[✐fan essay] “Brands” Companion Essay: Cultural Crossroads and Malik's Clothing
Let's talk about Malik's clothes. I'd post pictures, but the computer my scanner works with is acting up, and if you don't know what Malik looks like I have no idea how you found this journal. (Stick around, however. By all means.)
Okay. First off, I'm just going to get the joke over with: when all is said and done, Battle City is really just one big smackdown over who gets to see Malik with his shirt off. Trufax. (Kaiba has no idea, poor guy.) He also wears progressively less clothing in the manga, bit by bit (at least until he yamis out). This will become important later.
Malik's normal character design is really freaking weird. I guess nothing is technically “weird” in the Yugioh universe, but seriously, man, what is that shirt supposed to be, kudos for making it work....yet the most intriguing thing about Malik's normal character design for me is the way it pretty blatantly demonstrates a conflict inside him that's never explicitly stated. Malik is a character at the borders, with a personality influenced equally by Western and Arabic sensibilities (or at least Takahashi-ancient-Egyptian-sensibilities, introducing a time divide as well - presumably he learned modern Arabic in the tombs for...some reason...or else his surviving and thriving in the present day is an even bigger fluke. [1]). As far as xenophobia in Yugioh goes, I somehow find it even more deeply troubling than Bandit Keith's entire existence that when Malik visits the surface for the first time, he's drawn not to things that might be more classically modern Egyptian - though the Egyptians themselves (whose current revolution I am following closely, best of luck to them) are a country at a crossroads [2] - but to things that are not only Western, but almost pathetically 1950s American. Television and motorcycles? Give the boy a James Dean poster, though also give him kudos for having a goal in life as opposed to those icons. In a way it's kind of sad that modern Egypt just doesn't leave an impression on him the way the Western influences in the society do. Yet despite my being troubled that the modern version of Malik's own culture apparently holds no appeal, that American persona and everything it stands for - modern, 'independent' (in quotes because he's got everyone at his beck and call), dissatisfied - is very much a part of who Malik becomes [3].
He retains a lot of the sensibilities and certainly the sense of duty he learned as a Tombkeeper, however, despite twisting these sensibilities for the polar opposite goal, and here's where his clothes come in. By nature of his existence as a Tombkeeper who's drawn to the modern world, Malik's placed in a divided situation, which happens to overlap with overarching cross-cultural struggles that have been going on both in history and in far better-written literature for thousands of years. [4] I divide it up in the fanfiction I'm twinning this essay to - in fact, I hope that reading that fanfiction renders reading this essay moot, as I'm basically just explaining what should be clear in the story - but for the sake of this essay standing alone let's go over it again. Where his sister wears clothing that's clearly influenced by Takahashi's ancient-Egypt aesthetic - Isis is ancient Egypt assimilated into the modern world, how she got the country's most important archaeological position as a twenty-year-old woman is beyond me [5] and someday I will likely write Isis Ishtar, Accidental Feminist Icon for Modern Egyptian Women fanfic-and Rishid wears Ghouls clothing (itself sort of semi-Egyptian-flavored randomness, insofar as an eye and a chain makes something “Egyptian”), Malik when out and about sort of screams CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE. He's got his father's earrings on (or at least the same make, though I can see him Making a Statement by piercing his ears before he leaves the tomb) and the eye markings (presumably kohl) he gained after the initiation, he's decked himself out in gold - in Yugioh evocative both of kingliness and of ancient Egypt - but he's all Western from the waist down and, as stated, what the hell is that shirt. A too-short sleeveless lilac hoodie with...gold chains on it. There's a mishmash if I've ever seen one. He tucks his Millennium Item in the back of his belt. In the manga, at least for a while, he also wears pinky rings (granted, in Takahashi's Egypt so do some of the others-I don't know the actual history of Egyptian jewelry). Yet probably just because it's Yugioh, he manages to pull the divide off as viable attire.
In the manga, he also has to hide the ties to ancient Egypt - the jewelry - bit by bit as he heads out into the world. We first see him in the Ghouls cloak, wearing a diadem to boot - the Ghouls outfits, as said, evoke Egypt while not really being that Egyptian, though he does have a fair bit of gold on underneath the cloak. He loses that, in any case, to travel by motorcycle to Domino, during which phase he's got on all the jewelry we expect from the anime plus pinky rings and a black undershirt that the anime left out but I think makes more sense for his character. He wears the jewelry up through his meeting with the Ring Spirit, after which point he apparently, in addition to dragging Ryou's unconscious body to his motorcycle, thought to take all of his jewelry but the earrings and pinky rings off and sequestered it...somewhere (the enormous pockets of his cargo pants?). When Jounouchi and Anzu meet him, then, he's still clearly foreign (skin tone alone betrays that) but he's apparently considered it important that he not look too “Egyptian”. Or too like a king, which probably makes more sense, but the additional implication comes along for the ride. By the time he's meeting Yugi in person he's even dropped the pinky rings.
