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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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*signs up*
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