Hannah Collins – Bitch Flicks

The Future of Anime Is Female: ‘Yuri!!! On Ice’s Director Sayo Yamamoto

Thankfully, this hasn’t stopped animator/director Sayo Yamamoto from not only surviving over the past two decades — but thriving. And in style. Like Attack on Titan, Yamamoto’s ‘Yuri!!! On Ice’ has become a breakout hit, and amazingly, it’s only her third time as a series director. … Yamamoto’s success as a woman director shouldn’t be the exception to the rule in the anime industry.

This guest post written by Hannah Collins appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

The meteoric global success of Mokoto Shinkai’s feature-length anime, Your Name, coupled with recent news that anime streaming service, Crunchyroll, now has over 1 million subscribers, might lead most to believe that the anime machine is chugging along nicely at the moment. The reality is unfortunately very different for those doing all the hard work to keep that machine churning to meet rabid fan demand. These success stories punctuate a general aura of “doom and gloom” that has hung over the Japanese animation industry for several years now. The workload is unreasonably high, the pay is unreasonably low, and intense pressure to succeed has even proved fatal for some.

Industry legend and beloved grandfather of anime, Hayao Miyazaki, isn’t known for his sunny disposition at the best of times in regards to the future of his trade, made all the more evident by this tweet in 2011. Surprise, surprise — the “end times” for a male-dominated field are apparently signaled by women trying to muscle their way in. Miyazaki wrote:

“They say it’s over for animation in Japan. When we look for new hires only women respond, and I get the feeling that we’re done for. In our last hurrah we borrow from outside staff (i.e. outsource), but soon we won’t be able to do that forever.”

Considering his championing of strong-willed, independent heroines throughout his body of work, this statement was all the more disheartening. Working in such a toxic environment is tough enough, but for Japan’s female population, who still earn up to 30% less than their male counterparts (60% less for working mothers) and are now even labeled as symptoms of its stagnation by male industry leaders, the odds are doubly stacked against them to survive.

Thankfully, this hasn’t stopped animator/director Sayo Yamamoto from not only surviving over the past two decades — but thriving. And in style. Like Attack on Titan, Yamamoto’s Yuri!!! On Ice has become a breakout hit, and amazingly, it’s only her third time as a series director. For those who’ve only dipped their toe into the weird and wonderful world of “Japanimation,” her name might not ring any bells, but the shows and films she’s worked on prior to Yuri!!! On Ice most likely will. Beginning with CLAMP’s “X” in 2001, Yamamoto has storyboarded and/or directed episodes of some of the most popular shows of the past decade, including Space Dandy, Psycho-Pass, Highschool of the Dead, Gunslinger Girl, Eureka Seven, Death Note, Ergo Proxy and Attack On Titan, as well as films Redline and Neon Genesis Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance.

In 2004, she got her first big break as a director, helming several episodes of Samurai Champloo under the tutelage of the legendary Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop), an experience that would prove to be hugely influential on her. In the screencaps below, you can see her playful experiments with different styles developing through her work.

Fast-forward four years, Yamamoto is given her next even bigger break: an opportunity to direct a whole series. This was 2008’s Michiko & Hatchin, an action-packed, crime-caper across a Brazilian-inspired land that saw the young and sheltered, Michiko, team up with the dangerous and sultry, Hana, in search of a missing man from their pasts.

Though the series was sadly financially unsuccessful, it garnered enough praise for Yamamoto to be offered another series in 2012, commemorating the 40th anniversary of Lupin III. Never one to follow expectation, Yamamoto opted to craft an origin story, not around the eponymous gentleman thief, but around his love interest and rival, Fujiko Mine, instead. This became the cult series, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. Similarly to Michiko & Hatchin, Yamamoto was given full creative freedom, allowing her bold, pop art-inflected visuals and thematic fixations — feminine sensuality, comedy, multiculturalism and complex, queer relationships — to begin to blossom.

Yamamoto’s continuing exploration of eroticism through a female gaze is particularly important within a medium infamous for leering “panty shots” and unwanted groping being normalized and excused as “fan service,” with too many female characters swinging between either hypersexualisation or infantilization. During an AnimeFest panel in 2012, Yamamoto made no secret of what attracted her to Fujiko Mine as a character:

“In almost every chapter or episode [of ‘Lupin’] there were some sort of naked female somewhere in there. I felt that the recent TV series animation was really aimed at kids, made intentionally with kids in mind. So I wanted to go back in history and bring back the original manga, how I felt it was intended to be entertaining to adults. […] When I was growing up watching Fujiko in the original series of ‘Lupin’, I always watched her with anticipation of when she was going to take off her clothes.”