The jewelry comes back in full force (though I actually am not sure about the rings...) when his dark half takes over, who apparently also has access to capespace....at least in the manga he's already wearing the black shirt and he doesn't change his pants....wardrobe impossibilities aside, Yami Malik is the same mix of Western and “Eastern”, though expressed differently by the addition of the cape - and is made stronger by the fact Malik is divided inside, so small wonder he also reflects this. He skews Egyptian because Egyptian also = magic, but the “what the hell is this” shirt is gone in favor of just the black top, which is a very American cut. Malik's first act when he regains his body is to ditch the cape, and here my metaphor falls apart a little unless we take that to mean renouncing his right to some sort of kinghood...but by the time Malik has the body back he's also made his peace with who he is, at least for the moment.
A really weird thing happens at the end of the final arc re: Malik's clothing. His new outfit is almost completely Western, though he's kept the makeup and the earrings, but he's carrying himself more like his sister and has more traditional “Takahashi-Egyptian” sensibilities. The clash has altered. He's wearing one thing and behaving like the other and yet it all feels so much more natural than decking himself out in gold - and he's still got cuff bracelets, mimicking “Egyptian” without having to actually go the precious-metals route. Since he's not suddenly in all-out Egyptian clothes it's hardly like he's denying the other side of himself, but they've found a way to coexist without having to be patchwork about it. I love this outfit but I also still love to laugh at it. He couldn't scream I AM A BIKER BOY WHO WANTS YOU TO KNOW THIS any more if he tried.
I know that was a far more verbose way of making my point than it needed to be, but I hope it was more entertaining for that. I also know that it's reading way, way, waaay too much into Yugioh, and the normal disclaimer that “I don't believe Takahashi intended any of this, except maybe the king thing, but he does seem to really pay a lot of attention to what his characters wear” applies. It's important to look at the accidental implications within a work, though, and while I feel a little guilty about representing an honest, real cultural struggle several societies have had to grapple with as a result of Western society pretty insistently trying to assimilate everything into itself as a villain in a children's comic it's an interesting backdrop against which to set the story. I want “ten years later” canon so very, very badly for this series, you have no idea - I really want to find out what becomes of him, because I can see both his sense of duty being properly realigned and this more Western-curious side of him causing more trouble for him because he's trying to live with a foot in both doors. By the looks of him in the final arc, though, Malik's pulling it off, so more power to him. That's more than a lot of people have been able to do.
Footnotes! oh god i'm pathetic
[1] Think about it. He speaks, presumably, ancient Egyptian-though on second thought perhaps he can pick up languages via brainwashing people fluent in them, which might explain why he can communicate with the rest of the cast, who speak Japanese. He lives in the Valley of the Kings, a freaking desert. He has been above ground exactly once, and probably wasn't keeping track of the way to town if there are even landmarks because OH GOD SUNLIGHT I CAN SEE FOREVER. If he and Rishid (who himself nearly died the previous day and thus has some heavy back damage) leave the tomb at night to start off on their Grand Revenge Quest, probability states they wander into the desert and are never heard from again. Aaaand now I want “Malik and Rishid get rescued by a tour group” fic. Wonderful.
[2] I have no idea how accurate a representation of the Eygptian identity in crisis this blog post is, but I find it oddly haunting. It actually sounds almost Malik-y in the frustration. Okay, it technically sounds like Brunch, who tends to extrapolate a bit more than perhaps he canonically should, but he's thirteen oh god he had an in-game birthday he's all growed up fourteen, angry fourteen-year-olds symbolize a lot.
[3] I love that he's inquisitive about how photographs are made, too. I can very easily see child Malik wanting to take EVERYTHING APART to SEE HOW IT WORKS - though I probably do go too far by attributing all the superfluous technology associated with dueling Rare Hunters in the anime to Malik having this OH MY GOD THIS IS SO COOL tech junkie streak. In addition to a SETTING THE PERFECT STAGE, MUAHAHA streak. Movie-director!Malik fic where?
[4] If you found this essay interesting at all, run, don't walk to the nearest library or bookstore and purchase a copy of Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red. While dense, it is the most beautiful, evocative murder mystery about painters in the Ottoman Empire you will ever read. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on this and one other book, and the interpretation of Malik's situation giving rise to this essay is probably colored quite a bit by that experience.
[5] Actually, I have my theories. And following the exploits of the actual man currently holding her governmental position is a scream. Personality-wise he's a bit of the anti-Isis, very full of himself and a camera hog, but it's cute to imagine Isis doing some of the PR things he does, like writing letters to American children after giving them museum tours. (She probably wouldn't have agreed to the History Channel reality TV series contract, however.)
