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[SalmonGod]

San and Lady Eboshi are two of the most badass female characters ever, each with a lot of human complexity and none of it rooted in a patriarchal view as far as I can tell.  That's one stand-out example, but female characters tend to be the real movers of his stories.  There's usually a strong male character in there, but it's the female lead's emotional strength and willpower that tends to ultimately resolve conflicts.  That formula was actually kind of reversed in Mononoke, but San and Ashitaka really appeared to be roughly equals with different perspectives, except Ashitaka's perspective was rooted in less emotional damage and he had his cursed superpowers.

[G-Flex]

San and Lady Eboshi are two of the most badass female characters ever, each with a lot of human complexity and none of it rooted in a patriarchal view as far as I can tell.  That's one stand-out example, but female characters tend to be the real movers of his stories.  There's usually a strong male character in there, but it's the female lead's emotional strength and willpower that tends to ultimately resolve conflicts.  That formula was actually kind of reversed in Mononoke, but San and Ashitaka really appeared to be roughly equals with different perspectives, except Ashitaka's perspective was rooted in less emotional damage and he had his cursed superpowers.

I agree, but bear in mind that the idea that women are particularly suited to having "emotional strength and willpower" is in itself a gender-prescriptive thing.

[Vector]

Physical strength, too.  San cuts people, Lady Eboshi has serious firepower, and the prostitutes working the ironworks are pretty absurdly powerful themselves.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Miyazaki loosely based Nausicaä's character on the Greek princess of the same name from the Odyssey, as portrayed in Bernard Evslin's small dictionary of Greek mythology, translated into Japanese by Yataka Kobayashi.[7] He was also inspired by the "Princess who loved insects",[8] a Japanese story based in the Heian period.[9] This story was about a young princess who loved to study insects and other creatures rather than wearing fine clothing and thinking of choosing a husband.

To continue, an interview with Miyazaki over the masterpiece that would launch Studio Ghibli.

#Getting back to Nausicaa herself, of the characters in the various stories you've written so far, isn't she the closest thing to an ideal? Or would you say she's just a typical heroine? There might have been no other options due to the nature of the story, but I'd like to ask your thoughts on the matter. In concrete terms, she had the station of a princess and in appearance she was a beautiful young woman.

MIYAZAKI Well, if I hadn't drawn her as beautiful, there would have been some problems. I thought that I should settle down and draw her consistently, but every time I drew her, her face changed-even I was overpowered.

#She has vision and intellect far greater than other people, in addition to distinguished fighting skills. She also has leadership ability. We say that one carries the burden of one's own soul, but Nausicaa additionally carried the burden of many other souls as well. She was also forced to shoulder the role of legendary savior. But she didn't let all those burdens defeat her. At the end, she went to the battlefield. I describe her here as such a strong character, and I truly believe that she's the first of her kind in manga.

MIYAZAKI That, I don't know. I haven't read all the manga done in the past. But this is a period in which everyone wants to read about 'heroes' who are consummately normal people. If they're not, the readers don't believe in them. I don't like this. That's how things are these days, but frankly speaking, I dislike it. Making heroes who are just like you or everyone else around you. I wanted to create a character who was not like that.
I'm not saying that I completely ignore ordinary things. I had no problem making 'Kiki's Delivery Service', or the upcoming 'Mimi o Sumaseba'('If You Listen Hard'). I'm not totally against it-after all, everyone likes to think that they're the hero of their own story.

#In the 70's and 80's, there were no such strong heroes or heroines.

MIYAZAKI Ah-but what about Akira? Wasn't he strong?

#Yes, but he was a very strange young man.

MIYAZAKI And Nausicaa's a strange young girl. [laughs]

#Did your image of Nausicaa change significantly from 14 years ago, when you created her, until you finished the story?

MIYAZAKI No. Nausicaa was always Nausicaa. She changed, but she was always Nausicaa. It's more correct to say that I understand her better than I used to. The way I thought of her inside my head never changed.

