It's Awesome 70s Shoujo Week!

[merin_chan]

This week I've been really enjoying reading the posts that starlady38 and marshtide have been serving up on 70s shoujo manga (most recent only linked here; check around!). I wanted to contribute too, but sadly I've read very little 70s shoujo manga beyond Rose of Versailles. Then I remembered: ah, Kaze to Ki no Uta! I've watched the anime, at least

Comments

[starlady38]

Ugh, Saito Tamaki.

It’s not just same-sex desire that’s interesting here, but desire that moves across the sex/gender complex into a paradoxically asexual, androgynous sensuality. It’s…how can I say it…an other-sexed desire, not hetero- or completely homo-, nor even necessarily -sexual as we understand it. It’s the passage between these polarized positions we are expected to occupy.

Yeah, I think you're right about this.

[merin_chan]

Ugh, Saito Tamaki.

I was going to use that quote in my SGMS paper, but I couldn't fit it in. He's everywhere in the Japanese criticism I've been reading lately too. Had to get the annoyance out somehow!

[ext_237707]

Yes, I think you're onto something there. And that sort of boundary-crossing feels absolutely key to the series that we've been talking about.

I haven't actually seen/read this series, but I've read about it and talked with fans about it, and it seems interesting (but like something that it might be hard for me to watch - yeah, even though it is on some level not actually that different from Oniisama E). I guess it falls in with a lot of the other 70s stuff which is problematic on some gender or sexuality level but which still has this feeling of trying to tackle something and ends up being a lot more interesting than reading modern BL or yuri or whatever anyway.

[merin_chan]

Glad to hear from you! I wanted to leave a comment on some of your posts, but I haven't joined the exodus to dreamwidth yet.

You're right, what's interesting about the 70s manga we're talking about is seeing how people were working through gender and sexuality issues that really came to the social fore in the 60s, but without yet knowing how to handle them. It comes off as politically wrong-footed sometimes (the whole "child abuse" thing...), but I think the gestures they made towards queer relationships, with all their evasions and distancing and fantastic settings, are interesting as a kind of speech about sexual/gender identity that can't yet say itself. That's a position many people are still in today, so I think it has resonance.

Now I really want to read Oniisama E too! I'll check it out as soon as I get a few minutes.

[rax]

Here via a friend!

No, what I’m saying is, classic shounen-ai works like Kaze to Ki no Uta depict not male or female gendered bodies, not straight or gay absolute opposed essences, but literally Bodies without Organs: ways of generating and moving desire across the stratifications of societies that embody power in particular ways.

This is amazing; that's an awesome connection.

He is unwilling to have sex with the emotionally-shattered Gilbert, but thrilled to lie with him in bed in a hurt/comfort capacity, experiencing a sort of chaste, drifting ecstasy.

In the context of the above, this reminds me strongly of the desire-without-pleasure idea that comes out of masochism in "How Do You Become A Body Without Organs?" I dunno if there's anywhere useful to go with that or not.

Mind if I friend you?

[merin_chan]

Nice to meet you! By all means, let's friend. It's always great to meet others at the intersections of theory and anime.

In the context of the above, this reminds me strongly of the desire-without-pleasure idea that comes out of masochism in "How Do You Become A Body Without Organs?" I dunno if there's anywhere useful to go with that or not.

You've got it exactly. That chapter of A Thousand Plateaus was in the back of my mind as I was writing this, and I've written about it before here. When it comes to thinking about Kaze (and other shounen-ai with similar dynamics), the BwO has great potential, I think. ^^

[rax]

Oh wow that post is great too! I think --- not that I've thought about this except in the last few minutes --- that if I wanted to dig further into the limits of the transgressions there, and wanted to stay in D&G, I'd look at de- and re-territorialization? You may already have gone there, of course.

Anime's on the outskirts of my academic interests (though I also, you know, watch it!) but I will definitely pass this on to my colleague/friend who is doing research on crossplay and was recently lamenting that she wasn't able to avoid D&G and had to find something to do with them. :)

[merin_chan]

if I wanted to dig further into the limits of the transgressions there, and wanted to stay in D&G, I'd look at de- and re-territorialization?

I wasn't thinking exactly down those lines...more along lines of flight. ^^ But of course they're closely related concepts, so I should keep those terms in mind.

I will definitely pass this on to my colleague/friend who is doing research on crossplay

Ooh, fun topic! Please do.