Japanese – Bitch Flicks

“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.

Dystopia Within ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’

What helps ‘Evangelion’ continue to grow its popularity is not the focus on religious or sci-fi elements, but its commitment to showcasing the fragility of humanity through its flawed and destructive characters tasked with saving the world and themselves. And how does the franchise show this? By literally placing the future of what’s left of the world in the hand of dysfunctional and emotionally fragile children.

This guest post by CG appears as part of our theme week on Dystopias.

Dystopian landscapes have begun to grow in popularity with audiences, particularly in film and literature. Franchises like The Hunger Games and The Walking Dead have given audiences this love affair with settings that include abandoned cities, constant threats of death, and the occasional love triangle in an attempt at normalcy. But what these popularized franchises have done is cloud our definition of what dystopian media can do. In fact, there has been dystopian media done before that called for us to embrace and examine how humanity is represented in these otherwise bleak landscapes.

With this, I call to you the brilliance of the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Neon Genesis Evangelion refers to a franchise created by Hideaki Anno and Gainax Studios, going on to include a 25-episode anime, six films (including three reboots), and a 13-volume manga series. The franchise itself is incredibly popular, launching back in the 1990s and maintaining a steady fanbase ever since. What helps Evangelion continue to grow its popularity is not the focus on religious or sci-fi elements, but its commitment to showcasing the fragility of humanity through its flawed and destructive characters tasked with saving the world and themselves. And how does the franchise show this? By literally placing the future of what’s left of the world in the hand of dysfunctional and emotionally fragile children.

The story of Evangelion focuses on three 14-year-old pilots that control giant robots called Evangelion Units, as they battle monsters called Angels that threaten to destroy (what’s left of) the world. These Angels have already destroyed half of the world – the oceans have turned red, half of the world’s population has been killed. Some of the characters live with the consequences of the Second Impact – one character, Misato Katsuragi, tries to live with her guilt of directly surviving the Second Impact while her father does not.

The pilots of the Eva Units serve as the main characters of the franchise, and remain the gatekeepers to the internal conflict of the internal conflict of the franchise. The main character is Shinji Ikari – abandoned by his father who later asks him to pilot one of the Eva Units, Shinji revels in the feelings of guilt and unraveling that comes with feeling horribly inadequate to everyone around him. One of the episodes of the original anime is called “Hedgehog’s Dilemma,” focusing on a psychological condition that makes for Shinji’s insecurity to hinder him from getting close to others, for fear of further rejection. For Shinji, he reclaims some of that validation in the form of piloting the Eva. Like the other pilots, the Eva Units give him identity beyond his own limitations. Although, as we soon learn, it is not enough to allow them to completely escape.

The second pilot is Asuka Langley-Sohryu, a hotheaded and brash girl who clings to her title as an Eva pilot as a badge of honor. To Asuka, she revels in being needed and having purpose. But her overconfidence shadows a deeper hurt of fierce inadequacy. When her title as an Eva pilot is no longer enough to shield her from facing her fear of being useless, it quickly manifests into putting Asuka in further danger. In this unforgiving future, where the survival of humanity rests on the sounders of three teenagers, Asuka’s mental unraveling to be more dangerous that we would expect.

The final pilot is Rei Ayanami, a girl who is seen as emotionless and stoic. She follows orders without thought or individuality, and she has a strange connection to the Eva Units themselves, as well as to Shinji’s deceased mother, Yui. Rei is interesting in that she must learn to reclaim her individuality and importance as a person. She struggles to find meaning with being expendable.

The psychological stability of the pilots, as well as the adults that are supposed to be directing and guiding them, become paramount to the development and plot of Evangelion. It’s not simply the bleak landscape that draws out the despair in the characters; it is the drive of destruction that lingers on the tongue of everyone around. Shinji, Asuka, and Rei are left to salvage humanity out of the hopelessness that surrounds them.. and it makes for oddly addicting media.

Though the franchise explores other themes of faith, relationships, and tragedy – at its core, Neon Genesis Evangelion gives us a tale of searching for meaning and embracing the strength of flawed humanity, even when the situation is bleak.

