Download Nature Technology and Ruined Women_ Ecofeminism and Princess Mo and more Study Guides, Projects, Research Fiction Writing in PDF only on Docsity!
NATURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND RUINED
WOMEN: ECOFEMINISM AND
PRINCESS MONONOKE
W E N D I S I E R R A , A L Y S A H B E R W A L D ,
M E L I S S A G U C K & E R I C A M A E D E R
ST. JOHN FISHER COLLEGE
INTRODUCTION
o Western audiences unfamiliar with the genre, the Japanese film genre of anime might at a first glance look like a children’s program. Certainly the visual style of the genre, including the hand-drawn animation, the often fantastical settings, and many colorful characters and anthropomorphized non-human characters are reminiscent of Disney cartoons and other films directed at prepubescent audiences. However, unlike most animated features in American culture, Japanese anime often tackles serious, adult themes in a more careful and nuanced way. While American cinema has at times tried its hand at animated features targeting adult themes and audiences, Through a Scanner Darkly (2006) being a recent and highly-awarded example, Hollywood (and American animation in particular) is “notorious for its happy endings even when those are improbable” (Levi 10). Where American animated cinemas, Levi argues, often use sadness or grief as a smaller piece of an ultimately heroic narrative for main characters, Japanese anime more commonly deploys grief, loss, and death as the centerpiece of their narratives. Indeed, Levi describes Neon Genesis Evangelion, one of the most popular anime series in America, as “a celebration of sadness and loss” (12). Furthermore, Shinobu Price explains that anime, in contrast to much of what we see from feature-
T
length animation in the West, has a “much freer palette from which to choose its audience and subject matter” (153). It is true that there are many anime made for children, including the wildly popular Ponyo , but an equal (or possibly greater) number of anime films address serious issues from a mature perspective, not shying away from death, heartache, and pain. The film Princess Mononoke is an excellent example of the depth and complexity that anime has the potential to convey. While Mononoke features a fantastical story with talking animals, a dashing young hero, and a princess, it is as far from a traditional Western cartoon as one can get. The film deals in nuanced ways with the conflict between the natural world, represented by the intelligent animal spirits of the wood and their champion San, and industrialization and technologies, represented by Lady Eboshi’s weapon-producing Iron Town. The personification of nature within the film is both obvious and vibrantly alive; the forest itself is ruled by a creature dubbed “The Great Forest Spirit” who rules over both life and death within the realm and maintains the forest for all the inhabitants. And even though there are a slew of human characters who have their own important stories, the story of the forest and nature itself is an important backdrop to the film and is what contains the overall message about how to respect nature, even in the face of advancing technology and civilization. The increasing popularity of anime in America, coupled with the complex and weighty subject matter they often tackle, makes the genre an ideal focus for analysis. In this essay we explore the classic and highly successful Princess Mononoke from an ecofeminist perspective. While the film has often been praised for its strong female characters and its positive environmental message, an ecofeminist reading shows us how Princess Mononoke problematically recreates some troubling archetypes related to women and their connection with nature. In particular, Princess Mononoke’s portrayal of Lady Eboshi and San ultimately reflect subconscious anxieties about women in positions of power.
fantastical elements of the plot and not question their historical or religious significance (Levi 10). Western audiences will most likely miss other elements of Japanese culture inherent to anime. Like Ghost in the Shell , many of the names in Princess Mononke provide further insight into character motivations and/or context. For instance, many viewers outside Japan might not know the meaning of the title and usage of the word “Mononoke,” and the connotations that are associated with the word. Takako Tanaka explains some of the symbology that Japanese viewers would likely be familiar with, but other audiences would not: As it is used in the Heian period, mononoke is something highly elusive, intangible, and unfathomable. In the film, however, it assumes a very concrete form, often appearing as an animal, such as a great wolf or wild boar. It is unclear why Miyazaki chose the word mononoke , but partly due to the influence of the film, the term has recently come to be used to refer to any concrete thing with a strange or eerie aspect, and is sometimes used interchangeably with yôkai , a monster, ghost, or apparition (“Understanding Mononoke”). Within the film, the eponymous “princess” is formally named San. For a viewer ignorant of both the Japanese language and the cultural context, it may seem peculiar that she should have two names. We highlight these distinctions and slippages because, in this paper, we interpret the film from the perspective of a Western audience—a perspective we argue is warranted given the film’s incredible popularity for non-Japanese audiences. As Chambers and Levi have demonstrated, a lack of familiarity with cultural contexts has not prevented either the increasing prevalence of anime in American culture or American audiences’ ability to find their own meaning and connection with the genre. While a fuller examination of the historical and mythological references is outside the scope of this analysis, Takako Tanaka’s “Understanding Mononoke Across the Ages” provides a thorough overview of how the film connects both with Japan’s history and with the “Japanese perception of the spirit world”.