The key word here is “adult.” Sexual content alone is not the problem; it’s the context and tenor of that content. Too often in anime and manga, sexuality and “ecchi” humor fixate on teenage characters with a similarly teenage sensibility. Yamamoto, however, crafts stories about adults for adults, with a suitably mature and artful understanding of the power and mystique of sensuality — both heterosexual and queer.

Considering Yamamoto’s female-focused track record, directing a series like Yuri!!! On Ice — a show about professional male ice skaters — seemed like an odd move. But, despite men taking center-stage, Yamamoto was characteristically careful not to underrepresent women throughout the series. Also, considering the show falls into the shonen-ai or “Boys Love” (BL) genre (stories about queer male relationships created by and for women) a woman director and storyboarder (Mitsurou Kubo) team was also a logical move. As fans of BL stories like myself know, the genre has long been plagued by problems of the kind of festishization that always seems to sadly come part and parcel of hetero-appropriation of LGBTQ stories. But in the hands of Yamamoto and Kubo, Yuri!!! On Ice thankfully dodges most of this, managing instead to channel Yamamoto’s skillful handling of comedy and adult eroticism into protagonist Yuri Katsuki’s journey of self-discovery with complexity and sensitivity. Aside from the dazzlingly choreographed skating, it’s this competent handling that’s been key to enthralling the show’s fans.

Episode three is particularly pivotal in Yuri’s journey, as he is challenged by his skating idol, Victor Nikiforov, to perform a program titled, “On Love: Eros.” To tackle his severe lack of confidence in his ability to channel the “eroticism” needed for the routine, Yuri imagines a story about an 18th century “playboy,” which Yamamoto and Kubo animate beautifully using a sketchy, shadow-puppet technique to accentuate the fairy tale aspect of the story.

Reflecting upon the narrative he created, Yuri begins to realize that he identifies with both the feminine and masculine characters, a revelation that empowers him both on and off the rink. During his first performance, he compares himself to a “woman” skater and makes the suave and handsome Victor the object of his seducing. The costume Yuri chooses to wear during competitions visually reinforces all this — a replica of one that Victor once wore, incorporating both masculine and feminine elements into its design with a half-skirt layered over the trousers.

Yamamoto’s success as a woman director shouldn’t be the exception to the rule in the anime industry. A report from the Women in Animation (WIA) board formed by The Animation Guild found that a staggering 84% of roles in animation were taken by men and 16% by women in 2006. By 2015, this ratio had shifted slightly to 80% men and 20% women, with just 10% of animation directors/producers being women. Though these figures come from American studios, a comment made by Yamamoto during AnimeFest seemed to corroborate a similar — or worse — gender imbalance in Japan:

“At the time that I started work on ‘Michiko & Hatchin’ [in 2008] there were only about 5 female directors. But as I moved on to ‘Lupin’, I do feel the female influence on the industry is definitely increasing and growing.”

Her optimism is shared by Naoko Yamada (A Silent Voice) who is currently the youngest female director of feature-length anime. In a recent interview, Yamada shared this advice to women hoping to beat the considerable odds stacked against them:

“There’s no limit in a creative industry, so just look at what you like and create and make what you like to create and just be passionate about it.”

The immense popularity of Yuri!!! On Ice and the positive reception of Yamada’s A Silent Voice proves that Miyazaki’s fears are completely misplaced. Female directors and animators are not symptomatic of the anime industry’s failings. Rather — if given enough opportunity, encouragement and fairer wages — they could instead be the driving force behind its salvation.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Michiko to Hatchin: Anime’s Newest Mom Has Some Issues

Hannah Collins is a London-born writer and illustrator fascinated by the intersection between pop/visual culture and feminism. On the blogging scene, Hannah has attracted over 1 million readers to her blog on gender representation in pop culture. By day, she is currently a freelance illustrator for children’s books and comics, and by night (and any other available hour) she contributes to the Cosmic Anvil and Fanny Pack blogs, as well as her own.

How Feminist Is ‘Beauty and the Beast’?

Belle saves the Beast – not just physically by breaking the spell, but emotionally and psychologically by changing his behavior and smoothing his sharp edges. … Both of them begin as loners and societal misfits, but they end as the perfect fit in each other’s lives. However, this nice, mushy message comes at a cost: Belle’s agency as a character. …When we are introduced to Belle she has no more growing left to do in this film other than learn to be less judgmental and find a suitable husband.