CG is a writer, blogger, and fangirl from New Jersey. Most of her online writing can be found on her site (blackgirlinmedia.com).

How ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Demonstrates a More Inclusive Masculinity

All of them, even those that have more traditional male expressions than the others, end up rejecting more toxic expressions of masculinity.

This guest post by Aaron Radney appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

To call Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) one of the best shows in recent memory isn’t a controversial statement. It’s been lauded, and rightly so, for its varied female cast, but that nuanced treatment of heroic depictions isn’t limited to the women of the show.

It’s a generally understood in feminism that forced adherence to gender roles can hurt men as much as women with what we’d call traditional masculinity being celebrated to the detriment of other gender expressions. As a coming of age story I felt the young men in the show–Aang, Sokka, and Zuko–all demonstrated the struggle young men face journeying into manhood with Uncle Iroh providing a vision of what the end of that road might look like. All of them, even those that have more traditional male expressions than the others, end up rejecting more toxic expressions of masculinity.

As is typical with these sorts of things, spoilers of all types going forward.

Starting with Aang we have what I think could be the least stereotypical male lead I’ve ever seen in action fiction. Not the bumbling everyman hero, the sarcastic anti-hero or the brooding master, Aang is a guile hero with more in common with Bugs Bunny than Superman or James Bond, with a balance of competence and sensitivity. Then there’s his elemental bending. The four bending elements always seemed obviously gender coded to me with air and water being based on “soft” martial arts styles build more on evasion and redirection, and fire and earth being built on “hard” styles and as such more aggressive, direct and forceful. Far from playing these tropes straight, ATLA stands them on their head with a male hero using one of the two feminine elements. This doesn’t seem to me a fluke either as an episode late in the series, “The Ember Island Players” has Aang played in a stage performance by a woman both as a joke on typical voice casting but also in seeming acknowledgement of those aspects of his personality.

Rather than compensating for his element with extreme aggression as one might see in another show, Aang is the least aggressive member of his group. This is a kid who’d rather talk than fight, doesn’t enjoy combat when he has to do it, and prefers to evade and defend and trick rather than use brute force. Instead of a righteous chosen one or someone who identifies as a warrior, Aang’s primary expression is that of a pacifist monk and the narrative never tries to make him anything else. In fact, anytime he tries to ignore his emotions in favor of the cold reason and detachment we’d expect of someone in his role, the story actively rebuffs him for it. It’s not true to who he is.

Furthermore, many of Aang’s greatest moments come not through physical prowess but through doing what he can to help others. He even demonstrates that men can, and should, be advocates for women’s equality when he stands up to the sexist Master Pakku, who refuses to train Katara. Even going so far as to use his privilege as the Avatar to attempt to sway Pakku’s mind.

Not only does Aang have no problem training side by side with a woman, but he is later trained by that same woman when she surpasses his skills (and again has no problem being trained by another woman later in the narrative’s run). Never do we see him bothered by this or feel diminished by it. Aang’s far too secure in who he is as a person for anyone else’s success to bother him.

Sokka’s gender expression is a bit more conventional but his arc hits some of the same themes. Overtly sexist in a way he’s checked on more than once his macho streak reeks of a young boy trying too hard to be what he thinks a warrior and man of his tribe is supposed to be. His bravado in the face of the Fire Nation threat plays out like a typical wish fulfillment fantasy of a little boy desirous of glory in battle but in his first encounter with the antagonist Zuko he’s trounced almost comically. The show clearly demonstrates that direct physical prowess is not Sokka’s path.

Over time however, Sokka confronts his insecurities and matures into the team’s idea guy. He becomes a potent strategist and realizes his lack of formidable physique (he’s got a body type that, like the other young men on the show is not unreasonable for someone his age who engages in regular activity but it’s not the masculine ideal we’re used to seeing) and lack of bending skills does not preclude him from being both beneficial to the team and to others. He’s no less brave and no less noble than his friends and far from being the stoic analytic or cringing braniac we envision with a male in this role; Sokka embodies the goofy charmer. He’s the class clown who nevertheless gets straight A’s. He’s never made fun of for not conforming to what you’d expect in a show of this type.