# That's interesting. It's often said that characters act on their own. Did Nausicaa start to act of her own volition?

MIYAZAKI I created Nausicaa as a certain kind of girl, and I had her react to various situations as that kind of girl would, but she didn't act on her own.
There was one thing that did change, however. I had intended, at the start, to draw her as a more physical person. I thought I'd draw her forcefully, with large breasts. But then, if a nude scene came up, I wouldn't have been able to draw it without apologizing. That was the one thing I was sure of. Really. Not because I would be ashamed, or anything like that, but because I'd feel like drawing things that can't be published. [laughs] So I didn't want to draw her like that. That's the only thing that I can say, without a doubt, that I felt. So that was a change. Of course, if I'd started drawing her like that, I would have had no trouble with it-I don't think that I'm the kind of person who embarrasses easily at things like that. In any case, having now reached this point, I can see that there was no need to have drawn her that way. I think that the only thing that changed there at the end was my desire to depict a more spiritual story.

# I'd like to hear your comments, as the author, regarding the characters. What do you think of them? Do they act on their own volition? Were you able to depict them as you wanted to? Kushana is the most popular character with both men and women.

MIYAZAKI Nausicaa and Kushana are very similar-they are two sides of the same coin. But Kushana, whose background I showed a little of, has some deep, physical wounds. I think that she had the capacity to become an extremely fair ruler. But I didn't know if a competent front line commander was capable of being a competent ruler, so I didn't make her one. I made her a surrogate ruler, someone who could take the place of the king. I thought that she could be limited to that role. But as I wrote about her, I kept feeling sorry for her. Her character wasn't being communicated through the writing. I was perplexed. I thought that I had to touch on her relationship with her mother and that I had to depict her more clearly, but I had only one page in which to do all that. In the end, though, I had no choice but to get to it.

----------

#I'd like to go back a bit. The human race-human beings-will probably continue to develop nuclear technology and biotechnology. Considering nuclear technology, having experienced Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl, resistance to nuclear technology is active. But I think that biotechnology will continue without much resistance. What about the second half of the 20th century?

MIYAZAKI Humans will be remade. We'll try to make humans who are not atopic, for example. Humans are not immune to the effects of the environment we've created. If we don't wonder about what we might have done wrong, or whether or not we could do things differently, then we have no choice but to accept things as they come. We really need to strike a balance at some midway point between extremes.

If everything is God's will, then it's wrong to cure sickness. That's why women who made herbal concoctions were called witches. They went against God's will. But humans can't just stand by and leave things as they are. Pain and suffering exist, and we do what we can to alleve them. The most fundamental aspect of 'post-war democracy' in Japan during the 50's, in my opinion, was the philosophy that the misery of the individual could be completely alleviated, as long as the government and nation made no mistakes. Completely alleviated. Because humans were not born to suffer. But what happens then is that being born becomes a torment. We lose sight of the truth of existence.

People who suffered illnesses from radiation poisoning, and people suffering from other cruel afflictions embraced their suffering and carried on with life. But those people wanted to believe that the things that happened to them were solely the result of things created wrongly by other humans-polluted food and environment, atomic bombs, etcetera. I think that problems of medical treatment and life stem from this.

But it's wrong. The prevalent idea throughout the world is that pain and human existence are irretrievably linked. After the war, Japan built an artificial and unnatural 'better' world, thinking that 'post-war democracy' could alleviate pain. We thought that we could clear up most problems by reaching a certain level of national wealth. So instead of guns, we built a high-growth economy. A lot of misery was eliminated by eradicating poverty. "Ku-pora no aru Machi" (A Town with a Cupola) could not be made in these times of plenty. But in Korea, China, Taiwan and other Asian countries, there are disparities aplenty, and dramatic, aggressive movies are being made all the time. It's only natural. But in Japan, where these contradictions no longer exist, we're only making movies about girls in love, strolling down the street. It's difficult to live in a society seething with contradictions, but it's also difficult to live in a society like that of current Japan. These problems have existed since the time of Buddha and before, but we didn't recognize them until very recently. Now we see them, but we still haven't faced them squarely, and we, and the government, continue in our mistaken belief that there must be a paradise somewhere quite near by. I don't think that it will be an easy time, when we finally do face up to these problems.

