Understanding Gender, Part 2: Adolescence of Utena and Female Masculinity
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ส.ค. 2024
- A more academic video channeling my studies and Utena
big thank you to Isla and Joe!!!! Their channel links are below
/ hiisla
/ @pauseandselect
here is the book I read for the video
www.amazon.com...
Follow me on twitter @subtitledanime I am super active there and its fun!
Fuckin phenomenal dude. By making the "prince" an illusory figure maintained through performance, Adolescence really elevates its critical take on gender and sex. I loathe the discourse in which women should be empowered by essentially "being men"; this reinforces the privileging of "masculinity" ("princeliness"). Yet, simply being "feminine" isn't the answer. The truly revolutionary thing is to reject that binary/dialectic as a whole. Your inclusion of quotes about female masculinity are so, so on point.
High contrast, black and white tones that are seen all over the school are also attributed to Utena (in shots and, most obviously, in her outfit). I read this as conforming to the existing binary/dichotomy. When Utena stops trying to be a "prince" the outfit is discarded, and she transforms into a literal vehicle of escape from the system. But this vehicle also needs to be driven. Anthy exercises her agency for the first time here. There's something to be said about feminine power, but that's reducing a much more fundamental idea. It takes a rejection of BOTH the "prince" and the "princess" (Rose Bride), determining for themselves who they are, and embracing that in each other, that allows them to break free.
Despite all the surrealism, symbolism, etc., Adolescence communicates such a complicated set of ideas yet proposes such a coherent resolution/thesis in such short time that I'm frankly amazed. Ikuhara is a god.
Fantastic analysis!
I always thought that Utena's appearance wasn't so much of a concern to her compared to her actions and attitudes, which might be true but there is still something to be said about her various gender performances and subsequent identity/presentation transformations in the movie like you described. Especially how she becomes a car, a masculine symbol in the TV series Akio uses to oppress and coerce the students, and turns it into an empowering one (I hesitate to ultimately call it feminine though).
I'll definitely rewatch Adolescence with this in mind, and thank you for the wonderful book recommendation!
ApocalypticMagicalBarty your reading of the car is interesting because I always saw it as a symbol of adulthood and power not masculinity. Reclaiming its masculinity and using it to break the system certainly fits in the narrative! I have a PDF of the first chapter if you would like! Also a link to buy it is in the description
Oh that's definitely true, and Ikuhara and Chiho Saito (the mangaka) would agree with you (I need to find that interview between them where they talked about the cars being Akio's "adult toys"), but the big thing to me is how I actually have multiple readings of the car allegory within the Utena narrative.
Before I read that interview (and watched your video), I saw Utena becoming the car as a reference either to:
1. Mahayana (literally means "Great Vehicle") Buddhism, the sect which RGU and the movie borrows much of its philosophy from. Utena escapes Ohtori and becomes a vehicle/guide for Anthy and her friends to escape. Wakaba also becomes a Jeep for the same reason. Shiori and Kozue become cars as well, but they're too far gone to properly escape (or even genuinely want to)...plus, they don't have drivers so they became inoperable or crashed. Perhaps most importantly though, she dismantles Akio's system by taking the very thing he used to control it and making it a tool of liberation. I definitely think you can attribute a masculine trait to the car in that context. Plus it gave Ikuhara an excuse to visualize that pun as a subtle reference to the sect's name.
2. There's a huge Sleeping Beauty allegory with this movie, one that I cannot speak on as much, but Ikuhara described her becoming a car as basically trying to escape the dream world she was trapped in with Anthy at the wheel, and when the two of them were together in killing the Prince, they shared the kiss that she would have given to Dios had this been a traditional fairy tale. There are probably more examples that support this interpretation but I still need to read the non-Disneyfied version of that classic lol. Ikuhara ends up reusing it in YKA (the "Bride in the Box" and the "Promised Kiss" and it just might be more overt? there).
3. The psychosexual narrative of Utena and Anthy making love for the first time through the act of Utena becoming the vehicle for their salvation and Anthy being the one who "drives" her, the adrenaline rush from escaping Akio's cars and the castle on wheels probably being akin to that of when they would have sex. I feel this is best supported by the fact that we last see them naked together in the wreckage of the car after the two of theme escape into the outside world, their expressions making them appear bathed in the afterglow (or the satisfaction of rebirth after "death"). But that interpretation miiiiight be a bit of a stretch.
So I'm really happy that I can add your interpretation as a fourth take, although I do think it fits in well with the first one (even though I can't expect you to have understood the Buddhist references implied within that gleaming, especially if you've never done prior research on them).