If Aang and Sokka demonstrate a non-traditional masculinity through growing up, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that Zuko and Uncle Iroh demonstrate the idea of shaking off patriarchal constraints. Both are of the Fire Nation, which is based heavily on imperialist Japan, is highly paternalistic and builds its masculine identity on ideas of domination and honor gained by conquest. Probably the most visible expression of this is the ritual duel of Fire Nation culture known as the Agni Kai. Iroh, however, gives us a vision of a different path of the Fire Nation male and how this expression is regarded, that is to say, not all that well.

Seen as a bit of an eccentric Iroh lost the throne to his more aggressive and conniving brother. Meanwhile, we discover that Iroh is probably one of the most decent people in the entire show. Though demonstrably able to respond to violence in kind being a former general in the Fire Nation army and originally the crown prince, Iroh, much like Aang, prefers to talk and avoid trouble when he can. Like Aang many of Iroh’s most memorable moments stem not from his physicality, but his empathy. Perhaps the most famous instance is one in which he disarms a would-be mugger easily, but rather than that being the end of it, or him punishing said mugger for the attempt, he first gives him pointers on proper stance when using a knife, and then proceeds to sit with him and show him kindness, encouraging him to pursue his dream of becoming a masseur. This is not a one-off for Iroh. He is calm rather than stoic and exemplifies a maturity that seeks to empathize and assist people when and how he can.

Iroh’s nephew Zuko on the other hand begins as an antagonist determined to capture the Avatar to reclaim his honor. His brooding, anger, and attempts at stoicism make him the most stereotypically masculine teenage boy on the show. Over time, we learn that his father banished him both for showing compassion about a group of soldiers that would have been sacrificed in a military action AND for refusing to fight his father in an Agni Kai. It’s noted that Zuko’s unwillingness to fight his own father was seen as a sign of weakness. The Fire Lord, his father, and the literal patriarch of his family and his nation, burns Zuko’s face and he carries the scar throughout the show. One could say without irony he was literally scarred by the patriarchy and we see that Zuko’s rage and bravado is at odds with the compassion and empathy he exhibits in the flashback.

For two seasons Zuko pursues the Avatar to win his father’s approval. His adherence to the Fire Nation’s belief of fire’s power coming from rage keeps him in a constant state of hostility and his pride explicitly keeps him from bending lightning, a skill that he’s told requires absolute control of his emotions and one at which his sister excels. All through this, his Uncle is by his side attempting to show him a better way and encouraging him to set aside his anger and frustration.

Iroh even teaches him a technique for lightning redirection, a move he created by studying water benders and explains to his nephew that studying other elements and other cultures can help him become stronger. The show, subtly or not, through Zuko demonstrates the expectations under which he’s been placed holding him back.

Later, while living their lives as fugitives in another nation, Zuko begins to grow emotionally. No longer constantly hunting the Avatar we see him protect a village from bullying bandits, provide joy to a young woman in a town he’s staying in by lighting the candles of a town square with his fire bending and helping his uncle in a tea shop. Zuko begins to relearn the joy found in helping others.

However, in one of the most lauded fake-outs of the show, Zuko is seduced back to the dark side at the end of season 2 and when it looks as though he’s killed the Avatar he’s welcomed back into his father’s good graces but betrays his Uncle. At this point, Zuko has everything he ever wanted and yet his shame is too great and he doesn’t’ have the emotional tools to deal with it. This realization is plain and stark when he says, “I’m angry and I don’t know why.” It’s not long after this that Zuko has a change of heart.

He storms into his father’s chamber and renounces his father and the Fire Nation’s warlike ways. He proclaims the only way his nation’s honor will be restored is if they embrace a path of love and peace and that he will be leaving to join the Avatar. His father takes this about as well as you’d expect and launches a powerful blast of lightning at his own son.

