Warning: Personal Confusion
To be extremely honest, the topic chosen for today was a bit confusing. Furthermore, the fact that I don't watch TV often doesn't help either. Any "television" I watch consist of procured anime/cartoon series off the net...So the article I read about the supposed "Golden Age of Television" flew straight over my head! Seriously, the author of the article wrote of names and titles as if EVERYONE is supposed to know and understand them! I knew from the first few paragraphs, the topic was a lost cause.
The Female Influence
From what I did gather from the first few paragraphs, and what actually did make sense to me, was a statement of sexism: that there wasn't enough female influence in rising and history making television. I don't buy it. My childhood, if anything, was drowned in the animes and cartoons of the 90's and 00's -- sorta like today, except then, I'd have to stay up late at night to watch it on the tube. During those late-night hours of glazing endlessly at a screen and in the aftermath of restless nights, I would spend my time admiring not only the heroes of those epic sagas, but also the (stereotypicaly sexy, and much smarter) heroines! Lets jump back in time, shall we?
One of My Famous, Relatively Small Bulleted List (this time of anime Heroines that I've Admired)...
feel free to browse
- R. Dorothy Wayneright (The Big O, 1999)
- Okay, so she was a sidekick, but I always felt that without her, Roger Smith, the detective/giant mecha warrior, would crumble. I mean, what's Batman without Alfred? Plus, she's a robot.
- Faye Valentine (Cowboy Bebop, 1998)
- Although at many points she plays the role of the anti-hero (i.e. displaying much greed, selfishness, foolishness), her desire to recover her memories and her eventual loyalty to her companions makes her truly fantastic. Simply the fullness of her character, her faults and greatness, make her one to be admired. Not to mention, she can handle a gun pretty well as a space bounty hunter. Cool, right?
- Major Motoku Kusanagi (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, 2002)
- Honestly, she's one of my favorite. Without a doubt, she is the star of the show. She's sexy, cunning, quiet, deep, punctual, and deadly. Her absolute courage in the face of terrorism against Japan and her strength as a covert agent cyborg her makes her one to admire, fear, and drool over!
- Kagome Higurashi (Inuyasha, 2009)
- The tale is a story of courage and drama, as this high school girl is forced to travel back in time into feudal Japan, only to confront a reality where mythological monsters exist. While there, she has to grapple with the powers and treasures her ancestors had to save the world -- and not to mention with beasts, friends, and foes she'll make along the way. If that's not awesome, idk what is...
- Chihiro Ogino (Spirited Away, 2001)
- Haku, the male role, may be a dragon, and everyone else may be a spirit of sorts, but Chihiro is a ten year old girl that has to struggle in order to regain her identity and to see her parents again. Her faith in friendship and kindness is perfect.
Last, but not least...
My favorite heroine from my childhood would have to be...*insert drum roll here*... HARUKO HARUHARA from FLCL (2000)! A spontaneous, pink-haired female from outer-space, Haruko has that perfect mix of lunacy and secrecy to truly make her a full character. Her energy is to be admired, her comedy (even her perverted-ness) is to appreciated, her butt-kicking action is to be feared, and lastly her ruthlessness is enough to make one flip out of their chair (just when you though you knew her, something goes crazy)! As an alien, ironically, she portray what the ideal of a human should be (albeit in an extreme and exaggerated manner): a person her who embraces their flaws with a touch of narcissism (balance), a person who acts with a free spirit (energetic and free), and a person who truly loves music (appreciation for the arts). Yea, did I mention she wields an electric guitar as her companion and weapon of choice? Along with being able to play tunes by Presley, Hendrix, and McCartney, it fires bullets, rockets, and can act like a flying rocket board... IN SHORT, she is one interesting character, and for that, I've appreciated her presence FLCL. <3
MY POINT?