Princess Mononoke follows the struggles of two women, women scholars and fans often read as strong female characters. Certainly both characters are seen to be powerful women who defy traditional gender stereotypes and roles at the outset of the film. In many ways, they are foils for each other. San, the eponymous Princess Mononoke, lives wild in the forest and is more comfortable in the presence of the various animal spirits that live within. Lady Eboshi, the warrior-like ruler of Iron Town, champions progress at nearly any cost and has little care or compassion for the natural world. Nonetheless, they are similar in their defiance of conventional roles. Indeed, many characters throughout the film refer to both women as unnatural: Eboshi for her leadership of the town and “masculine” ways, San for her wild nature and apparent lack of civilized behavior or appearance. While, as previously mentioned, both women are commonly referred to as strong characters, the conclusion of the narrative complicates this reading. Eboshi is maimed and removed from her position of power, replaced by the male hero Ashitaka, and San essentially exiled to the forest.
The Perils of Preforming Strength: Lady Eboshi’s Fall
Lady Eboshi, the main antagonist of Princess Mononoke, demonstrates how many “strong” women who oppose traditional gender tropes often ultimately pay the price for challenging those gender roles. While the narrative introduces her as a strong character, both politically and emotionally, she is physically maimed and forced to resign from her place of power by the conclusion of the film. Though some critics have read Eboshi’s character as a positive representation of a woman’s authority, using ecofeminisim as a lens illustrates how her character follows a common character arc in films about nature and natural disasters, an arc that reflects deep-seated anxieties about women, nature, and power. Lady Eboshi is the leader of Iron Town, a place she helped to build and make thrive. She was able to take her role at the head of Iron Town because she led a ruthless attack against Nago, a boar god and protector of the mountain with her warriors. This fierce display secured her role as Iron Town’s unquestioned leader. It is her continued displays of
her words might echo pity or sympathy, her actions and expressions seem nearly void of emotion at all. She wants the men under her control to see her as machine-like, as cold and hard as the iron itself. It is precisely because she outwardly denies any character traits that might be read as feminine, that the men in the village respect her. However, as Belmont suggests above, this is ultimately an untenable situation; Eboshi’s “unnatural” drive toward leadership must be cowed if order is to be returned to the chaotic world. Belmont states “women with authority -
- including the construct of Mother Nature -- are dangerous and must be contained” (370). Recounting how she destroyed Nago, one village man states excitedly, “She isn’t even afraid of the gods , that woman!” ( Princess Mononoke). It is important to note that she is the only respected woman within the fortress that is Iron Town. This is because of her presentation of masculinity that projects her feelings that she cannot be contained and her determination that she will not be stopped. Minnie Driver, who voiced Lady Eboshi in the English version of the film, was interested in "the challenge of playing [a] woman who supports industry and represents the interests of man, in terms of achievement and greed". Driver is using “man” here to refer to the standard “human versus nature” conflict that many environmentally themed/natural disaster movies portray, however her words are especially telling given that it is truly Eboshi’s “masculine” will to power that causes her downfall. We see Eboshi possesses big ambitions with her industry of iron. She seeks to perfect technology--not just the billows used to manufacture the iron--but the resulting product: Eboshi’s weapon of choice is her specialized guns. The film makes a point of demonstrating to viewers that Eboshi will not be content simply as Iron Town’s leader. Instead, she seeks power on increasingly larger scales; she already took over the valley and she wants to destroy the mountain, though her long-term goal is to rule the world. In hopes of accomplishing this, she drives her people to continuously perfect her designs. Interestingly enough, in destroying the mountain to gather the iron within the terrain and continue the production of her weapons, we see a symbolic destruction of that which