This guest post written by Hannah Collins is an edited version that originally appeared at Fanny Pack. It is cross-posted with permission.

Based on the classic French fairy tale and the 1946 French film, Le Belle at la Bete, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991) is one of the most critically acclaimed and universally loved in the Princess catalogue. The story revolves around the titular ‘Beast’ – a vain and selfish Prince who is transformed into a monstrous animal by an enchantress as punishment for his flaws – and Belle (the ‘Beauty’), a kind and intelligent girl whom he imprisons in the hope that she might help break the spell put on him. Despite his poor anger-management skills (and inability to use cutlery) Belle slowly begins to tame the Beast’s temperament and work her way into his heart. But, before she can return his feelings and make him human again, an angry mob from her village led by the villainous Gaston – desperate for Belle’s hand in marriage – threaten to destroy everything.

As usual, I’ll be using six key questions to filter the film’s feminist/anti-feminist messages through and ultimately give it a ‘Positive,’ ‘Neutral,’ or ‘Negative’ stamp on it at the end. So without further ado, let’s see how Disney’s sixth official Princess movie holds up.

Belle
Mrs. Potts
The old beggar woman/enchantress
The feather duster maid (called ‘Babette’)
The Wardrobe (called ‘Madame de la Grand Bouche’, which translates to ‘Madame Big Mouth’. Nice.)
The Triplets (called the ‘Bimbettes’… Hmm.)

Total: 8 principle female characters (with speaking parts) compared to 11 principle male characters (with speaking parts).

In a word, no. And this is a good break with tradition, as nearly every Princess movie so far from Snow White, to Cinderella, to Sleeping Beauty, to The Little Mermaid have had female villains motivated solely by vacuous jealousy.

Although the Prince/Beast is the perceived villain to begin with in Beauty and the Beast, the real villain is Belle’s relentless pursuer, Gaston – clearly the more beastly of the two, personality-wise.

Apart from Mrs. Potts, who acts as a surrogate matriarchal figure to just about everyone, Belle disappointingly has very little interactions with any other female character. All of her close allies – her father, the Beast, Cogsworth, and Lumiere – are male, through a combination of circumstance and choice.

This serves subliminally to reinforce Belle’s ‘otherness’ as she seems unable and/or unwilling to maintain relationships with others of her gender. Unfortunately, this is also reflected across the rest of the film’s female characters, with the tightest bonds of friendship being between men: Gaston and LeFou; and Lumiere and Cogsworth.

For the final two-thirds of the film the answer to this is Belle, with her father, Maurice, keeping things barreling along through the first act. Yet, even when Belle does become the driving force of the plot, she doesn’t actually attract the majority of the viewer’s emotional investment. That’s because most of this investment is funneled into the Beast’s quest to regain his humanity instead.

At the start of the film, Belle flitters around a field belting out a song about “wanting so much more than this provincial life,” yet her unfalteringly charismatic character doesn’t develop one bit throughout the story. Geographically-speaking, she also only ends up living what can’t be more than a few miles away from the home she dreamed of travelling far away from. Meanwhile, the Beast’s character enjoys a dramatically shifting arc that also bears the weight of the entire story’s moral as an added bonus. In this respect, Belle – the eponymous princess of this supposed Princess-oriented movie – is effectively side-lined in her own film.

If toxic masculinity took cartoon form, it would look like Gaston. While Belle is a flawed but emphatically feminist heroine, Gaston is a perfect send-up of laddish, brutish, and gross chauvinism. His interactions with her are all deliberately sexist, offensive, vile, and stupid – i.e. the perfect counter-balance to Belle’s pragmatism, wit, and intelligence. Gaston’s attraction to Belle is based firstly on her obvious good looks, and secondly because her constant rejection of him turns his failing courtship of her into a game, and as a proud hunter who “uses antlers in all of his decorating,” you know that Gaston basically just sees her as little more than another deer to chase, shoot, sling over his back, and carry home to become another trophy over his fireplace.