I don't know anything about HBO, USA, FX, A-B-C-D-E...&c, OR ANYTHING ABOUT THE GOLDEN AGE OF (American) TELEVISION; but I do know about anime. It makes sense to me, and I've seen enough to burn holes through my retinas, so to speak. I know for a fact that the female presence and influence in anime media, which has invaded our soil by storm since the early 60's (remember Astro Boy and Speed Racer?), has not been absent. One of the greatest selling manga/animes, Fruits Basket, was made by a female mangaka, Natsuki Takaya!
Unfortunately for me, and for you--my loyal readers--I didn't understand a bit of the research that I read on the Golden Age of TV, so I hope you've enjoyed my tangent on to a topic that I did understand. ☺ IF you want to learn about that other junk, go away. GO. AWAY. lol
A greater question...
Is American media more sexist compared to other media around the world? Hmm, somebody bring me an article of that. At least then I'd be able to comprehend what's going on...
peace.
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| No original art today--no time--but I did want to share this screen shot of Haruko Haruhara (FLCL)! There's really a lot more chaos going on than you can imagine. I believe this is from the last episode of the series. |
I am sorry to hear you were not brought up on good ol' American television! (just kidding). Do you think that watching Japanese anime growing up made you look at things differently than kids who grew up watching American media? Do cartoons actually have such affect? As you say these cartoons you watched were not sexist unlike American shows, do you think you are not sexist because of the cartoons you watched, or for other reasons? Great blog
ReplyDeleteYay a kindred spirit who loves cartoons and anime! I didn't read the assigned article but in some of my other research I saw a lot of stuff about sexism. It kind of reminded me about a report I heard on Pakistan's new children's show (http://www.burkaavenger.com/). In the show a female school teacher fights corruption and oppression. Her superhero outfit? A burka. The reporter was concerned that the heroine was using an object of her oppressors to fight her oppressors. The creator of the show simply said "and Wonder Woman isn't dressed in the object of her oppressors?". Overall it seems like, at least in cartoons and for the most part video games, there is rampant objectification of women. For every Inuyasha or Studio Ghibli film there's TONS of anime that portrays women as sex objects and nothing more. From what I gathered it seemed like the articles were concerned about women writers being limited in the traditionally male dominated roles of Hollywood writers. But that's a problem that extends beyond TV and into paper entertainment. If you search on wikipedia for authors by genre you don't see anything under "male" but there are tons of pages devoted to "female" or "women" writers who have totally opposite books lumped into the same category as if all of the works of women revolve around the same themes.
ReplyDeleteAmanda, I'll assume you meant that you hadn't read it yet at the time of this post, but were of course planning to do so.
ReplyDeleteSteven, you bring a welcome critical perspective to this discussion. It is crucial to remember how a lot of this blanket generalizations are really the product of a very specific, narrow, culturally limited viewpoint. One thing the article didn't fully articulate, I think, is that the very notion of the golden age is perhaps a product of a certain largely white, largely male, largely middle-class view of what makes 'good' TV. There's always been good TV in some form or another. Why should a few dramas that include more controversial content be the deciding factor.
i don't know, though, if the characters you cite would be convincing evidence of a female perspective to the article's author. These are female characters, but they seem designed more for a male audience. Of course, I could be wrong--doe the female characters have a great deal of female fans who admire them and look up these characters as role models?
Perhaps not the characters I pointed out (except Chihiro, Kagome), but in the anime media I'm exposed to, there are nearly as many female stars as there are male, with quite a female following. If you're interested in a completely female/romance works, "Shojo" is the genre you're looking for. I personally look into "Shonen", being that it's orientated to action & adventure.
DeleteI could go off into a tangent where I dissect the expectations like female=romance while male=adventure, but I really don't want to get into that deep and chaotic subject. hahah
You say "quite a female following"--does that translate into an equal portion of female readers? This does not point to an inherent problem, but it is interesting to ask questions about why certain things just tend to skew male--like this class, for example (I've never had more than two women in it at one time, and I've had one section with no women).
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