represents femininity and nature, so that she can secure her place as Iron Town’s head and her masculine mask may reign. She is war, she is destruction and she is power. Her poison bullets spread her violent and destructive influence, first against Nago and now Ashitaka. And yet, in her efforts to destroy nature, the oft-viewed feminine opposite of masculine technology, she claims women are superior to their male counterparts. This is clearly seen when Jigo presents a letter from the emperor to Lady Eboshi, granting them permission to slay the Great Forest Spirit. Eboshi sarcastically remarks that it is “impressive, for a piece of paper.” She goes on, showing the letter to two of her village women, saying that the letter is from the emperor. Their responses are, “That’s nice, who’s he?” and “Is he supposed to be important?” Feeling that she demonstrated her point that she does not even acknowledge the power of men, not even the emperor himself, Lady Eboshi dismisses the women. At the same time, Lady Eboshi is a walking contradiction; she balances the public performance of her aggressive and masculine leadership necessary to keep her position of power, while expressing her more characteristically feminine traits in secret. She looks for increasingly dominant, more powerful roles so that she can be a woman, but must give up measures of her femininity to do so. She must compromise, keeping most of her feminine behavior hidden away from the public sphere. Eboshi’s traditionally feminine behaviors show in the fact that she has taken in “her girls.” Lady Eboshi rescues the women who work the iron billows and who bought out their brothel contracts. The women are given free rein and allowed to eat as much as they like. Eboshi affectionately refers to these women as “her girls,” and she places nearly all of her trust in them and only what she must in the men of her town. For display only it seems, Lady Eboshi nearly always has Gonza at her side, a sort of right-hand man. However, it becomes obvious that he is simply for show and her true right-hand is Toki, a former brothel girl. Still, the women are worked hard, with shifts of working the billows that run four days long at a time. Though they remain safely inside Lady Eboshi’s fortress, unlike the men who risk their lives to travel and
facile stereotyping of technology, armaments, and industrialized culture as evil… [Eboshi]’s tragedy is that she is not actually evil” (Napier 185). In the end, the real tragedy is not that she is evil but that she is female. The technology is not destroyed completely nor is nature destroyed; Eboshi is destroyed for trying to alter the social and natural order. Ashitaka takes over, declaring that Iron Town is to be rebuilt in a way that works in harmony with the natural spirits and the forest. Eboshi must submit to the leadership of a man. Napier argues that the film “ is a wake-up call to human beings in a time of environmental and spiritual crisis that attempts to provoke its audience into realizing how much they have already lost and how much more they stand to lose” (Napier 180). This is especially true for Eboshi. The hyper-aggressive, uncompromising persona she must adopt in order to defy the patriarchal power dynamic of her time ultimately proves to be her undoing, as she is unable to compromise without endangering her position in Iron Town; she is engaged in a losing battle. It is not enough that she is removed from power in the film, but she is crippled as well and can no longer operate her machines. She is powerless, losing both symbolic and physical parts of her being.
Being the “Bad Mother”: The Exile of Princess Mononoke
In many ways San, the eponymous Princess Mononoke, is Eboshi’s opposite. Both are, in different ways, “bad” women, but they exist at opposite ends of the spectrum. Where Eboshi embodies the strong, masculine woman usurping male authority, San becomes a cipher for nature as “bad mother”. San is clearly coded as feminine, but she displays characteristics of the savage, unrefined and uncontrolled femininity of nature, a femininity that cannot remain within the cultural system and must be either dominated and controlled or exiled. She is depicted as the princess of the forest even though she is not specifically a spirit of the forest. San is human; her human parents gave her as a sacrifice when the wolf goddess, Moro, attacked them for damaging the forest. However, while it seems they expected the wolf goddess to kill her, Moro instead raised San alongside her wolf children.
