Is it time for a feminist post? Sort of.
So, I know that Naruto fandom is breaking out in feminist posts, and I'm sort of surprised I'm not making them. Or getting involved in them. Since that's, you know, sort of my thing. Is this going to be it?!
Well, no. I'll probably get to it eventually, but this is a feminist post of a different flavor. Actually, in general, this is a post of a happy flavor. A somewhat, sometimes feminist flavor, because that's a lens I pack with me in most of my views, but do you want to know what this is really?
Okay, there's a lot I'll probably say about this, and it's going to be rambling, but overall, do you know what it is? Fangirly. What's more, I'm kind of spacy, and not!cranky, but I've been cranky a lot lately. And high on paint fumes, because we've been repainting the dining room and kitchen here at Saro Home. So, um, the point is, well, this might not be my most analytical post ever.
This manga and anime are not perfect, no, but they are awesome. Why are they awesome? Well, for starters, Kyoko is probably one of the funniest, most sympathetic, most interesting female characters I've seen in manga. She is awesome. She's not Balsa or Yoko, but Skip Beat isn't that kind of title. It's actually very different from my standard media consumption--yes, it's a showbiz title. What the hell, me. Well, it's okay, though--it's a showbiz manga where they have battle auras for acting.
Battle auras for acting. How awesome is that?
But here's the thing that makes my feminist self glee. Kyoko starts out a very stereotypical shoujo character. She has these ideas which are plainly unrealistic, and at first, I had a hard time watching (I started with the anime, then moved to the manga), because she was so obviously a doormat. She was so entirely devoted to Sho, and so entirely committed to taking care of him rather than herself, well. I had bad feelings. In the real world, this couldn't end well. And, amazingly enough, within the first episode, it doesn't end well. Devoting her whole self to his success was not a good thing for her to do. It wasn't healthy. It leads to her being hurt very badly, and a part of her she had never realized she had came out.
And she swears her revenge. Yes, a male character does catalyze this, but the messages that came out of this are essentially "don't completely ignore taking care of yourself for someone else--they'll screw you over" and "don't be an entitled ass who takes advantage of women--it's douchy, and she'll respond badly, and it will be your fault."
This sends Kyoko into showbiz. And the narrative (and love interest), make it plain that that's still not the right reason for her to be trying to succeed at something.
Only after she's acting for herself, to improve herself, to learn who she even is since it seemed to be a little lost what with all this focus on Sho, does her reason get full narrative support. Her desire to surpass Sho (And Ren, really) are treated as sympathetic but flawed reasons to act. She only acts well when she's not thinking about that goal.
She has rivalries with many other female characters over acting, over their own goals and ambitions, their love of their craft. Not over men. No, really. It's about their personal growth.
It's sad to say, but that is very rare in media in general. Not just Japanese media, but Western media too. It's about a girl, and it's actually, you know, about her. Whole arcs have nothing to do with romance, or with her revenge. It's about her growth as a person and an actress. It's also, to quite an extent, about her learning to be a healthy person again, after she's been hurt. It's... just awesome.
And hilarious. Have I mentioned hilarious? Kyoko's wrath is such that evil spirits appear and immobilize people, torment people, whatever. Hilarious. My god, those are about the funniest things I've ever seen. Also the Engrish. Skip Beat has some of the best, and most self-aware, Engrish ever.
Taken with the whole, the romantic plot, as it inches along, seems like one facet of a balanced, complex life, rather than the whole focus of her story. It's not about her being hurt, and then someone worthy sweeping in for her to redevote herself to. (At least, not so far, and I would be seriously disappointed if that happened. I think Ren wouldn't appreciate it, either, considering how seriously he takes acting.) It's not just a romance. Romance is fine, but it's not the only thing in Kyoko's life. At all. It's actually not a terribly high priority for her at the moment. She's making friends, going back to school, having a career--with romance, it becomes a very, very balanced life.
Can you hear me getting a little squishy?