Zuko responds with the lightning redirection technique he learned in the previous season and the weight of the moment is palpable. He embraces his Uncle’s path of peace, expresses his desire to help the Avatar, and when met with full masculine coded killing force, draws on a technique derived from the principles one of the two female coded elements to protect himself and redirects the aggression, rather than meeting it head on. In that moment he affirms that his father’s power over him is gone, and quietly demonstrates for boys that which is masculine and that which is feminine can coexist and strength can come from this.

All of this comes to a head in the show’s finale and as the primary foils I think it’s only right Aang and Zuko’s final acts parallel each other. Zuko battles his sister and Aang Zuko’s father, the Fire Lord. Previously, many of Aang’s closest friends, including Zuko, tell him that to save the world, the Fire Lord has to die. Aang is convinced there has to be a better way. He refuses to abandon the teachings of the monks who raised him. On a meta level, Aang’s killing of the Fire Lord would have done little good. Having been at war for 100 years, the world didn’t need more killing but rather a third option. In a distinct subversion of the “A real man is a killer” trope Aang eliminates the threat by removing his enemy’s bending rather than ending his life. It is in this moment that Aang can be said to become a man in the form of a fully realized Avatar. Even the domination aspect is rebuked. Aang doesn’t dominate the Fire Lord in their final battle of wills that is Energy Bending. Instead Aang’s own spirit proves indomitable. Aang succeeds because he refuses to be taken over himself and that distinction is an important one. The act that defines Aang as an adult and shows the kind of man he has become is not one of taking the life of another being, but remaining true to his own principles. The final moment we see for Aang where he ends the Fire Nation’s final act of destruction with a single waterbending move–an act of healing and putting out the fire of war.

Similarly, Zuko’s final act against his sister is not one of destruction but one of protection. He nearly sacrifices himself to protect Katara from a lightning attack by his sister. Zuko attempts to perform lightning redirection but isn’t grounded properly. This wasn’t a matter of saving the damsel but rather him recognizing he had a specific skill he could use to protect a friend. Another show would have had that be a moment of triumph for Zuko where he performed the move perfectly. Instead Zuko’s failure here becomes important because it wasn’t due to any inadequacy, but rather the complexities of the situation. To me, it felt like an acknowledgement that to be a man doesn’t mean one must be perfect.

I’m not entirely sure how much of this is intentional and how much is just the result of good storytelling, but ATLA manages to say great things about a type of masculinity you don’t always get to see. One that says there’s no singular way to be male and taken seriously. It doesn’t make the mistake of playing certain male archetypes for laughs or build its idea of what it means for these boys to grow into manhood on the domination of others, but rather stresses the need for empathy, constant personal growth and security in one’s own identity, and using our abilities to help others, rather than for abuse and subjugation.

Aaron Radney is an aspiring illustrator who attended Memphis College of Art and lives in St. Louis, Missouri. Though he spent far too long fighting against the impulse to let his race and his feminism impact his work, he’s slowly beginning to more actively embrace both looks forward to doing more writing and art on both subjects. His work can be found on his website http://aaronradney.com or on his Facebook page here.

The Allure of the Female Ghost in ‘Ringu’

Horror. It’s a genre that ignites different reactions: excitement, disgust, fear or indifference. Who would have thought that an inanimate object – and the female ghost that comes with it (free of charge) – could be so frightening? The enigma of the monstrous female can be found throughout history in literature, movies, and contemporary pop-culture. An array of female monsters are waddling around in our hazy pop-culture memories. Think of the witch, vampire, psychopath, and the scorned ghost. The term “ghost girl” has now even levitated itself to our cultural lexicon.

This is a guest post by Giselle Defares.

The Japanese horror genre gained popularity since the fifties, thanks to a group of visionary directors such as Masaki Kobayashi (Kaidan), Nobuo Nakagawa (Ghost Story of Yotsuya) and Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba). These directors usually brought adaptations of traditional Japanese stories, but they were not afraid to experiment with other genres or even psychedelic influences. The crux is that the appeal of the Japanese horror movie lies in the fact that the genre constantly renews itself, while ensuring to remain faithful to its roots.

