speech) and at the same time the coffin that contains us. Breaking out of these cycles and finding new meanings outside of the ones that are continually being reproduced in the world around us is, I think, what the revolution in Utena is about.
Of course, if you reject the status quo, then you’re bound to become a social pariah. You can leave society or disregard it, which is, I think, what Anthy does by leaving the school. If you don’t leave on your own, though, you’ll end up being cast out, like Utena is, often through violent means. I think what people sometimes forget is that Utena also made a choice. If she wanted to remain within that world, she could have, as long as she became a Rose Bride (aka a girl). She did not reject this identity as such because she found it unpleasant but because she recognized that it required a sacrifice in the form of Anthy. In seeing Anthy’s pain and in seeing herself in Anthy, Utena was able to reject the identity that Akio wanted to give her, an identity that most shoujo heroines, regardless of how tomboyish they are, often accept in return for the love of a princely man. So in a sense, both Anthy and Utena were able to recognize the problem of their position in this society through each other. If Utena had a hand in saving Anthy, then Anthy also had a hand in saving Utena.