Forum - View topicINTEREST: AFP: Mamoru Hosoda Criticizes Depiction of Women in Hayao Miyazaki Anime
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Gemnist
Posts: 1757 |
|
|||
He said something along those lines in an interview, and was taken out of context for the meme. I won’t go into my exact opinion on what he really said though, just to avoid inflaming this section even more. |
||||
|
||||
Jayhosh
 Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
|
|||
|
This sounds like another instance of a japanese creator being victim to what sounds like iffy translation of his point. While I wouldn’t say he’s exactly exempt from this criticism himself with some of his earlier films, the point he’s making is valid. Like most directors he’s matured and grown as a filmmaker over the years so I won’t hold him to his contradictions through past works, especially since his more recent works have started to portray his female characters as more flawed. It’s a discussion that I feel many aren’t giving the nuance it warrants. Yes, Miyazaki’s female protagonists are always strong and independent, but they can also be idealized and deified at the same time. While there are definitely exceptions to this (San and Chihiro being most notable), many of them definitely have this unrealistic perfectionism to them. And I can get behind the idea that this is perhaps more damaging and regressive for equal representation than beneficial. Women are real people too lol, and that means they’re just as prone to making mistakes. If you really want to portray them as they are, as equals, you don’t need to overcorrect it by making them flawless beings. That’s damaging in another way. Which is what I got out of Hosoda’s statements. Not that he’s salty about Miyazaki lol. People always seem to want to manifest drama from these “call-outs.” Hosoda respects Miyazaki and loves his films, he isn’t jealous of the man for kicking him out of Ghibli (which isn’t even what happened). I mean the dude got nominated for an academy award a few years back. I think he’s doing pretty alright for himself.
Also, yes, the statement of the interviewers “confirming” that he is referring to Miyazaki is kind of suspect. If the man himself didn’t say it, I don’t know how can they confirm that’s who he meant. Like someone else said earlier, this could have been aimed at Shinkai or a number of other popular film directors. And it has everyone debating and micro analyzing both’s works when if that snippet wasn’t there most would probably just be in agreement that most female characters in your average anime are pretty poorly written as idealistic and submissive imouto types. Someone else also made a good point about how it’s kind of ironic that a bunch of men are debating about how women should be portrayed realistically in anime instead of, ya know, actual women.  It would be insightful to hear someone like Naoko Yamada put her hat into the ring. Though even then, imo what it primarily comes to is just writing a good character, one whose gender has little to no impact on that (unless it factors into the narrative somehow, which I’m sure complicates such a simplistic statement.)
|
||||
|
||||
|
Opalescent
Posts: 1 |
|
|||
|
I feel like this whole discussion is completely focusing on the wrong films and characters. Everyone immediately jumps to Chihiro in Spirited Away or Kiki or Sofie from Howl’s Moving Castle. But when you look at movies like Porco Rosso or the side characters and villains of Spirited Away and Howl’s, it’s a whole other perspective. In Porco, it was the women driving the story and plot, old and young. A family of old women rebuilding a World War I plane in secret within fascist Italy territory with the lead mechanic being their granddaughter is a huge statement and Gina decrypting Morse code and having both sexual appeal but also being capable as a veteran from the war.
Then you have Lin in Spiritied Away who is extremely headstrong and capable but also very crass. I mean, she eats a newt in front of a frog when you first meet her. Many of the villains are also women, power hungry and greedy but most of them are redeemable. Like in Princess Mononoke. The leader of Iron Town was destroying nature but also providing jobs that weren’t prostitution to women and ultimately grows more as a character than the protagonists themselves. I’m not saying the critique isn’t valid, there is an issue with women’s portrayal in Japanese media and this guy is part of the problem but I also don’t think it’s as black and white as this discussion frames it. There are many characters in Miyazaki’s worlds that are worth focusing on, sometimes even more than the protagonist. |
||||
|
||||
|
liatris
Posts: 56 |
|
|||
|
I think this attitude is the reason why Hosoda is often more controversial than Miyazaki, Tomino, Anno and Shinkai.
If you read the interviews of the first director I mentioned, they are very aware of the gender perspective of their films. Anno is very masculine and is always aware of the masculine way he makes his works, which makes his statements consistent and easy to discuss. However, Hosoda's comments seem to be inconsistent with the content of his works. This makes the discussion confusing and, to put it harshly, frustrating. The public's evaluation of him is often completely inconsistent with his own. Why does he have this attitude? |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group