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Argh argh argh argh argh argh
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j_crew_guy linked me to a thread containing, among other things, a theory on how the Utena movie could be interpreted as a sequel to the Utena series (rather than a retelling).One of the other things is a discussion of Anthy, the evil witch, we hates her, precious. People talking about getting enjoyment out of the million swords of human hatred scene, and how she deserved it when Saionji hit her because she just stood there and took it, and how Saionji must have been right to do so because he was so honorable in other areas of his life.
That's what inspired the title of this post.
a sidenote about Saionji:
*RAGE* NO HE FUCKING WASN'T. A GUY WHO BEATS UP HIS GIRLFRIEND, NO MATTER WHAT THE TECHNICAL TERMINOLOGY, IS NOT HONORABLE.
In addition, at the beginning of the series, Saionji was a deeply fucked up person. He wasn't driven by honor; he was driven by a jealous competition with Touga. He was trying to prove his superiority, and that led him to some reprehensible behavior. He slapped Anthy around to show he was the one in charge, not because she deserved it.
I'm not saying this because I hate Saionji. I don't. But he only mellowed at the end when it came out that Touga had not done the impossible thing Saionji had attributed to him in the first place, and they regained their childhood friendship.
Back to my main point:
To me, if you see Anthy as an evil witch, you've missed the point of the series. You've missed the revolution.
Anthy is called a witch because in the societal trap they're in, any woman who has any independence or exercises any power (ie, is not a victim or "princess") must be a witch. Anthy-the-witch and Anthy-the-victim are perceptions, based on restrictive gender roles, and the revolution is about overthrowing the rules that say that's all she could be.
Utena starts the process of subverting the gender roles by becoming a prince (actually, it could be argued that Juri is the first step of this subversion, masculinizing herself in kind of a "lesbian = man in a woman's body" way, and Utena progresses by desexualizing the definition of prince; a prince as a strong human being as opposed to a straight-man-or-a-lesbian). However, changing the rules so that a woman can be a prince (or a man could be a victim or witch, though why would they want to be?) is not enough.
The key is that Utena cannot save Anthy, and in the end Anthy saves herself. It's not enough for Utena to be a prince; she's not really saving Anthy as long as Anthy is still a princess. You have to toss out the entire paradigm: no more princesses, no more witches, no more princes, because princes are the counterpoint to princesses. If you don't victimize people, you don't need people to save them.
And that's the fucking revolution.
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To me it was just very confusing ^-^'''''
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Hell, it's been too long ^-^'''
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If Akio didn't already have a car, he should be an eighteen-wheeler.
Haven't seen Utena, but
Sounds great. Can we have one?
Re: Haven't seen Utena, but
Re: Haven't seen Utena, but
(Of course, according to *some* people once we overthrow the current gender regime we'll all be wearing grey Maoist-style jumpsuits and have no social lives, so that's taken care of...)
Re: Haven't seen Utena, but
Who needs clothes?
Re: Haven't seen Utena, but
(But, but, how will be able to tell men from women without the pink and blue?)
Re: Haven't seen Utena, but
Re: Haven't seen Utena, but
I'd contemplate making icons, except that modifying pictures is a bit beyond my expertise.
Thank you!
Still, I wish you would post something there too, just to challenge the complacent idiocy of the supposed Utena experts there. But I'd understand if you didn't. After all, I didn't post anything either, just gagged and fumed in private. ^__^
Re: Thank you!
Re: Thank you!
Re: Thank you!
*signs up*
Re: Thank you!
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I always saw it as the typical setup taken one step further into metaphor; someone locked into a certain role meets someone who knows absolutely nothing about that role and therefore proceeds to break the rules, thereby showing the trapped person that there weren't any boundaries to begin with except for the ones that other people made. It tends to happen a lot in yaoi manga, I find, moreso than in fluffy boy-girl romances (strangely, Utena's the only one I've seen it done where both characters are girls, but there's not as much girl stuff out there, I s'pose), but it happens in both, but Utena's really the furthest I've seen it taken, to the point where it is getting across these messages, and to that drastically miss that element... why were they watching the movie OR the series?
It boggles the mind.
(Your essay makes me happy, as does the fact that you posted it there. Yay!)
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Yay social constructionism!
moreso than in fluffy boy-girl romances
It's hard to overturn standard roles in a standard situation?
What yaoi examples can you tell me about?
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Off the top of my head, the one that's coming to mind is a really incredibly disturbing one called Rika the Breeder, but it doesn't entirely fit; at the point where I stopped reading, there was no indication that Rika was going to stop anything simply because of this boy who happened to know absolutely nothing and stand for moral values that didn't exist at the school. (Basic situation, there's a school that's set up its own government, and it's insane, rape and whatnot, and this boy comes in and happens to attract Rika's attention-- and Rika is the "queen" of the gov't, and you can pretty much make assumptions from there, but Rika's not supposed to have normal emotions so he doesn't, and now this boy who declares that everyone should be free and Rika shouldn't have to do these things is his roommate.)
The rest of the ones I'm thinking of are less obvious, more the person who doesn't care about social values seduces the fine upstanding citizen and they realize that being a fine upstanding citizen is less fun because you have to pretend to be straight. Off the top of my head, Golden Cain does that (not well unless you like melodrama, since it's supposed to be serious). In the done well department, Desire has subtle themes of boy who thinks he's straight breaking out of that role to discover he's really not, but it's not the same kind of serious shattering, I think; it's more grounded in the reality of coming out to one's self than in actual social movement. (After reading about homosexuality in Japan, though, I'm tempted to say it counts if they don't do the whole "I'm totally straight even though I love you!" thing.)
I tend to think Utena hits hardest because it's built for that theme, actually; it hits the gender roles and sexuality and all that with one blow. Most of the time I see it in yaoi, it's hopelessly over-dramatized or couched in reality so that you can't see it unless you're really looking for it. Rika might be the closest thing, but, like I said, I never managed to finish it, and from where I left off, it didn't look like there would be a happy ending.
Er. */ramble*
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I suppose I could tape it...
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(Here by way of
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