In 1998, a new creative and commercial momentum took place thanks to Ringu (Ring), an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Koji Suzuki. The story has some elements from the 18^th-century Japanese ghost story Bancho Sarayashiki. Director Hideo Nakata managed to visualize a clever but vulnerable heroine, and themes were subtle interwoven by using the power of the media to portray the heroine’s fears. Ringu, an unusually oppressive movie, became a blockbuster, followed by the inevitable sequels, American remake, a television series, and a series of comic books.

Ringu follows the storyline of the TV journalist Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) who investigates a bizarre rumor: her niece Tomoko and three of her friends apparently died after seeing a videotape. Reiko hears stories that the videotape kills the people after they have watched it, and they all die in the exact the same way. Reiko investigates the story, finds the videotape, and ends up watching it herself. Soon after, Reiko receives a phone call with the news that she has only one week to live. What follows is a race against the clock, in which Reiko tries to figure out the origin of the videotape. Her ex-husband Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada) tries to help her break the curse and find the true story behind the cursed videotape and the connection with a psychic who died 30 years ago and her child Sadako.

Reiko has to make a though choice. To watch or not to watch.

Why are we so enthralled with female monsters? In The Monstrous Feminine, cultural critic Barbara Creed refers to Freud’s controversial theory of castration anxiety – children notice the difference between boys and girls aka penis or vagina, boys are of the opinion that something is taken away from girls, and this makes them worried – in dreams, myths, and in movies this fear translates to the symbolic loss of a phallic symbol. It can be a sword, a motorcycle, or car. When you flip the coin, the vagina is portrayed in a less favorable way. All too often the vagina is depicted as a dangerous – monstrous – hole to be avoided at all costs. This is described as the “vagina dentata,” the symbolic representation of a vagina with teeth, making the Freudian castration anxiety tangible within the story. In popular culture, the vagina dentata can for example be seen as the eye of Sauron in The Lord of The Rings or the desert monster Sarlacc in the Star Wars trilogy.

Creed also connects the creation of female monsters with abjection. She refers to Julia Kristeva who defines abjection as that which crosses borders, positions, rules and identity, system and all that disturbs the peace. In other words, anything beyond the strict limits of the phallic order and that aims to disturb the order. The abject not only crosses borders but draws the existence of limits itself into question, and thus the existence of the phallic order. This abjection is strongly related to the patriarchal vision of femininity. Creed describes horror movies where the monster is portrayed as abject as an “attempt to separate out the symbolic order from all that threatens its stability, particularly the mother and all that her universe signifies.”

For this reason, there are many movies that don’t have a male but a female monster. Abjection includes everything that we consider to be dirty. It’s what we learn as a child that is seen as bad and what we need to suppress. In particular, bodily secretions such as blood, urine, mucus, and pus. The horror genre plays with this fear of the abject and wants to break taboos. In Ringu, Sadako, the female ghost is portrayed as a lurchy and dirty, rotting dead girl with long, dark hair that obscures much of her face, dressed in white, and her fingernails are broken and bloody. Yuck.

We find Freud’s idea of castration anxiety also within the psychoanalytic film theory in terms of the male gaze. Laura Mulvey argues that cinema ideally is meant for the male audience: “The determining male gaze projects its phantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. ” The problem lies in the fact that the woman is just a lust object on the screen, but that the male viewer meanwhile still has that (irrational) fear of the woman.

In Japanese horror movies, they flip the script, and more often than not the focus is only on the eyes. This is also the case in Ringu. For a long time we do not even see the eyes of Sadako, and the tension builds up until the moment when we get to see them. In general, people blink around 15 times per minute. Ghosts don’t blink. They seemingly stare with an endless gaze ahead. But there’s another ambiguity. Sadako’s eyes show no sign of life; they are merely hollow, black orbs. At the same time they seem to register all the movement in her environment, and her looks are purposeful and deadly. It’s almost like the gaze of Medusa. In that sense, Sadako’s Medusa’s gaze is projected from the male gaze. The woman stares back at the man. In Ringu, it’s the woman who actually kills with her looks. Ryuji symbolizes the male voyeur and gets punished. The fear of the man is a reality here.