[youtube_sc url=”https://youtu.be/wNlpuD42_BM”]

During his solo song (sung in that flawless baritone), we’re given a handy checklist of things to have and achieve before any self-respecting ‘man’s man’ can be counted as worthy:

Body hair. A lot of it.
Spitting. Be good at it.
Hunting. Do it often.
Using animals as decoration. Everywhere.
Eating 4 dozen raw eggs to become the “size of a barge.”
Drinking. All the time.
Chess (although because being smart is basically useless, the only way to win is by slapping the board away from your oppenent.)
Stomping around in boots. No, really – go out and buy some, now.

With his square jaw, bulging muscles, and operatically-deep voice, Gaston is kind of like a Disney prince gone wrong. And Belle, with all her well-developed intellect, seems to be the only person to call this out. Even her father says that he “seems handsome” and suggests Belle should give him a chance in the romance department. The rest of the town – especially his loyal lackey, LeFou, and the horny triplets – treat Gaston like the village hero, never questioning his judgment, and happy to attend an impromptu wedding for he and Belle (before she’s even agreed to it) or sing an ode to his chest hair in the tavern, or later on be led blindly on a witch hunt to kill the Beast he showed them in a “magic mirror.”

The Beast on the other hand, with his anger problems, selfishness, and emotional unavailability is someone who starts off in a similar place to Gaston – albeit minus the gushing self-confidence. He doesn’t even call Belle by her name to begin with, just “the girl.” The difference between he and Gaston is that rather than forcing himself upon her, the Beast allows himself to be changed for the better by Belle, thus turning himself into a man worthy of her love. As Gaston becomes more and more incensed and frenzied to the point of trying to blackmail Belle into marrying him, the Beast learns to control his anger and becomes more docile and open to the needs of others until he earns rather than wins her affections.

The ultimate proof of his transformation comes when he allows Belle to leave the castle to attend to her sick father at the expense of him being able to break the spell. (Although, seeing how close the town and castle seem to be, there’s no reason he should have assumed Belle couldn’t have popped back to the castle later on…)

Most of Belle’s characteristics fit the usual wish list for Disney Princesses we’ve encountered so far: beauty, charm, kindness, a good set of pipes, and a touch of wistful longing for “something more” than the life they’re trapped in. But Belle has another trick up her puffy dress sleeves: intellectualism. Like our previous heroine, Ariel, Belle is curious about the world around her. The difference here is that Belle has been able to satiate her curiosity with books, turning her into an imaginative, ambitious, sharp-witted, and worldly heroine.

As I mentioned previously, the downside to all this glowing perfection is that Belle seems to have done all her character development off-screen, but she also has another severe weakness: Her heightened intelligence has given her one hell of a superiority complex.

At the start she sings about her “little town, full of little people” and is bored by the routine of everyone else’s lives. She laments that no one reads and imagines more like she does. Similarly, the rest of the town look down on her for being intellectual and “weird.”

During this opening number we see a woman struggling with a comical amount of children – literally juggling babies in her arms – while desperately trying to buy some eggs. Meanwhile, Belle sails past on the back of a cart, smiling and singing about the joy of reading – unburdened by the troubles of being a working-class mother. This is the best insight we get into Belle’s P.O.V: All sweetness and pleasantries on the outside, but internally judging the other women around her who have slavishly “given up” on any hope of independence or self-empowerment.

Belle’s quest for self-betterment is both her greatest strength and weakness. She is presented to young girls watching the film as a woman ahead of her time – a model early feminist, before the term was even invented, who dreams of living life beyond her designated place in society. Yet, by doing so, she can’t help but dole out pity to the other women around her who were not able to choose to live their lives in the way that she has so luckily been able to. In some ways, Belle is the epitome of some of the feminist movement’s problems: white, elitist, and judgmental. And also kind of a hypocrite – after all, let’s not forget that the only two books we see Belle actually engaged with are romance stories – one (pictured below) she reads a passage from referencing “Prince Charming” and the other is Romeo and Juliet. Maybe her desires aren’t quite as wildly different from everyone else’s as she might wish.

Yes, I know. How can one of Disney’s foremost feminist heroines be merely a ‘Neutral’ in terms of gender representation? Hear me out.

The core philosophy of Beauty and the Beast is to love what’s inside of someone rather than just what’s on the outside. This makes it the first time a Disney Princess film has broken the nonsensical ‘love at first sight’ BS that has been at the heart of every previous story – and this is where most of its plus points come from. Belle saves the Beast – not just physically by breaking the spell, but emotionally and psychologically by changing his behavior and smoothing his sharp edges. He begins as a self-loathing, literal monster, and ends up as a well-rounded man who literally and figuratively reclaims his humanity thanks to Belle. Belle, meanwhile, is rewarded with the one thing she (secretly) always longed for: someone who truly understands her. Both of them begin as loners and societal misfits, but they end as the perfect fit in each other’s lives.