Okay. First off, I'm just going to get the joke over with: when all is said and done, Battle City is really just one big smackdown over who gets to see Malik with his shirt off. Trufax. (Kaiba has no idea, poor guy.) He also wears progressively less clothing in the manga, bit by bit (at least until he yamis out). This will become important later.
Malik's normal character design is really freaking weird. I guess nothing is technically “weird” in the Yugioh universe, but seriously, man, what is that shirt supposed to be, kudos for making it work....yet the most intriguing thing about Malik's normal character design for me is the way it pretty blatantly demonstrates a conflict inside him that's never explicitly stated. Malik is a character at the borders, with a personality influenced equally by Western and Arabic sensibilities (or at least Takahashi-ancient-Egyptian-sensibilities, introducing a time divide as well - presumably he learned modern Arabic in the tombs for...some reason...or else his surviving and thriving in the present day is an even bigger fluke. [1]). As far as xenophobia in Yugioh goes, I somehow find it even more deeply troubling than Bandit Keith's entire existence that when Malik visits the surface for the first time, he's drawn not to things that might be more classically modern Egyptian - though the Egyptians themselves (whose current revolution I am following closely, best of luck to them) are a country at a crossroads [2] - but to things that are not only Western, but almost pathetically 1950s American. Television and motorcycles? Give the boy a James Dean poster, though also give him kudos for having a goal in life as opposed to those icons. In a way it's kind of sad that modern Egypt just doesn't leave an impression on him the way the Western influences in the society do. Yet despite my being troubled that the modern version of Malik's own culture apparently holds no appeal, that American persona and everything it stands for - modern, 'independent' (in quotes because he's got everyone at his beck and call), dissatisfied - is very much a part of who Malik becomes [3].
He retains a lot of the sensibilities and certainly the sense of duty he learned as a Tombkeeper, however, despite twisting these sensibilities for the polar opposite goal, and here's where his clothes come in. By nature of his existence as a Tombkeeper who's drawn to the modern world, Malik's placed in a divided situation, which happens to overlap with overarching cross-cultural struggles that have been going on both in history and in far better-written literature for thousands of years. [4] I divide it up in the fanfiction I'm twinning this essay to - in fact, I hope that reading that fanfiction renders reading this essay moot, as I'm basically just explaining what should be clear in the story - but for the sake of this essay standing alone let's go over it again. Where his sister wears clothing that's clearly influenced by Takahashi's ancient-Egypt aesthetic - Isis is ancient Egypt assimilated into the modern world, how she got the country's most important archaeological position as a twenty-year-old woman is beyond me [5] and someday I will likely write Isis Ishtar, Accidental Feminist Icon for Modern Egyptian Women fanfic-and Rishid wears Ghouls clothing (itself sort of semi-Egyptian-flavored randomness, insofar as an eye and a chain makes something “Egyptian”), Malik when out and about sort of screams CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE. He's got his father's earrings on (or at least the same make, though I can see him Making a Statement by piercing his ears before he leaves the tomb) and the eye markings (presumably kohl) he gained after the initiation, he's decked himself out in gold - in Yugioh evocative both of kingliness and of ancient Egypt - but he's all Western from the waist down and, as stated, what the hell is that shirt. A too-short sleeveless lilac hoodie with...gold chains on it. There's a mishmash if I've ever seen one. He tucks his Millennium Item in the back of his belt. In the manga, at least for a while, he also wears pinky rings (granted, in Takahashi's Egypt so do some of the others-I don't know the actual history of Egyptian jewelry). Yet probably just because it's Yugioh, he manages to pull the divide off as viable attire.
In the manga, he also has to hide the ties to ancient Egypt - the jewelry - bit by bit as he heads out into the world. We first see him in the Ghouls cloak, wearing a diadem to boot - the Ghouls outfits, as said, evoke Egypt while not really being that Egyptian, though he does have a fair bit of gold on underneath the cloak. He loses that, in any case, to travel by motorcycle to Domino, during which phase he's got on all the jewelry we expect from the anime plus pinky rings and a black undershirt that the anime left out but I think makes more sense for his character. He wears the jewelry up through his meeting with the Ring Spirit, after which point he apparently, in addition to dragging Ryou's unconscious body to his motorcycle, thought to take all of his jewelry but the earrings and pinky rings off and sequestered it...somewhere (the enormous pockets of his cargo pants?). When Jounouchi and Anzu meet him, then, he's still clearly foreign (skin tone alone betrays that) but he's apparently considered it important that he not look too “Egyptian”. Or too like a king, which probably makes more sense, but the additional implication comes along for the ride. By the time he's meeting Yugi in person he's even dropped the pinky rings.