Throughout the movie, director Nakata leaves room for your own imagination and strengthens the feeling of uneasiness that the story evokes. To be quite honest, on paper, the plot for the story line is at first sight not scary at all. The strength of Ringu lies in its absence and not particularly the gore that is visible on the screen. The hard, screeching and metallic, non-diegetic sounds, ups the creepiness of the movie. The editing, camera angles and lighting, lift the mediocre plot to the next level. The videotape – a seemingly innocent inanimate object (!) – of Sadako stands symbol for the mass media and for the pernicious influence they have on society. After all, only the people who watch the videotape die.

Ringu keeps your attention because – let’s be real here – the female ghost is a fascinating entity. All too often the source of their pain has nothing to do with the supernatural, but it’s a painful residue of their human lives. Sadako wanted vengeance, but her vengeance was randomly destructive. This makes her all the more powerful. You can see this in Kabuki and Noh theater also known as Oiwa, in which the spirit of a woman returns to her husband, who poisoned her. Unlike the average monsters in other horror movies, ghosts can think, feel, and they have a certain consciousness. Sadako holds the power to haunt us in our dreams. Yikes.

Ringu gave our pop-culture some of the most indelible images. The movie came out in 1998, and since then a variety of female ghosts have graced our screens. It would be interesting to see how this genre can renew itself over and over again. Let’s see what the future of horror brings.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JruLV_Wjkp4″]

Giselle Defares loves television shows like Äkte Människor and The Fades; movies like The Fall, The Invader, High Fidelity. See her tumblr here.

‘Edge of Tomorrow’: Yesterday’s Tom Cruise

Please don’t let my snarky tone fool you – I love science fiction, particularly near-future stories with a dystopic veneer. So does everyone else, which is why this film genre has been so strongly represented lately, e.g., ‘RoboCop’ (2014), ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ (2014), and ‘X-men: Days of Future Past’ (2014), to name a few. And that’s the problem – it’s difficult to watch ‘Edge’ without comparing it to its contemporaries.

Written by Andé Morgan.

Edge of Tomorrow stars Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise as near-future warriors battling alien invaders. It was directed by Doug Liman.

There is something perverse about attacking a film for its lack of originality when the central conceit is that the main character repeats the same day over and over again. So, in an effort to preserve my purity, now for something completely different. You remember Groundhog Day (1993), yes? It had plenty of Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, but it was lacking… sci-fi. Specifically, it needed some quantum pseudoscience and a horde of generic squido-mechanical pod people.

Anyway, Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Released this weekend (June 6), it stars Tom Cruise as military PR weasel Major William Cage. We meet him after a trite news reel intro composed of an anthology of worldwide unrest footage (most, it seems, from the last century for some reason). He has been summoned by a large man who commands the world’s unified armed forces. Instead of spinning war from afar, Cage will be imbedded with the troops during the imminent (second) landing at Normandy. This time, humanity is attempting to take back continental Europe from an alien aggressor, so far only vaguely referenced as the “Mimics.” Cage is a coward, and clumsily threatens blackmail in an attempt to avoid combat. It doesn’t work. Instead, Cage is arrested and sent to a forward base to meet his fate as a deserter conscript. Behold, the premise.

Please don’t let my snarky tone fool you – I love science fiction, particularly near-future stories with a dystopic veneer. So does everyone else, which is why this film genre has been so strongly represented lately, e.g., RoboCop (2014), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and X-men: Days of Future Past (2014), to name a few. And that’s the problem – it’s difficult to watch Edge without comparing it to its contemporaries.

Like the films mentioned above, Edge features frenetic action sequences and trailer-worthy tech pieces. Most notable are the exo-suits (“jackets”) employed by the Earthican forces. Exoskeletons are having something of a moment recently; see RoboCop (2014), The Amazing Spiderman 2 (2014), the Iron Man franchise, and others. So, who wore it better? My sense of aesthetics favors Murphy in RoboCop. Perhaps this is not a fair comparison, as RoboCop was much more concerned with the ethics and practical reality of cyborgism. Still, the exosuits in Edge, which are really the film’s party piece, were just so mundane compared to those envisioned in RoboCop. Instead of a fresh vision of technological advancement, they seemed like a regression from the Caterpillar P-5000 Powered Work Loader in Aliens (1986). In fact, they seem like tech that might really only be a few years away, much to the detriment of their wow factor.