However, this nice, mushy message comes at a cost: Belle’s agency as a character. As I’ve established, when we are introduced to Belle she has no more growing left to do in this film other than learn to be less judgmental and find a suitable husband. In fact, I was left feeling a little cheated by the end. The opening, uplifting number makes us anticipate the journey of a modern woman ready to go globe-trotting… only to lead down the same well-trodden path of her finding the nearest castle and Prince to hook up with and stay put in his library for the rest of her life.

In the end, Belle is actually demoted to the usual passive ‘Prince’ role – a one-note hero who swoops in to save the day in the nick of time, leaving the Beast fulfilling the lead, active ‘Princess’ role. This, ultimately, is why what should have been a ‘Positive’ film for gender representation, has sadly balanced out into a ‘Neutral’ one instead.

The Lois Lane ‘Batman v Superman’ Doesn’t Think You Can Handle

Lois Lane represents a more achievable kind of strength for us mere mortals. Tenacity, self-reliance, and quick wits – these are the weapons of choice for the archetypal career woman bent on “having it all.” … Any writer that reduces Lois Lane down to little more than human Kryptonite thoroughly misrepresents her rich 75-year history as an important pop cultural icon to women.

This guest post written by Hannah Collins originally appeared at Fanny Pack. It is cross-posted with permission.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice may have been a disappointment to many, but I think most comic book fans – and feminists – can agree that Gal Gadot’s strong performance as Wonder Woman was a much-needed bright spot. It’s a shame, then, that the film’s other significant female character – intrepid reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) – doesn’t get the same treatment. Though she plays a fairly significant part in advancing the story, and enjoys some (weird) bath-time fun with Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), that’s pretty much all she’s there for – little more than a plot device, a shoulder to cry on, and even worse, a constant distraction to Earth’s greatest hero.

This may seem like a trivial complaint but as someone who fell in love with comic books before feminism, Lois Lane – along with Wonder Woman, Catwoman and Storm – was instrumental in shaping my understanding of what it meant to be a woman in a man’s world. And in a world filled with Gods, magic, time-travel and President Luthor, you’ve got to be one heck of a dame.

Here’s why The Daily Planet’s ace reporter is far more than just Superman’s victimized girlfriend.

A Damsel Not in Distress

The ‘woman in peril’ theme is one that has unfortunately persisted throughout literature and pop culture, from ancient Greek maidens like Andromeda and her hero Perseus, right the way through to Princess Zelda and her hero Link in Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda. It’s no surprise then that the Superhero genre – the modern-day equivalent to Perseus – has also been oversaturated by the damsel/hero dynamic.

Superman is the world’s first Superhero and Lois Lane his eternal damsel in distress. No matter how many Pulitzers she wins or oranges she juices at her Daily Planet desk in her personal war on cigarettes, that core underpinning will never change. But throughout her 75-year history, her determination to fight this definition has never waned.

From her solo comic title, Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane (1954-1974) to her top billing in TV’s Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman’(1993-97), and recent YA novel series Fallout by Gwenda Bond, Lois has proven that she is not only a superior journalist to Clark Kent and Superman’s equal partner, but can carry a story on her own. More often than not, when Lois finds herself in need of rescue from the Big Man in Blue, it’s from a sticky situation of her own making. Rather than wait around to be scooped up by a dragon like a hapless medieval maiden, Lois seeks out trouble in the name of journalism.

Even better is when – thanks to a mix of her “military brat” upbringing and some Kryptonian martial arts – sometimes she gets to even save herself.

[youtube_sc url=”https://youtu.be/5Q8SkwskHPM”]

Because Women Are Strong as Hell

Ever since William Moulton Marston blessed us our first feminist superwoman, Wonder Woman, the Superhero genre has been filled with gutsy, gladiatorial women. But whilst these goddesses represent a masculinized ideal of brute force, Lois Lane represents a more achievable kind of strength for us mere mortals. Tenacity, self-reliance, and quick wits – these are the weapons of choice for the archetypal career woman bent on “having it all.”