Catherine Roach explains that the concept of Mother Nature can often be split into two categories: good mother and bad mother. In her good mother guise, Nature is a true representation of the idealized mother in a patriarchal system: “providing, caring, self-sacrificing, and inexhaustible. Mother is she who feeds and cleans and comforts and warms us, she who satisfies our wants” (Roach 40). Ecofeminism has often looked at the problematic connection between nature/nurturing/woman. However, in her bad mother form, which Roach argues we still recognize inherently female, “nature is dangerous, cruel, and torturous, as she attempts to drown, burn, freeze, and blow us away” (76). This is precisely the version of nature we see in Princess Mononoke and, as Roach observes, the fear of Mother Nature as bad mother is directly related to “the anger in general of a woman who has been crossed” (76). When we first meet San, it is in this role of avenging Mother Nature. With her two brothers by her side, San intercepts Eboshi and her men moving exposed through the forest and mountains, outside the safety of technology in Iron Town. While Eboshi’s guns and troops protect her from the assassination attempt, they are able to completely disrupt the procession, reinforce their role as an ever-present threat (bad nature lurking and waiting for the weaknesses of technology to become apparent), and injure two of Eboshi’s party. San and the rest of her clan are dressing their wounds by the river when they first encounter Ashitaka, who is immediately stunned by the sight of the wolf goddess and a girl about his age standing across from him. Thus, in her first appearance, we see San as wholly savage. While we do not yet understand either her motives or the situation, this depiction immediately “links her to premodern archetypes of ferocious femininity-- the shamanesses, mountain witches, and other demonic women who are the opposite trope of the all-enduring, all-supportive mother figure” (Napier 245). Eboshi, San’s rival, tells both the viewer and Ashitaka the story of San and how she came to be in her unique position as savage woman among the nature spirits. Hearing her story, Ashitaka “[leaps] into the
to help her succeed in something that would potentially be bad for him as well as other humans who live in a technological age. She is even more confused and angry when he explains that he did this because any human, even her own parents, has never valued her. Her confusion causes her to lash out at Ashitaka and explain, in a sense, that she is fearless and willing to risk her life for the greater good of the forest. In the interaction between San and Ashitaka, we see two common tropes of nature colliding with each other: “Lady Nature”, as defined by Heller, who needs to be shielded and protected from the horrors of technology, and “Bad Mother Nature”, whose savagery and power threaten to overwhelm and engulf humanity. San’s fierce independence and strength leave her permanently outside of human society, and while this is sometimes read as a positive, it’s important to note that neither of Princess Mononoke ’s strong female characters are able to be part of human society while they remain active agents of their own. San embodies what it means to be one with nature, but in her wild strength, she must live forever outside of culture. Belmont argues that having a woman closely associated with nature while portraying a hostile, unpredictable character, is not good for environmentalists or ecofeminists. “…their representations of gender in the specific context of a vision of nature as a threatening, destructive force that must be subdued by authoritative male figures and masculinist institutions reinforce the ideologies responsible for environmental degradation and social injustice - issues which are of the utmost importance to ecofeminism” (351). This pattern of a woman becoming too wild, and thus needing to be restrained and controlled by a male figure, has become far too common in disaster films and films in general. This is not a recent phenomenon, nor is it one that is no longer applicable to our modern media, Taming of the Shrew (1593), Kiss Me, Kate (1953), and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) all have something in common. Each film features a wild woman who needed to be tamed by a male in order for them to be happy because the male protagonist was able to bring them into civil society. The man is seen as a hero for
“taming the beast” and is celebrated at the end of the film when the woman is revealed as “tamed”; when it was her will that was broken. San ends this pattern of a strong woman who must always be tamed by a man, but is only able to do so by remaining entirely outside of the human system of culture and society. Ashitaka, the bold knight defending “Lady Nature,” manages to save the city of Iron Town, but he is not able to convince San to return to Iron Town with him after the ecological disaster is thwarted. Heller notes that “romantic ecology often veils a theme of animosity toward woman under a silk cloak of idealism, protection, and a promise of self- constraint”, and Ashitaka’s invitation to San attempts to play out this narrative. Kozo Mayumi, Barry D. Solomon, and Jason Chang read this primarily as a statement about her feelings and her traumatic past, explaining her decision was made because “her hatred toward humans never disappears” (5). We argue that San’s exile at the conclusion of the film holds two important meanings, both of which demonstrate that Princess Mononoke participates in some problematic ideology: “in reinforcing masculinist institutions, [natural disaster films] operate counter to both feminism and environmentalism” (Belmont 370). First, by remaining outside of the cultural system, San reminds us that Mother Nature, vengeful and powerful, is ever-ready should humanity/technology overstep its bounds. Second, we see that a powerful woman, in control of her own body and destiny, has no place in polite and ordered society. San’s options are simple: submit to Ashitaka’s courtly love, a love built on the sexist desire to shield, control, and protect, or remain independent but exiled.