Now... are there problems? Yes, there are problems. There's some gender essentialism. Not often, but for example, when the president says that if a man is really in love, he'll be jealous? Er, no. I find that very problematic. Jealousy is a symptom, to me, of insecurity, not of love. You can be jealous of someone you love (in the sense of possessiveness, not envious of someone you love, though you can be that too), but you're not jealous because you love them. You're jealous because you're afraid you'll lose them, and because you can't deal with that. Otherwise healthy people might be jealous. It might be a personality flaw. But it's not proof of love. It's proof of entitlement and fear, and scary possessiveness.
But overall, the problems are relatively minor, and I think often have more to do with cultural differences than anything else. Kyoko wants to be a traditionally feminine girl--a princess, even--but her girliness isn't portrayed in a way that endorses it over other ways of being. There are times when it does seem to be, yes, when it's saying, oh, she's traditional! But... mostly, it helps her when she's playing parts where that is a virtue. And it doesn't really extend to wanting to be saved. She did want her prince, and I imagine by the end of the series, she'll want a prince again, but in general, her femininity, her traditionalness, whatever, is treated as a personality trait. Sometimes a personality flaw. When she covets makeup because she wants to be a princess, it's not treated as right, nor is it (or traditionally feminine virtues) treated as signs she's a ditz. She can be, yes, but it's in a way that doesn't seem particularly gendered, and her naiveté has definitely taken a beating.
It's just... really nice. It makes me happy. It really, really makes me happy. It feels like a rare sympathetic, complex image of a girl who can be girl but doesn't have to be, who can take care of herself, who's determined, and self-motivated, and learning to see herself as a person, and a person who can have real relationships with other people, which being so entirely behind someone else always inhibited. It also manages to show that girls are, in fact, different. And if some of them are catty, it's not because that's how all of them are by nature. It can be odd (I realize that the Japanese have very different ideas about bullying, and that's clear), but it's still always showing an image of a girl who's strong. When something terrible happened to her, and her dream world fell apart, she both stood back up and lived for herself, and she didn't entirely give up on her fairy tale. It's very, very appealing.
And fun.
So fun.
I want icons. >.>
Well, no. I'll probably get to it eventually, but this is a feminist post of a different flavor. Actually, in general, this is a post of a happy flavor. A somewhat, sometimes feminist flavor, because that's a lens I pack with me in most of my views, but do you want to know what this is really?
Okay, there's a lot I'll probably say about this, and it's going to be rambling, but overall, do you know what it is? Fangirly. What's more, I'm kind of spacy, and not!cranky, but I've been cranky a lot lately. And high on paint fumes, because we've been repainting the dining room and kitchen here at Saro Home. So, um, the point is, well, this might not be my most analytical post ever.
This manga and anime are not perfect, no, but they are awesome. Why are they awesome? Well, for starters, Kyoko is probably one of the funniest, most sympathetic, most interesting female characters I've seen in manga. She is awesome. She's not Balsa or Yoko, but Skip Beat isn't that kind of title. It's actually very different from my standard media consumption--yes, it's a showbiz title. What the hell, me. Well, it's okay, though--it's a showbiz manga where they have battle auras for acting.
Battle auras for acting. How awesome is that?
But here's the thing that makes my feminist self glee. Kyoko starts out a very stereotypical shoujo character. She has these ideas which are plainly unrealistic, and at first, I had a hard time watching (I started with the anime, then moved to the manga), because she was so obviously a doormat. She was so entirely devoted to Sho, and so entirely committed to taking care of him rather than herself, well. I had bad feelings. In the real world, this couldn't end well. And, amazingly enough, within the first episode, it doesn't end well. Devoting her whole self to his success was not a good thing for her to do. It wasn't healthy. It leads to her being hurt very badly, and a part of her she had never realized she had came out.
And she swears her revenge. Yes, a male character does catalyze this, but the messages that came out of this are essentially "don't completely ignore taking care of yourself for someone else--they'll screw you over" and "don't be an entitled ass who takes advantage of women--it's douchy, and she'll respond badly, and it will be your fault."