But Lois Lane’s fierceness didn’t just grow from the necessity to reflect the changing role of women in society; creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel embedded it within her character from the very start. Her personality was borrowed from fast-talking fictional reporter (and owner of The Most 1930s Name Ever) ‘Torchy Blane’ who starred in a series of Warner Bros. films in the 1930s. Her tagline was ‘The Lady Bloodhound with a Nose For News!’ and she was one of the few positive examples of career-driven women on American cinema screens at the time that rivaled – or bested – her male equivalents.

Also woven into Lois’ DNA was real-life pioneering journalist and inventor Nellie Bly. Not only did Bly famously travel the world in a record-breaking 72 days, but also she feigned mental illness in order to write an exposé on life inside a mental institution – redefining investigative journalism and making the rest of us feel desperately lazy.

From Meg in Disney’s Hercules to Spider-Man’s Mary-Jane Watson, every “feisty” damsel worth her salt owes a debt of gratitude to Lois.

Lois Isn’t Holding Out for a Hero

Saying that Lois and Clark are one of your favorite couples in fiction is kind tantamount to saying the same about Romeo and Juliet. In other words, woefully mainstream. But as much as I really do believe they deserve a place amongst literature’s greatest love stories, Lois has proven many times that she can function perfectly well without her fated other half, as the panel above illustrates.

This was exemplified on-screen recently in the much-maligned Superman Returns (2006). Picking up after Superman II (1980), the film starts with Superman (Brandon Routh) returning to Earth after a 5-year absence to find that Lois (Kate Bosworth) has not only moved on to someone else, but also raised a son with him.

Inevitably as the story progresses, Lois finds that her feelings for the Man of Steel are not as buried as she’d thought, and I’m sure the abandoned sequel planned for 2009 would have seen my favorite reporting duo back together. Nonetheless, I was still impressed that rather than pull a ‘Bella Swan’ and throw herself off of a cliff in a fit of angsty despair, Lois Lane wipes away her tears, wins her damn Pulitzer, finds another great guy, raises a child, and foils Lex Luthor’s dastardly plans.

Because not even Earth’s strongest hero can break her that easily.

Keep Lois Out of the Refrigerator

Despite her development over the years into a competent and important player in the DC Universe’s canon of heroines, too many landmark stand-alone stories in Superman’s history hinge not on the strength of Lois Lane, but on her death. Kingdom Come, Superman: Kal, Flashpoint, and Injustice: Gods Among Us all sacrifice Lois (in some pretty fucked up ways) simply to motivate Superman to lose his shit. And judging from the teasers nestled in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, we may be in danger of seeing one of these stories on screen soon.

This is a variant of the ‘Damsel in Distress’ trope known as ‘Women in Refrigerators,’ coined by comics writer Gail Simone to “describe the trend of female comic book characters who are routinely brutalized or killed-off as a plot device designed to move the male character’s story arc forward.” (The term originates from Green Lantern #54, in which Green Lantern discovers his murdered girlfriend’s body in his fridge.)

Look, I get it. Superman only has two weaknesses: Kryptonite and Lois Lane. (Well, three weaknesses if you include his susceptibility to magic.) Same goes for practically every other superhero trying to balance saving the planet with getting laid. It’s a character-building shortcut that’s become inherent to the genre. But the problem with this is that while the male character (and they are nearly always male by default) benefits from this dynamic by having his big, brooding ego balanced with a touch of human emotion, the female character gains nothing other than bearing the weight of the inevitable choice he will have to make between her life and the lives of others. What does it tell you about the value of a female character if she adds more to the narrative in death than in life? Plus, this constant stream of stories that use violence against women as a plot device harmfully perpetuates the real-world stereotype of women as helpless victims and men as their patriarchal saviors.

Any writer that reduces Lois Lane down to little more than human Kryptonite thoroughly misrepresents her rich 75-year history as an important pop cultural icon to women. I can only wait and hope that Snyder’s future Justice League movies treat her a little better than just a sacrificial lamb with a reporter’s badge. In the immortal words of Kate Beaton (of Hark, a Vagrant fame): “If Lois isn’t super rad all the time, then I don’t even want to hear about it.”

Hannah Collins is a London-born writer and illustrator fascinated by the intersection between pop/visual culture and feminism. Her interest in the movement grew during her time studying Fine Art & Creative Writing at Lancaster University where she discovered writers and artists such as Laura Mulvey, Orlan, Marina Abramovic and Donna Haraway, who opened her eyes to the huge significance – often detrimentally – that the artifice of gender plays in our culture and society. In particular, Haraway’s Cyberfeminist Manifesto linking gender to science fiction had such an impact on her that she constructed the bulk of her dissertation around it. On the blogging scene, Hannah has attracted over 1 million readers to her blog on gender representation in pop culture. By day, she is currently a freelance illustrator for children’s books and comics, and by night (and any other available hour) she contributes to the Cosmic Anvil and Fanny Pack blogs, as well as her own.

