Forum - View topicI am an Anime Feminist. Ask Me Anything
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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"Death of the author" is the belief that it doesn't matter what the author of a piece of media says, the only thing that matters is how the consumer interprets that piece of media. In that regard, all art is political so long as someone attempts to say it's political. I could draw a circle and people could say its political because they interpret that circle as being a representative of something. For example, Nintendo has stated repeatedly that they have no interest in making political statements when making their games, but it doesn't stop people from trying to apply political messages to them. For those that don't want politics in their anime, the easiest way to do that is to not associate with people who try to find politics anime. Anime is not like American media that do try to have overt political messages. |
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all-tsun-and-no-dere
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 605 |
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That was specifically directed at louis6578, not at you. The reference to gender was about how people tend to listen more to men than women, even when they're repeating the same points. He clearly didn't read my posts, but when LossThief, A Tasty Sub, and Errinundra chimed in, his response was, "Oh well, if she just SAID that 'all art is political' doesn't mean 'all art has an agenda,' then I wouldn't have argued." But I did. I said exactly that so many times over. I never got that perception from you, Psycho101, even when we disagreed with each other. And yes, my gender affects my perception and interpretations of media because it's part of my identity and lived experience and thus part of my lens, just like being bisexual and working in early childhood does. So does yours. @AmpersandUnited Hi please actually read the discussion if you're going to chime in here, I really don't want to waste my time making the same argument with different people over and over. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9841 Location: Virginia |
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@AmpersandsUnited
You sort of missed the point. The paragraph you quoted was specific to me. Note the use of "I". I was trying to explain why in most cases I don't give a flying f at a rolling doughnut about any political content in anime. Basically if I don't find the content to be noxious, I don't pay attention to it. I agree that all media cannot be divorced from its time of creation nor from the culture, personality and history of the creator. However, my basic position is that in most anime this is all so benign as to not warrant study much less comment. Certainly if someone sees what they feel is political content in an anime, either pro or con, it is their right to comment. Sometimes this will throw a clarifying light on the subject matter. Quite often, though, it shines more light on the person commenting then it does on the anime. Some shows act very much like a Rorschach Inkblot test. I do not completely agree with "Death of the Author" You do realize, don't you, that it is a human construct and not a law of nature. That is a whole other discussion and off topic here. And no, I don't have to avoid others, I just read their posts and move on. It doesn't bother me if others have a different opinion. |
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louis6578
 Posts: 1861 |
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Hey, just thought I'd add some clarity here. I look up to plenty of women and take their advice, and on occasion, I find women who I think have a better grasp of anime than I do. Men as well. I never really thought that my debate should be had because "a woman said it." If a man had said "All art is political, no exceptions," I would have also raised an eyebrow. Sadly, I'm quite blind to gender when it comes to debates to be had. Just like how you guys are blind to a half-black, half-Caucasian Jewish man at age 23 making posts to the contrary.
Heck, even the fact that the thread is titled "I'm a Feminist, ask me anything" doesn't necessarily tell me that you're female. I always had my mind open that you could be a male feminist or a trans woman or something. I'm not sure what I did to give you the impression that I was disagreeing to create a sort of male superiority air, but I can assure you it was unintentional. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16935 |
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It may have been directed at louis but how you said it came off as you were using gender as some sort of qualifier or slight for all of us "males" who had commented. That's how I felt anyways and perceived it. So while it may not be directed at me individually it did include me by proxy and as it related to the specific discussion, and I failed to see how that mattered. If you had explained the underlined part above in that initial post a bit better, and made that point clear, I would not have been irritated by it and incorrectly assumed what I did. Since you say that was not your intent, and explained what you meant (which I understand your point now and yes that is annoying), I'll take you at face value. My apologies for being quick to be grouchy. This next part is as a mod. Let's keep this on topic. Which for the purposes of this thread the "topic" is whatever is being specifically asked, or is closely related to it. As Alan pointed out this death of an author discussion starting is off topic to the question being answered. So let's avoid any wild tangents please. I would also suggest moving forward everyone READ the posts made on a specific topic first before commenting. Don't just piggyback onto others and make the same claims multiple times ignoring what others have already answered or said. Thank you. |
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El Hermano
 Posts: 450 Location: Texas |
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I think you missed the point I was trying to make. I was trying to say the way the female characters are written are irrelevant to whether women like a shounen or not. As far as Gintama is concerned, women don't like Gintama because they think the female characters are well written. They like it for the men. They're the ones who are voting Gintoki, Toushiro, Sougo, and Takasugi to the top of every character poll and the ones who flood Comiket with doujinshi about them every year. I disagreed with all-tsun-and-no-dere's statement that shounen needs to be more inclusive to women because women are already reading them and any changes would most likely ruin that. |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3017 |
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I seem to recall that back around the time Ikuhara's Yurikuma Arashi was airing, at least a few vocal LGBT anime commentators stated that they experienced repeated frustration with shows that they would have been extremely excited to recommend to fans of queer-oriented media, if not for the possibly-skeezy elements that were "baked in" to the shows' character designs and directorial choices.
