Bex Week 6

According to Napier, how does this anime problematize traditional (or conservative) constructions of gender, class and race?

The three main women in Princess Mononoke are all independent women and, different from traditional anime, none of them have sweet or cute traits. Independent female characters are depicted in general anime but they always have that cutesy trait. The three main women are independent; Eboshi leads a military like camp and eventually leads an army, San (Princess Mononoke) is a violent, wild girl who lives with in the forest with a wolf, and has a naturalised, sexual quality to her and the other Moro the female wolf she lives with who is her mother figure but is essentially a warrior.

    Usually female characters are used as a “vehicle for tradition”, but these three completely shake that up. They depict both sides of the central conflict within the story; that of nature versus culture, San and Moro vs. Eboshi. If they had made Eboshi a male the audience could very well simply blame him for the loss of nature, it is simply another evil man being pig-headed. Instead the blame falls on civilisation and humanity as a collective. Eboshi is inspired by her need to defend her people not her want to destroy. A motherly quality, but she does not act her need out by waiting for men to do everything, she takes on leadership and goes into battle herself.

    Eboshi also signifies a change from the traditional role of women in all media and in most cultures, that of the women being closely related to nature. San’s character, while aligned with nature, takes on all the qualities that nature imposes, violent, wild, and aggressive. This is not the type of role women are seen in when related to nature. As Napier states (page 241) women within “upscale Japanese magazines” depict women wearing kimonos promoting “the magazine’s image of traditional harmony… being together with nature.”