“Everything Is Going To Be OK!” – How the Female Gaze Was Celebrated and Censored in ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’

In other words, there was a concerted effort to twist the female gaze into a male one under the belief that CLAMP’s blend of hyper-femininity and action would be unappealing for the male audience it was being aimed at.

This guest post by Hannah Collins appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.

With their starry eyes, cutesy costumes, Barbie-esque features, and catchphrases overflowing with dreamy positivity, the magical girls of the shoujo (girls) genre of anime might not seem like the most feminist of heroines upon cursory glance. Yet, the plucky sorceress’ of such cult classics as Sailor Moon can be seen an emblematic of a counter-movement of female action heroes in Japanese culture – the antidote to the hyper-masculinity of the shonen (boys) genre.

This assessment by no means disregards the problems of the magical girl genre – infantalisation; fetishisation and glorification of hyper-femininity – and shoujo characters with their typically doe-eyed innocence can be easily corrupted to cater to a specific male fantasy of virginal femininity. However, the work of the all-female team of manga/anime creators known as “CLAMP” not only combats these issues, but also, as Kathryn Hemmann in The Female Gaze in Contemporary Japanese Culture writes, “employs shŌjo for themselves and their own pleasure.”

I became a fan of CLAMP – like most people of my age – in the 1990s. As a child, my introduction to the wonderfully weird world of Japanese cartoons consisted of the standard diet for most children of that era: Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dragon Ball Z. Imported, dissected, re-dubbed, and re-packaged to suit the tastes of a Western audience, and more specifically, a male audience. But amongst the shouts of “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!” and “Kamehameha!” there was one show that really left a lasting impression on me. It was about a little girl gifted with great power through capturing and using magical “Clow” cards. She wasn’t muscly; she wasn’t self-assured; and she certainly wasn’t male. She was Sakura Kinomoto, the show was called Cardcaptors (Cardcaptor Sakura in its original Japanese format), and it was my first exposure to both CLAMP and the magical girl or “mahou shoujo” genre they helped to popularise.

Like most adolescent heroes, Sakura seems hopelessly ill-equipped to begin with, and yet her sheer determination to achieve her full potential sees her through to becoming a magical force to be reckoned with without ever surrendering her loving personality. Rather than conforming to the “strong female character” stereotype that implies that women must act more masculine to achieve truly equal footing with male action heroes, Sakura’s power stems from traits considered more conventionally feminine: love, empathy, and pureness. Even her wardrobe changes into unapologetically girly battle outfits aesthetically reinforce CLAMP’s refusal to bow to a male audiences’ preferences.

These themes of romance and friendship are a core part of the story development and instrumental in the viewer’s investment in the characters. Through Cardcaptor Sakura, CLAMP explores the complexities of both platonic and romantic female love – both heterosexual and homosexual – from an almost exclusively female perspective. As Sakura pines over her older brother’s best friend (who unbeknownst to her, is also his love interest) Sakura’s best friend Tomoyo pines over her. Tomoyo, who lives a rich and sheltered life in a female-centric household, seems to live vicariously through Sakura. Upon discovering her secret heroics at night, she begins to capture Sakura’s adventures on camera and even provides her with her signature battle costumes, which cause Sakura huge embarrassment. Yet, at the risk of hurting her friend’s feelings, she grudgingly wears them anyway.

As the show develops, we are shown more and more just how deeply Tomoyo’s feelings run. In episode 11, Tomoyo gives Sakura a rare tour of her impressive mansion home, including a cinema room in which she confesses that she watches her recordings back of Sakura in battle constantly. It seems that Tomoyo is as much a part of the audience to Sakura’s life as we – the viewers – are. It also strikes me that this obsessive behaviour might translate entirely differently if Tomoyo were male.