This sends Kyoko into showbiz. And the narrative (and love interest), make it plain that that's still not the right reason for her to be trying to succeed at something.
Only after she's acting for herself, to improve herself, to learn who she even is since it seemed to be a little lost what with all this focus on Sho, does her reason get full narrative support. Her desire to surpass Sho (And Ren, really) are treated as sympathetic but flawed reasons to act. She only acts well when she's not thinking about that goal.
She has rivalries with many other female characters over acting, over their own goals and ambitions, their love of their craft. Not over men. No, really. It's about their personal growth.
It's sad to say, but that is very rare in media in general. Not just Japanese media, but Western media too. It's about a girl, and it's actually, you know, about her. Whole arcs have nothing to do with romance, or with her revenge. It's about her growth as a person and an actress. It's also, to quite an extent, about her learning to be a healthy person again, after she's been hurt. It's... just awesome.
And hilarious. Have I mentioned hilarious? Kyoko's wrath is such that evil spirits appear and immobilize people, torment people, whatever. Hilarious. My god, those are about the funniest things I've ever seen. Also the Engrish. Skip Beat has some of the best, and most self-aware, Engrish ever.
Taken with the whole, the romantic plot, as it inches along, seems like one facet of a balanced, complex life, rather than the whole focus of her story. It's not about her being hurt, and then someone worthy sweeping in for her to redevote herself to. (At least, not so far, and I would be seriously disappointed if that happened. I think Ren wouldn't appreciate it, either, considering how seriously he takes acting.) It's not just a romance. Romance is fine, but it's not the only thing in Kyoko's life. At all. It's actually not a terribly high priority for her at the moment. She's making friends, going back to school, having a career--with romance, it becomes a very, very balanced life.
Can you hear me getting a little squishy?
Now... are there problems? Yes, there are problems. There's some gender essentialism. Not often, but for example, when the president says that if a man is really in love, he'll be jealous? Er, no. I find that very problematic. Jealousy is a symptom, to me, of insecurity, not of love. You can be jealous of someone you love (in the sense of possessiveness, not envious of someone you love, though you can be that too), but you're not jealous because you love them. You're jealous because you're afraid you'll lose them, and because you can't deal with that. Otherwise healthy people might be jealous. It might be a personality flaw. But it's not proof of love. It's proof of entitlement and fear, and scary possessiveness.
But overall, the problems are relatively minor, and I think often have more to do with cultural differences than anything else. Kyoko wants to be a traditionally feminine girl--a princess, even--but her girliness isn't portrayed in a way that endorses it over other ways of being. There are times when it does seem to be, yes, when it's saying, oh, she's traditional! But... mostly, it helps her when she's playing parts where that is a virtue. And it doesn't really extend to wanting to be saved. She did want her prince, and I imagine by the end of the series, she'll want a prince again, but in general, her femininity, her traditionalness, whatever, is treated as a personality trait. Sometimes a personality flaw. When she covets makeup because she wants to be a princess, it's not treated as right, nor is it (or traditionally feminine virtues) treated as signs she's a ditz. She can be, yes, but it's in a way that doesn't seem particularly gendered, and her naiveté has definitely taken a beating.
It's just... really nice. It makes me happy. It really, really makes me happy. It feels like a rare sympathetic, complex image of a girl who can be girl but doesn't have to be, who can take care of herself, who's determined, and self-motivated, and learning to see herself as a person, and a person who can have real relationships with other people, which being so entirely behind someone else always inhibited. It also manages to show that girls are, in fact, different. And if some of them are catty, it's not because that's how all of them are by nature. It can be odd (I realize that the Japanese have very different ideas about bullying, and that's clear), but it's still always showing an image of a girl who's strong. When something terrible happened to her, and her dream world fell apart, she both stood back up and lived for herself, and she didn't entirely give up on her fairy tale. It's very, very appealing.
And fun.
So fun.
I want icons. >.>