I bring this up because as someone who just completed a doctoral dissertation related to socio-cultural views of fanfiction, I've often fallen into the role of the de facto "anime fandom ambassador" for any given professional or social gathering. While I want to tell my non-anime watching peers how great, say, World Conquest Zvezda Plot is in terms of its fresh takes on the relationship between femininity and superheroism - "There's a super-scientist who escapes from a damsel-in-distress situation by turning her tears of grief over her friend's death into robots! There's a lot to unpack there!" - I know that they're going to take one look at the show's lolita-riffic costume designs and immediately draw on familiar preconceptions of Japanese media. Rather than dismissing some otherwise feminist-friendly franchises as "too problematic" for the uninitiated, or simply relegating this issue to broader conversations about "fanservice", do you think feminist anime fans should be turning our attentions towards the question of whether progressive Japanese content creators are unknowingly making choices that directly prevent their progressive shows from reaching wider progressive western audiences? |
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SailorTralfamadore
 Posts: 499 Location: Keep Austin Weeb |
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Yeah... Making weird guesses as to "why women (don't) like something" when you are not a woman, and other people in the conversation are (the person who started the conversation, even!) is super weird and condescending, you guys. And it's a thing I believe the mods have called out before on other threads, at least in relation to people "speculating" on other marginalized groups they're not in. Don't do it. Would you like it if women talked to you about "why men (all men) like something"?
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all-tsun-and-no-dere
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 605 |
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Women are not a hivemind. Different women can like the same thing for different reasons. Heck, the same woman can like one thing for a variety of reasons! I'm certain there's a lot of female fans who care mainly about shipping the male characters in a shonen series and don't give two hoots about the female characters, but there are also a ton of female fans who DO care! I know this because I've been active in female fandom for about twenty years. I've even talked to actual, factual Japanese teenagers about this, even. Adding more female characters won't "ruin" shonen. Sure, there will always be the parts of fandom that ignore the female characters and draw pages and pages of doujinshi, but they won't refuse to read a series because it has some good female characters alongside the male cast. If that were the case, The Promised Neverland would have flopped. I doubt having Leorio or Hisoka written as women would have harmed Hunter x Hunter significantly. |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
Subscriber Posts: 3017 |
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I just reread my earlier post and realized that the question I wanted to ask you didn't come across at all, so let me try to clarify:
Is AnimeFeminist's editorial approach to the sorts of shows I brought up in my post (i.e. ones that seem like they would really appeal to western progressives if not for certain "problematic" anime trappings) more geared towards: (a) saying, "hey, this is problematic for [these reasons], maybe be aware of that and don't recommend it to your friends", (b) using the show as a avenue to talk about broader fanservice issues in anime, or (c) trying to spark or promote some kind of dialogue between western feminist anime fans and the Japanese creators who seem to be interested in making media that appeals to progressives (but might not understand what elements are "dealbreakers" for western feminists)? |
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all-tsun-and-no-dere
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 605 |
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Thanks for clarifying, because I was kind of sweating on how to answer your initial question. The answer is "None of the above, really, but (a) is the closest (and sometimes b and c too)." We run a variety of articles from a variety of perspectives. Our premiere reviews are kind of like ANN's preview guide, but mostly from one reviewer per show with an added focus on feminist issues. We discuss the episode in question, bringing up anything it did particularly well or anything we felt it flubbed, so our readers can decide for themselves what to spend their time on. Readers can contribute their own thoughts in the comments. We also have "three-episode test" articles, mid-season and season finale podcast episodes, and season recommendations. It's about way more than just what's "problematic" or fan service. The meat of the site is our features, which run regularly twice a week. Most often they're textual analysis of a single show, but they can be personal perspective pieces, metatextual analyses, interviews, creator profiles... the list goes on! Our mission gives us the ability to publish a really broad range of articles - as long as it's related to Japanese pop culture (with some wiggle room even there, since we've published articles on EVNs) and has feminist perspective, we'll consider it. For (c), we don't have anywhere near the reach for mainstream content creators like Ikuhara, although I've had the good fortune to interview Sayo Yamamoto and Arina Tanemura. We've had some interviews with indie mangaka, and are hoping to do more that we have a fully bilingual staff member, but it still feels very presumptuous to tell them what we, Western feminists, think they're doing wrong. |
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Crisha
Moderator
 Posts: 4290 |
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This has been a very interesting thread to read. Thank you for creating this thread, all-tsun-and-no-dere, and providing your thoughts, and thanks to everyone who has been contributing without devolving the thread into a trashfire. It was a little heated at times, but it hasn't spiraled.
