What are the underlying thematics of Princess Mononoke?
According to Napier, how does this anime problematise traditional (or conservative) constructions of gender, class and race?
I guess there two most important elements in this film.
As Napier (2005) explains, 'Miyazaki's work deals with the loss of a Japan that existed before the patriarchal stystem, a Japan in which nature, rather than humans, ruled.' Therefore, the first is that human beings' lives without nature is hopeless and miserable that we should live in harmony with nature as well as protect it. This is also seen by the director, Miyazaki, puts so much efforts on depicting the beauty of nature and it seemed the people in village lived in happy moments as when the nature was alive as opposed to they were in despair as the nature dies.
The second is that the important role of females that can do things as much as men do. There are more female main characters than man and those are all in powerful position or take important job/duty in the film. Female characters in the film, Lady Eboshi, San, and Moro are all portrayed as very strong yet also possess feminine beauty. For example, Tatara, the town, is ruled and managed by Lady Eboshi.
In comparison, the forest is ruled by a deerlike presence known as the Shishigami. Again, both are ruled by the one who are in the power, but the importance of the nature lies in that humans or even its the leader of Lady Eboshi, can do anything if the nature is destroyed by the humans desire.
This is futher supported by Napier (2005), the most important is one of subversion and defamiliarization. The film defamiliarizes two important icons in Japanese culture, the myth of the feminine as long-suffering and supportive and the myth of the Japanese as living in harmony with nature, often expressed through a union of the feminine with the natural.
How does it 'defamiliarise' its historical setting, according to Napier (2005)?
The plot of this film is not based on an actual historical event but in a sense of Japanese culture and society in notions of a history as belonging only to the court and the samurai warrior aristocracy and the idealized concepts of the premodern Japanese as a homogeneous race living in harmony with nature.
Napier, S. (2005). Anime: from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
A great resonse to the first question - which in a sense is connected to the second.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I really like about Miyazaki's films is the way he depicts women. His film Spirited Away shows the main character, Chihiro, at first as an immature, whiny child and then as she progresses into a mature and hard-working person. His films have lots of great strong women roles like this. This film, Princess Mononoke is the best example of this. Also in Howls Moving Castle the protagnonist is Sophie, a shy young girl who, throughout the film, grows stronger and is able to accept herself for who she is. Great role models for young girls.
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