...Miyazaki will be at the San Diego Comic Con.
*sulks around at all the people on her flist who are going to be there*
I love Miyazaki's pacifist sensibilities, his consistent refusal to create utterly unsympathetic antagonists (I thought Kushana was fascinating, personally), his stunning artwork, his constant use of strong, well-developed female protagonists in a genre and during a time where women often seem to be treated like crap (or at least treated with a rather strong dosage of Female Stereotypes... assuming, of course, that there are any principle females) by animators. Miyazaki doesn't appear on your typical lists of feminist film-makers, but he really should be. All of his films have contained strong female characters in both starring and auxilary roles. Mononoke Hime's former prostitutes are strong, well-respected workers who prove themselves completely capable of defending themselves militarily (certainly not anything like Verdi's shrinking Violetta...); in Porco Rosso, the rather chauvinistic main character is forced to acknowledge feminine capabilities when his plane is both redesigned and rebuilt by a group of women, who've entered the workforce while the men are gone, presumably to fight in World War II. Suliman, a female original character that appeared in Howl's Moving Castle and is credited with teaching Howl magic, is a high-ranking member of the government. An old woman is the leader of the group of pirates that appears in Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and the women of the valley in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind are shown working right alongside the men. (Truth in Television: Lower-class women have worked alongside their husbands for a long friggin' time, just because they had to. They have had to deal with lower wages, however.) Lin, who is shown as more than capable of holding her own alongside the other bath-house workers, and Zeniba, who turns people into mice and insects and almost kills Haku before her somewhat inexplicable Heel Face Turn later on, (My guess is that whatever happened there would be clearer if I'd seen and understood the Japanese version.) both play important roles, even aside from the stars and primary antagonist, in Spirited Away.
I'm also really attached to his movies because of how uplifting they are. It's not difficult to eke a tear (or a few) out of me with a work that depicts angst, misery, and tragedy; Miyazaki's films definitely aren't fluffy, exactly, but their themes are always optimistic and they don't depict the kinds of horrors that hammer away at my little auto-cry button. ;)
I love Miyazaki's pacifist sensibilities, his consistent refusal to create utterly unsympathetic antagonists (I thought Kushana was fascinating, personally), his stunning artwork, his constant use of strong, well-developed female protagonists in a genre and during a time where women often seem to be treated like crap (or at least treated with a rather strong dosage of Female Stereotypes... assuming, of course, that there are any principle females) by animators. Miyazaki doesn't appear on your typical lists of feminist film-makers, but he really should be. All of his films have contained strong female characters in both starring and auxilary roles. Mononoke Hime's former prostitutes are strong, well-respected workers who prove themselves completely capable of defending themselves militarily (certainly not anything like Verdi's shrinking Violetta...); in Porco Rosso, the rather chauvinistic main character is forced to acknowledge feminine capabilities when his plane is both redesigned and rebuilt by a group of women, who've entered the workforce while the men are gone, presumably to fight in World War II. Suliman, a female original character that appeared in Howl's Moving Castle and is credited with teaching Howl magic, is a high-ranking member of the government. An old woman is the leader of the group of pirates that appears in Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and the women of the valley in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind are shown working right alongside the men. (Truth in Television: Lower-class women have worked alongside their husbands for a long friggin' time, just because they had to. They have had to deal with lower wages, however.) Lin, who is shown as more than capable of holding her own alongside the other bath-house workers, and Zeniba, who turns people into mice and insects and almost kills Haku before her somewhat inexplicable Heel Face Turn later on, (My guess is that whatever happened there would be clearer if I'd seen and understood the Japanese version.) both play important roles, even aside from the stars and primary antagonist, in Spirited Away.
I'm also really attached to his movies because of how uplifting they are. It's not difficult to eke a tear (or a few) out of me with a work that depicts angst, misery, and tragedy; Miyazaki's films definitely aren't fluffy, exactly, but their themes are always optimistic and they don't depict the kinds of horrors that hammer away at my little auto-cry button. ;)