As for my thoughts on shounen, most shounen doesn't interest me because it doesn't have interesting female characters or female characters that drive the story. And most shounen that I do try out I end up not reading/watching the canon, but instead get invested in the fandom. For example, Naruto: I actually liked Sakura when I first started getting into the show - I thought she had some interesting potential. But I remember reading an interview by Kishimoto where he states that his best idea for a heroine is a woman who doesn't understand men. Once I read that, I figured that I wasn't going to be pleased with the way he went about developing her (and I wasn't). And that's fine, he has a story he wants to tell about certain characters, it doesn't need to be focused around my interests. But I'm not going to invest in the canon beyond reading wikis and summaries as to what happens... I am knowledgeable to Kishimoto's story without necessarily being a fan. When I say I'm a "fan" of Naruto, I refer to the hundreds of fanfics I've read focused on my favorite characters (mostly Sakura and Hinata). I personally find more entertainment and worth in those stories than the original. I have similar experiences with Bleach, Fairy Tail, Rurouni Kenshin, and Trigun. It has little to do with the quality of the story. It's just that my favorite characters tend to be the ones (large majority being female) that aren't developed as closely, and I've become attached enough to them that I want to see them as the drivers of their stories. So I fall back on fandom for that. Conversely, I love Soul Eater, Chrono Crusade, and Attack on Titan, and those all have awesome female characters that are prominent drivers of the story. @all-tsun-and-no-dere - What are your personal thoughts on fanfiction and how do you think it contributes to anime feminism? (Sorry for the really broad second question). |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
Subscriber Posts: 3017 |
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Thanks for the reply, I've only had the chance to read a few AnimeFeminist articles so far, so this helped me to get a better idea of what your site is "about".
Also, love the username! No joke, I almost went with "TooMuchSunNotEnoughDere" for my ANN username, but discounted it because I thought people would take it as an invitation to try and explain how to spell "tsun" to me. 
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louis6578
Posts: 1861 |
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You have the same view of Naruto that I do of most Shounen that aren't One Piece, My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, Yu Yu Hakusho, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Naruto, Bleach, Dragonball, etc. I enjoy the fandoms and a lot of headcanons, but the actual shows themselves? Some early parts are great, but after that initial "oomph," they divulge into meaningless, by-the-numbers slop. Not to mention that I'd say none of their female characters get to do anything (and even the amount of great male characters can be counted on one hand from all three of those shows). I enjoy Bleach fanfiction and Fairy Tail roleplays on Tumblr far more than I ever enjoyed the actual series. |
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all-tsun-and-no-dere
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 605 |
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GOD I wrote a whole response to Crisha and then my browser ate it. *sob*
ANYWAY. My view on fanfiction is informed by the idea of textual poaching. Basically, transformative fandom occurs as a result of marginalized populations feeling underrepresented by dominant cultural narratives and thus putting their own spin on texts to sort of reclaim them. That makes it a wonderful thing. My friend, a trans lesbian, writes a ton of fanfiction, most of it for Persona 5. P5, with its metanarrative of rebellion and radicalism, should have been more inclusive of marginalized groups. However, because it was directed by a straight man, it's downright crappy to women and queer groups. My friend writes the characters as queer and trans, reclaiming the story for herself and resisting the dominant groups that only conceived of liberation for people like them. Fanfiction is a fantastic outlet for fans, especially women, to explore thoughts, feelings, and desires that are unsafe, impossible, or deemed "unacceptable" by the narrow standards of mainstream culture. A commercial work that romanticizes rape could be taken as an endorsement of sexual violence, but a fan work represents a safe space for someone who may fantasize about it but doesn't want to experience it in real life. Not that it's perfect! Fandom often fails at intersectionality. Slash fandom attracts a wide variety of people across the gender and sexuality spectra. However, since it's dominated by straight white (or, considering the level of dominance transformative fandom holds in Japan, Japanese) female fans, it can be fetishistic toward actual gay men and crappy about mental illness, disability, and so on. There's also more than a little bit of a race issue. Fandom has a tendency to ignore characters of color in favor of even the blandest of bland white bread. Remember that simmering chemistry between Finn and Poe in Star Wars Episode VII? About 5,000 writers on Archive of Our Own do... but that's only a third of the number who were much more excited by Kylo Ren/Hux. You know, Hux. That blond dude with like two lines? What a cool and memorable character with lots of meaningful interaction. Psych doesn't exactly have a vibrant fandom, but it does have the exact kind of character dynamic slash fans love. Close friends since childhood who are vaguely antagonistic to each other but fiercely loyal? Oh yeah. Problem is, one of those friends is black, so there's only a couple hundred fics shipping them. The much more popular ship is with the white character with his white antagonist. But despite this, I still think fanfic is pretty great and an essential part of feminist fandom. If they're not going to make things for us, we're going to take them for ourselves.[/url] |
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