LOOKING FORWARD
The central tenant of this argument is certainly not to imply that Princess Mononoke is in some way a “bad” film. Indeed, Princess Mononoke is one of the most highly regarded anime of our time, and for good reason. Napier notes that, in its native Japan, the film’s appeal “seems to extend to all parts of Japanese society… despite its complex, ambiguous, and often dark text,” and it was the highest grossing film in
separate – creating a lack of closure from an American perspective” (np), an ecofeminist perspective suggests otherwise. If, as Smith and Parsons have suggested, environmentalist films directed at younger audiences are indeed attempting to use “children’s popular films as a form of public pedagogy”, it behooves us to think not only about what these films may be teaching viewers (both young and old) about environmentalism, but also to consider what they say about the complicated relationships between technology and nature, between male and female. These problematic depictions also aren’t limited to either Princess Mononoke or to Miyazaki’s films. The complicated relationship between nature, humanity, and technology is frequently explored in anime. Christopher A. Bolton describes another classic anime, Ghost in the Shell, as a visually evocative film that “explores the boundary between information, human, and machine,” highlighting in particular the fluidity the film experiments with by both “transcending and endorsing fixed gender roles” (730). The narrative of Ghost in the Shell , which is explored through a variety of media, tells the story of a cyberpunk future in which technology is directly integrated into the human body. Thus, the series often explores the tension between the “dream of a natural world”, often problematically coded as feminine, “free from technology’s monstrous encroachments,” often coded as masculine (731). Looking at anime through the lens of ecofeminism provides a rich and evocative means of enriching our understanding of both. Anime, often more narratively complex than their Western counterparts, frequently tackle issues regarding the intersections between humanity, nature, and technology. Sometimes they do so in a direct, nearly evangelical manner, as Miyazaki does in many of his films. Other times, this tension is a subtle undercurrent that runs through the larger narrative, as in Ghost in the Shell. In either case, using ecofeminism as a lens with which to approach anime helps us to move toward a more critically reflective interpretation of these media. Likewise, as anime becomes increasingly popular in the living rooms across mainstream
America, these films can help us see how environmental issues and feminism often intersect.
WORKS CITED
Belmont, Cynthia. "Ecofeminism and the Natural Disaster Heroine." Women's Studies 36.5 (2007): 349-72. Print. Bolton, C. A. "From Wooden Cyborgs to Celluloid Souls: Mechanical Bodies in Anime and Japanese Puppet Theater." Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 10.3 (2002): 729-71. Web. Chambers, Samantha Nicole Inëz. "Anime: From Cult Following to Pop Culture Phenomenon." The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications 3.2 (2012): 94-101. Web. Driver, Minnie. "Minnie Driver Talks About Lady Eboshi." Princess Mononoke - Home. Mirimaz, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2015. Heller, Chaia. "For The Love of Nature: Ecology and the Cult of the Romantics." Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature. Ed. Greta Gaard. Philadelphia: Temple U, 1993. 219-42. Print. Levi, Antonia. "The Sweet Smell of Japan: Anime, Manga, and Japan in North America." JAPC Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 23.1 (2013): 3-18. Web. Lioi, Anthony. "The City Ascends: Laputa: Castle in the Sky as Critical Ecotopia." ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies 5. (2010): n. pag. Web. Miyazaki, Hayao. Princess Mononoke. Film Script. Trans. Fiona Smith.
- www.Nigels.com 29 Aug 2015. Mayumi, Kozo, Barry D. Solomon, and Jason Chang. "The Ecological and Consumption Themes of the Films of Hayao Miyazaki." Ecological Economics 54.1 (2005): 1-7. Web. Napier, Susan Jolliffe. Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print.