ApocalypticMagicalBarty I love the sex interpretation and another I hadnt considered. I know Ikuhara loves to play witb fairy tale allegories like in PenguinDrum Riko wanting a fairy tale but being a stalker and in YKA everywhere. And obviously Utena. Sleeping beauty maybe not, but I do think the kiss to prince being given to Anthy does fit the narrative strongly. Touga is also presented as a benevolent prince, as Utena’s prince which differs from the anime that he is an asshole.
So, accepting your femininity, for a girl, can also be empowering, not always oppressive Halberstam seems to imply? Or, at least, he's just talking about the oppressive aspect of it.
In any case, I like this point, having seen only one episode of Utena. But this reminds me that I'm still waiting for an anime, or a story in any medium, which renounces the existence gender at all (I'm open to recommendations). All this going back and forth between masculine and feminine, and even making new ones, still seem limiting to me. Unless your genuine behaviour corresponds 100% to gender stereotypes, you're always going to limit yourself with it. Can you even be 100% any of the new made up genders? Probably only if you make one just for yourself, and even then you might change.
I think I'm critical of gender not because I want people to conform, but because I think the biggest freedom you can get is when you deny the existence of gender at all. Both the conservative and the liberal stances seem to me like they're missing the core issue. And the core issue is that traits aren't, or at least shouldn't, be associated with either gender or sex. In other, less abstract words, if you like action movies (as a girl), you're an action movie buff, not a tomboy. If you like romance movies as a guy, you're not girly, you just like romance movies. Why even introduce gender or sex into any of this?
I'm aware this is how most people think, but if we're going to change people's preconceptions - and making new genders and battling patriarchy also comes with changing preconceptions - why don't we then change them to something better than "well, I'm a girly girl and that's okay?" / "I'm a tomboy and that's okay" / "I am gender-fluid and that's okay"? I think it should be something like "I am who I am, and I like what I like, fuck you". Okay, maybe without the last part.
Nenad your point about the movie buff is something Halberstam tries to tackle. However Halberstam categorizes and genders these identities. Difference is, Halberstam acknowledges they exist but doesnt want to have them as a limitor to identity.
I've been inclined to agree in the past. Unfortunately, terfs kind of coopted gender criticism to the point that they're basically identified with it, so I've been forced to reconsider. I still don't disagree outright, but I can appreciate that gender is something that matters to a lot of people. It's personal. If people, under no coercion at all, individually decide that a gender describes them, whether *we* think gender is a good descriptor or not is irrelevant.
Otherwise, I think gender is to people what genre is to art; It's never going to be a perfect descriptor because every piece of art is unique. But it's still useful. You can still make decisions on what to consume based on genre. Genre can define or inform your body of work. It's not hard science, it's never going to be objective or consistent, but it's how we understand things. It only becomes a problem if we treat it is an actual hard rule.
Utena is all about deconstructing *roles* rather than gender itself. It's not bad to be masculine, but it's bad to accept hierarchy based on strict adherence to a masculine ideal on which a feminine ideal is dependent.
Yeah I feel like words and phrases like “tomboy” and “malewife” and “girl boss” and “femboy” still solidify gender roles in the process. It’s like acknowledging there are exceptions but still singling them out and not accepting them into normality.
I had to put the Liz and the Blue Bird OST on pause to watch this, but I'm not disappointed.
Mathwiz omg I cant live uo to that masterpiece of an OST but thank you so much
oooohhhh! I like this idea, but don't necessarily agree with the idea of the movie and the anime being separate. At the end of the anime, Akio implies that the actions of the End of the World -- his attempts to open the gate and Anthy's self-sacrifice for his own sake -- is a continuous action. It happens because it's always happened and the results are always the same because (of course) they are. Until we get to the last episode where Utena has disappeared and yet everything is changed; the loop of time and the sequence of events at the academy is different because she disrupted it. So The Adolescence is, essentially, the result of the change Utena's actions caused (even if Utena herself -- and all the characters except for Anthy [and possibly Touga] -- is unaware of it).
I say that to say that Adolescence *is an embodiment of your argument, but because Utena herself has unlearned the toxicity of patriarchal masculinity in the series. And maybe, to a greater extent, she destroyed it; after all, Akio doesn't exist in The Adolescence and several characters note that there is no prince. So without the physical embodiment of patriarchal masculinity -- a physical character to implant those ideals via the ring itself -- Utena is more able to create an ideal of masculinity that aligns with her ideas of "high goals" in the movie (a self that presents as both masculine and feminine), versus the more toxic elements of masculinity that Akio and Utena herself presented in the series. (This is just my take though and I know that queerness has a place, but as I am not queer, I don't feel comfortable sourcing an experience that is not my own. But in rewatching the movie, I think that Utena does embody the idea of Plato's "Man Re-Entering the Cave": she gains new information from every interaction and experience and I think that closes off her becoming "the prince," i.e., Akio's corrupt self/toxic masculinity overall, and aids her in leaving behind the conventional ideas of masculinity and femininity.)