The jewelry comes back in full force (though I actually am not sure about the rings...) when his dark half takes over, who apparently also has access to capespace....at least in the manga he's already wearing the black shirt and he doesn't change his pants....wardrobe impossibilities aside, Yami Malik is the same mix of Western and “Eastern”, though expressed differently by the addition of the cape - and is made stronger by the fact Malik is divided inside, so small wonder he also reflects this. He skews Egyptian because Egyptian also = magic, but the “what the hell is this” shirt is gone in favor of just the black top, which is a very American cut. Malik's first act when he regains his body is to ditch the cape, and here my metaphor falls apart a little unless we take that to mean renouncing his right to some sort of kinghood...but by the time Malik has the body back he's also made his peace with who he is, at least for the moment.
A really weird thing happens at the end of the final arc re: Malik's clothing. His new outfit is almost completely Western, though he's kept the makeup and the earrings, but he's carrying himself more like his sister and has more traditional “Takahashi-Egyptian” sensibilities. The clash has altered. He's wearing one thing and behaving like the other and yet it all feels so much more natural than decking himself out in gold - and he's still got cuff bracelets, mimicking “Egyptian” without having to actually go the precious-metals route. Since he's not suddenly in all-out Egyptian clothes it's hardly like he's denying the other side of himself, but they've found a way to coexist without having to be patchwork about it. I love this outfit but I also still love to laugh at it. He couldn't scream I AM A BIKER BOY WHO WANTS YOU TO KNOW THIS any more if he tried.
I know that was a far more verbose way of making my point than it needed to be, but I hope it was more entertaining for that. I also know that it's reading way, way, waaay too much into Yugioh, and the normal disclaimer that “I don't believe Takahashi intended any of this, except maybe the king thing, but he does seem to really pay a lot of attention to what his characters wear” applies. It's important to look at the accidental implications within a work, though, and while I feel a little guilty about representing an honest, real cultural struggle several societies have had to grapple with as a result of Western society pretty insistently trying to assimilate everything into itself as a villain in a children's comic it's an interesting backdrop against which to set the story. I want “ten years later” canon so very, very badly for this series, you have no idea - I really want to find out what becomes of him, because I can see both his sense of duty being properly realigned and this more Western-curious side of him causing more trouble for him because he's trying to live with a foot in both doors. By the looks of him in the final arc, though, Malik's pulling it off, so more power to him. That's more than a lot of people have been able to do.
Footnotes! oh god i'm pathetic
[1] Think about it. He speaks, presumably, ancient Egyptian-though on second thought perhaps he can pick up languages via brainwashing people fluent in them, which might explain why he can communicate with the rest of the cast, who speak Japanese. He lives in the Valley of the Kings, a freaking desert. He has been above ground exactly once, and probably wasn't keeping track of the way to town if there are even landmarks because OH GOD SUNLIGHT I CAN SEE FOREVER. If he and Rishid (who himself nearly died the previous day and thus has some heavy back damage) leave the tomb at night to start off on their Grand Revenge Quest, probability states they wander into the desert and are never heard from again. Aaaand now I want “Malik and Rishid get rescued by a tour group” fic. Wonderful.
[2] I have no idea how accurate a representation of the Eygptian identity in crisis this blog post is, but I find it oddly haunting. It actually sounds almost Malik-y in the frustration. Okay, it technically sounds like Brunch, who tends to extrapolate a bit more than perhaps he canonically should, but he's thirteen oh god he had an in-game birthday he's all growed up fourteen, angry fourteen-year-olds symbolize a lot.
[3] I love that he's inquisitive about how photographs are made, too. I can very easily see child Malik wanting to take EVERYTHING APART to SEE HOW IT WORKS - though I probably do go too far by attributing all the superfluous technology associated with dueling Rare Hunters in the anime to Malik having this OH MY GOD THIS IS SO COOL tech junkie streak. In addition to a SETTING THE PERFECT STAGE, MUAHAHA streak. Movie-director!Malik fic where?
[4] If you found this essay interesting at all, run, don't walk to the nearest library or bookstore and purchase a copy of Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red. While dense, it is the most beautiful, evocative murder mystery about painters in the Ottoman Empire you will ever read. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on this and one other book, and the interpretation of Malik's situation giving rise to this essay is probably colored quite a bit by that experience.
[5] Actually, I have my theories. And following the exploits of the actual man currently holding her governmental position is a scream. Personality-wise he's a bit of the anti-Isis, very full of himself and a camera hog, but it's cute to imagine Isis doing some of the PR things he does, like writing letters to American children after giving them museum tours. (She probably wouldn't have agreed to the History Channel reality TV series contract, however.)