Tomoyo’s idolisation of Sakura is far from veiled, and yet it is not revealed to be unmistakeably romantic until Episode 40, in which Sakura must capture a Clow card that makes people dream about their hidden desires. Sakura, Tomoyo, Syaoran Li (Sakura’s rival and love interest) and his cousin Meilin visit a fun fair. Sakura and Meilin team up to play a Whack-A-Mole game and Tomoyo – as usual – picks up her camera to film Sakura in action. Suddenly, the Clow card appears in the form of a glowing butterfly and lands on Tomoyo’s shoulder. Tomoyo falls into a dream sequence, in which we see her deepest desire play out through her eyes. On a pink background of falling cherry blossom, copies of Sakura dressed in Tomoyo’s outfits call her name and dance playfully around her. We are shown a shot of Tomoyo’s face – staring in awe at first, and then relax into a smile. “I’m so happy!” she says to herself, and runs toward the dancing copies of Sakura – still filming.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAx_vfayMTw”]

It seems like an odd moment to be sexually awakened – watching your crush play a Whack-A-Mole game at a fun fair – and perhaps if the show had been targeted at a more mixed audience (or the characters were older) this moment might have been filled with more obvious sexualised content. But through Tomoyo’s own eyes, CLAMP visually summarise the complex feelings of romance, admiration, obsession, and innocent love she feels for Sakura. Not only this, but as Sakura dances continually out of Tomoyo’s physical reach, the implication becomes one of wanting something you know you can never have. Tomoyo knows by now of Syaoran’s feelings for Sakura and like a true friend encourages their romance for the sake of Sakura’s happiness rather than her own.

This “doomed” romance trap seems to be a family curse, as we discover in episode 10 that Tomoyo’s mother appeared to also be hopelessly in love with Sakura’s mother (her cousin). Similarly, Sakura’s mother didn’t return her cousin’s feelings as she was in love with an older man (Sakura’s father) in the same way that Sakura is attracted to Yukito – an older boy. Both mothers are absent from their lives – Sakura’s mother through death, and Tomoyo’s through continual business trips – yet their daughters seem fated to play out their romantic histories.

Suffering from a bout of nostalgia, I decided to revisit the show as an adult, first in it’s Americanised form, and then the original Japanese version to compare the differences. I was shocked to discover that in an effort to make the show fit the perceived needs of their rigidly defined demographic of young boys, the executives at Kids WB had hacked all elements of “toxic” feminisation from it – romance, homosexuality, and the agency of Sakura has a protagonist (even her name is removed from the title) – dramatically reducing the run-time from 70 to just 39 episodes. In fact, if they had been able to “maximise” their cuts, the show would reportedly have run for merely 13 episodes. In other words, there was a concerted effort to twist the female gaze into a male one under the belief that CLAMP’s blend of hyper-femininity and action would be unappealing for the male audience it was being aimed at. In Japanese Superheroes for Global Girls, Anne Allison quotes this from an executive from Mattel, “[…] In America, girls will watch male-oriented programming but boys won’t watch female-oriented shows; this makes a male superhero a better bet.”

Whilst moaning about all this to my partner recently, I asked him if he had watched the dubbed version of the show as a child. He said that he had, but didn’t realise until he was older that the show had probably been intended for girls. I asked him if he remembered being turned-off that the show’s hero was a little girl as opposed to the ultra-masculine characters of his favourite childhood anime, Dragon Ball Z. His totally undermines Mattel’s assumptions about the show’s gender appeal: “I thought Sakura was really cool. In fact, I loved her so much I begged my mum for roller-skates that Christmas so that I could skate around to be like her.” Even more affirming than this is the fact that whilst the dubbed version of the show ended up being cancelled, the original Japanese one ran to its intended conclusion; spawned two films; and inspired two spin-off series using the same characters – Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic.

Sadly, by “butching” Cardcaptor Sakura up to be squeezed into the TV schedule alongside Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z, Western children were deprived of the tender and emotionally complex storytelling and character development behind all the magic and swordplay – and even from getting a satisfying ending to the show. It seems that whilst Japanese children are considered mature enough to deal with female superheroes, complex pre-pubescent emotions, and LGBTQ+ representation from a female perspective, Western children are unfortunately not treated with the same respect or intelligence.

Sources

The Female Gaze in Contemporary Japanese Literature, Kathryn Hemmann.

On Writing (Strong) Female Characters, Daniel Swensen.

Magical Girls: Empowered or Objectified? Wiki for SC2220: Gender Studies for University of Singapore.

The Americanisation of Cardcaptor Sakura, Actar’s Reviews.

Hannah Collins is a freelance illustrator, writer, Feminist, anime nerd, and Britney Spears apologist. You can read more of her writing on gender in pop culture at Fanny Pack and her on own blog.