The Mimics too, are unremarkable. Spastic glowing balls of slashing alien death have been done better by the Matrix films, and, even, by Battleship (2012). It’s explained that the mimics have a hierarchal structure composed of a legion of small fiery footsoliders, rare blue “alphas,” and a central “server” being (I was reminded of the brain bugs in Starship Troopers). During the first iteration of the beach landing Cage is, of course, killed. On his way out, he kills an alpha and the alien’s blood mingles with Cage’s. The brain mimic has the power to TURN BACK TIME, and does so whenever an alpha is killed. However, while the head mimic can list time travel, telepathy, organo-metallic bioengineering, and interstellar travel as hard skills, it is unable to discern that Cage is actually a human. Time is reversed, and Cage awakens to face battle once again.

And again.

Yeah, I am down on this movie. I can forgive a lack of originality if the other elements of a story shine, but we don’t even find out why the aliens are called mimics! What do they mimic? Aliens from other movies? What the hell, man?

The supporting cast doesn’t fare much better. Cage’s fellow soldiers are a rag tag crew in the vein of every war movie ever. There is a mean southern (y’all can tell by the accent, y’all) drill sergeant, a fat guy, a “crazy” guy, a black guy, a foreign guy, and a woman. It can be refreshing to see women depicted in combat roles, but Edge, like so many other films before, falls into tropes in its depiction. The female solider is shown as less clean, less sensible, and gratuitously gruff, as if she has to curse and posture constantly to defend her presence in the unit.

Blunt’s character, Rita Vrataski, is something different. She is a battle-hardened soldier that Cage has set up as a figurehead for the military to rally around. She wears practical armor (except for a helmet – no one has time for hat hair on the battlefield), and dispatches her foes with a badass Final Fantasy sword. To his credit, Liman avoided eroticizing her combat moves and generally stayed away from FFD clichés, save for a few superfluous yoga poses. A superior warrior, she teaches Cage in anti-chrome-cephalopod techniques in a training montage filled with hilarious homicide sight gags.

It is great to see a feature with a woman warrior who is not also a sex object, but there are a few problems. The other soldiers in the film refer to Rita as the “Full Metal Bitch,” a term she clearly does not care for. And while she initially trains Cage, he soon takes over a protector role, and attempts to use time travel trickery to seduce her. This scene is kinda creepy, and it does not help that Blunt and Cruise lack chemistry.

Rita does make it to the climax without getting well and truly fridged, and joins Cage in making a heroic sacrifice. Unfortunately, the script fails both the spirit and the letter of the Bechdel test. I did not note any female characters talking to each other, and the several women in the film were always either talking to Cage or talking about Cage.

Edge of Tomorrow is not a repugnant film – its treatment of women is uneven, but trending towards positive. But neither is it a great film (despite what the interwebs may tell you). For example, the dialogue was hokey in a way befitting it’s genre. Midway through the film a wild-haired-scientist tells us that the aliens’ “only vulnerability is…humanity.”

Post climax, a feel-good ending closes with a slapsticky shot of Cruise laughing to camera right. As the credits start to roll, the viewer is left with a quickly fading memory of an unremarkable vision of the future. The film does borrow heavily from the other movies mentioned above, as well as from previous Cruise vehicles like Minority Report (2002) and Oblivion (2013). In fact, Rachel Redfern was on point in her review of Oblivion: “Tom Cruise’s latest movie…is exactly that, a movie about Tom Cruise.”

I agree. Likewise, it’s best not to evaluate Edge as an original film, a science fiction film, or a feminist film – it’s a Tom Cruise film.

Note: For more information on things like “why are they called mimics,” and “what the hell is this movie supposed to be about,” here’s the source material: All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.

Andé Morgan lives in Tucson, Arizona, where they write about culture, race, politics, and LGBTQ issues. Follow them @andemorgan.