Seriously, I really do like this analysis and the nods to the academic sources you cite.
Your after effects elements were great in this! Your editing is really improving and it's a joy to watch because you have such and interesting take on anime and I love to listen to you talk!
And awe thank you for the shout out
Isla McTear You are honestly the best and nicest thank you so so much for your kind words and help 😭😭 It means alot because as a creator I respect you and your work so much so this made my day!!!
IF YOU CONTINUE THIS SERIES I WILL DIE AND ALSO GIVE YOU MONEY
Your style of concise videos that make a specific point or eplore a cleary defined and limited subject is awesome. However in this case it would have been really useful (at least to me) if you gave some more background on Halberstam and why you specifically chose to discuss his ideas in the context of Adolescence of Utena.
I ought to check this out. Seeing stuff like this always makes me want to step outside the stuff I usually watch and read.
yeyeyeyeye
this video is great, but id super appreciate it if you could put closed captions on it ^_^ but yeah, great video! i love your stuff!
Elianna Levy oh thats a good idea! And thank you so much 😊
This is so so good
this is good content NICE
Utena didn't reject the Prince story. When she Confront Touga in the elevator. She realizes that Touga was after all a Prince to Utena when they were children. The movie has too many problems, and it sees to go against a lot of Feminism theory.
Tl;dr, Touga and Dios were never actually princes, and Utena and Anthy realize this so they dip the fuck out of the stereotyped world and embrace both their sexualities, gender identities, and their own agency as fully capable people.
I interpreted Touga in the elevator in a different way. We know in the series the elevator goes down to the deeper parts of the character's mind and feelings. Utena in the movie was pursuing and speaking with a long dead Touga, only to finally come to terms with his death in the elevator. Touga was her prince, her perfect ideal prince.
Except her prince was dead before Utena ever came to Ohtori. What a prince should be, was dead in the water. *heh*
I took it to say that the idea of the prince she held for so long was literally all of her own making. That her views on princes was misleading and wrong from the start. The scenes we get of Touga being weak and hurt by his adopted father, coupled with laying with Shiori in a surreal collage, really lend to that argument. He never was a prince of any kind, he wasn't royalty, he wasn't a loyal lover, he was weak and defenseless, all which break the "prince" type.
She left him in that elevator, her hair long, and she was smiling. She wasn't walking the path of a long dead prince. She was moving forward on her own two feet.
Utena embraced her own power, and accepted there was never a true prince. The same goes for Anthy, knowing her brother, THE prince, had been dead. Searching for a 'new prince' through the duels. Only to accept her brother was not a prince, and literally runs through him with Cartena. From his ghostly apparition, Anthy and Utena bloom forth among roses. Dios, Prince McPrinceyPants, was never a prince, and bursting through his form, Utena and Anthy both reject any semblance of Princes, and of the society that tried to create them.
She took Anthy's hand; both of them on their own two feet. They rejected the world they were boxed into where there were rose brides, princes, princesses, and witches. It's Feminist. It's so very human. It's Revolutionary™. Even if it's just a few people's world, Utena changed them, just like she changed her own world.
I love the film. I think it takes the ideas of the Anime, condenses, intensifies, and solidifies them into one of the best movies I've seen yet. The point is clearer, the look sharper, and it's just as liberating as the anime's themes.
I love all the editions of Utena, and saying the film has too many problems or that it goes against one of its main themes just. Doesn't make sense. I'd suggest a rewatch with an open mind. It's not meant to be the same as the tv series. The Adolescence of Utena is very easily recognized as a tie in, but the world they reside in is a machine (hence, all the machinery and mechanical movements of the literal world), whereas the TV Series can be seen as a fairytale book. Both in imagery and in message, the two are alike, but entirely different beasts.
How many INITYs are there?!
WE LOVE YOU SUB - Da Lesbiansz
Ummm, last time I remeber women and are inherently femine and masculine!
Guys are permited to being masculine, girls are permited to be femine! There isn't a inequality there! Boys are taught to be masculine because that's the healthy way to live, It's the same with girls!
In cases where boys where brought up to be women, the boys commited suicide because that wasn't the way they were supposed to be brought up and were robbed of living a normal life!
Being a femine guy is just an act, just like it is to be a masculine guy!
It's just against the norm of males and females to be the oppisite!
shut up boomer