[Vector]

Child kidnapping, mutilation, and sacrifice in Africa.

*sigh*

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I can't believe they interviewed the guy. Although, if the police are so incompetent as to not investigate child sacrifice, they probably won't do much if a child killer ends up dead either.....


I really would not make a good reporter.

[GlyphGryph]

Wow. That's just... wow. Ugh.

[Virex]

Disney is pretty bad at giving good rolemodels. Mulan was pretty good, but a lot of others... not so much. Beauty and the Beast fell flat on it's face trying to convey the whole, "beauty /= good" thing.

Even Mulan is explicitly treated as a "Disney princess". Whoops.

The ethnocentrism is pretty stark as well. I mean, "Hercules" was basically entirely Judeo-Christian but with Greek names. Disney has this thing where they'll try to portray another culture, except everything will be in name only, and it just comes off as incredibly tacky. The thing is, I don't even understand why this is remotely necessary. It's intended for kids, and kids are used to being introduced to new ideas. Judeo-Christian theology/mythology is almost as alien to an eight-year-old as any other thing you could throw at them. Is this just writers being lazy, writers being ignorant, or what? Personally, I think people who make art for children have a tendency to "pass the narrative" without really thinking about it, taking on the responsibility of filling the kids' heads with whatever the popular narrative is concerning the subject matter, without really considering that they are doing so.


I know they're not necessarily the most progressive either, but I'd rather my kids watch Hayao Miyazaki movies than Disney movies, in terms of messages sent and received. Princess Mononoke alone has better/more respectable/more realistic role models in it than pretty much all Disney films I can think of combined.

Disney makes movies for parents though and as such caters to the lowest acceptable standard for bible thumpers, since those are sadly a larger market than the people who see the evil in their movies (not in the least place because they breed like rabbits. Isn't indulgence supposed to be a sin or something?)

[Siquo]

the lowest acceptable standard for bible thumpers

I'm not too sure about that. More often than not strange gods and heathen myths are portrayed as "real", and bible thumpers wouldn't like that. Men of the cloth are often portrayed as the bad guys as well. It's more a chewing of culture and make it into bite-sized bits especially for the northern-american stomachs, to increase empathy for the main characters.

[Nadaka]

I am watching cnn now and they are interviewing Joe Arpio... Chief proponent of actual slave labor in the US. He wants to arrest and imprison illegal aliens instead of deport them. I would note that he is deeply involved in the corporatization of prison systems and exploitation of captive labor.

[Virex]

I am watching cnn now and they are interviewing Joe Arpio... Chief proponent of actual slave labor in the US. He wants to arrest and imprison illegal aliens instead of deport them. I would note that he is deeply involved in the corporatization of prison systems and exploitation of captive labor.

Oh hey, that's how we deal with immigrants over here too. Yeah, great system, I can recommend it to any country, especially those that regularly run into trouble with human rights activists.


On a completely unrelated note, the recent recession has enabled people to once again shaft the female workforce (article from the beginning of the year, though it's unlikely that things have improved). Most disturbingly is this part:

State budget crises have led to job losses that disproportionately affect women, who make up the majority of state and local government employees. Last year, local governments shed 259,000 workers, of whom 225,000 were women.

Seems the tea party is getting it's way even without having to lift a finger. Am I allowed to use the word "gender cleansing" yet?

[Nadaka]

I actually forgot to mention what was so bad about the Joe Arpio interview. It wasn't about him pushing for slave labor, and using illegal immigrants for this because they need more slaves. It was about all the republican candidates seeking his approval and endorsement.

[kaijyuu]

Man, people hating on Beauty and the Beast? That's my favorite one!

Maybe I just love to hate Gaston so much. He does have a friggin' awesome song.

[Pnx]

Man, people hating on Beauty and the Beast? That's my favorite one!

Maybe I just love to hate Gaston so much. He does have a friggin' awesome song.

She does valiantly try to save the girl from Stockholm syndrome.

[Andir]

Seems the tea party is getting it's way even without having to lift a finger.

Unless you have backing information, please refrain from this.