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- Convenor:
-
Andrea Germer
(Heinrich-Heine-University)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Ulrike Woehr
(Hiroshima City University)
- Discussant:
-
Ulrike Woehr
(Hiroshima City University)
- Stream:
- Media Studies
- Location:
- I&D, Piso 4, Multiusos 2
- Sessions:
- Saturday 2 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
To what extent does popular culture carry possibilities of questioning norms, subverting gender stereotypes or queering normativity? Pursuing this question in case studies of three different genres: manga, animation, and TV drama, we aim to complicate the discussion on gendered media in Japan.
Long Abstract:
Popular culture is known and criticized for its often stereotypical presentation and creation of characters and plots -- and a conservative streak in a wide variety of genres is undeniable. Stylistic and technical craftsmanship aside, it is often judged to avoid posing any difficult textual questions. In this panel, we nevertheless ask to what extent popular culture carries possibilities of questioning norms, subverting stereotypes or queering normativity, and we pursue this question in case studies of three different genres: manga, animation, and TV drama. One major device for either questioning or reifying normativity is 'gender', i.e., the way in which a hegemonic gender order is either presented as unstable and untenable, or is celebrated, sometimes seemingly overturned but in the end 'restored'. For manga, common patterns such as the gender-queerness of visual depiction itself can be seen to expose and challenge gender norms, particularly in shōjo manga, whereas the 'heterosexual imperative' in such works effects narrow limitations for questioning normativity. For animation, the work of Hosoda Mamoru presents evidence for the ways in which the (not only sexual) queering of characters is used on the one hand as a means of dynamic plot development, while on the other hand its framing reifies formulations of stereotypical gender patterns. In TV drama, the recent upsurge in visibility of queer sexualities must be seen in a history of depictions of queer, and specifically lesbian desire on the small screen. However, the recent depictions are not unilaterally welcomed by queer audiences as they present diversity in ways that may reinforce stereotypes. Elaborating the queering aspects of case studies from different genres of popular media, this panel aims to complicate and to deepen the existing discussion on gendered media in Japan
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 2 September, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
A close analysis of the 2012 animated film and box office success "Wolf Children" (dir., Hosoda Mamoru) reveals the film's complex strategy of queering its main protagonists, portraying dynamics of stigmatization and at the same time re-instituting normativity through binary notions of gender.
Paper long abstract:
Animation is a genre of popular culture that is particularly suited to visualize and enact tropes of transgressing, queering and overcoming boundaries such as those between reality and dreams or fantasy, between human and animal worlds, between genders and sexualities. In this paper, we discuss the 2012 animated film and box office success Wolf Children, directed by Hosoda Mamoru, one of the most prominent animators in contemporary Japan. Wolf Children explores the transgressions of human/animal boundaries as it portrays the growth and socialization process of two hybrid wolf-human children, Yuki and Ame, and presents their journeys in finding their own identities.
Our analysis of the film focuses on the question of how the dilemmas of the secret hybridity of the wolf children and their anxieties about being 'outed' in society speak to and correspond with the anxieties that so-called 'invisible minorities' experience in contemporary Japan. Recurring dynamics of stigmatization and social discrimination form the subtext in Hosoda's film in which the mother of the wolf children is constantly engaged in hiding the 'difference' of her children from mainstream, 'normal' society. We employ queer theory (Butler, Kristeva) and the concept of stigma (Goffman) to elucidate how the wolf children's deviation from normativity and their attempts to 'pass' as normal in a series of social spaces can be read as references for passing modes of other non-normative identities, i.e., of social, ethnic, and sexual minority groups in Japan. In the film, however, the children's/minorities' potential for disturbing fixed and normative notions of identity, system and order is at the same time contained through the gendered frame of the 'mother'. Motherhood is presented in the form of the 'good wife, wise mother' as gendered nationalism and as the major mode for reifying normativity.
We explore whether this film's complex strategy of queering, passing and then reifying binary divisions and re-instituting normativity can also be traced in Hosoda's other successful films, such as Summer Wars (2009) or The Boy and the Beast (2015). We thereby discuss and draw attention to the contradictory social and cultural implications of Hosoda's oeuvre.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation introduces recent examples of female-to-female intimacy in Japanese TV-Series and places them in context with earlier representations of lesbian and queer desire in this medium.
Paper long abstract:
In 2015 Fuji TV announced the terebi dorama "Transit Girls", supposedly the first TV series in Japan to centre on a lesbian relationship. In the same year, the widely popular TV drama Gisō no fūfu (Fake couple) with a gay male main character and lesbian side character also aired on Fuji TV. The new/changed visibility of queer lives accomplished by the introduction of stories centred on lesbian/gay or bisexual characters is, however, not unilaterally perceived as a positive trend in queer communities. On the one hand, it may help some individuals identifying as LGBT*IQ*A or questioning their sexuality to see queer characters entering mainstream media. On the other hand, where few representations of non-heteronormative relationships or characters are accessible, those stand in danger of reinforcing stereotypes and biases against LGBT*IQ*A identified people. Also, certain representations of queer topics may even be likely to stabilize norms of gender and sexuality.
Lesbian characters and stories centred on female-to-female intimacy are not yet a regular theme in Japanese TV series, but their number appears to be rising. It is important, however, to understand this trend not only as a recent phenomenon influenced by societal changes, such as the symbolic recognition of same-sex partnerships in some Japanese cities, but to look back at the history of Japanese TV where representations of lesbian desire can be found as early as the 1960s. In this paper, I present an analysis of a number of recent Japanese TV series featuring lesbian characters and place them in context with earlier representations of queer desire in this medium.
How did representations of characters identified as lesbians change? How are these changes perceived in queer communities in Japan? By addressing these questions, I hope to be able to point out what is new about the representation of female-to-female intimacy in recent examples of Japanese TV series in comparison to earlier representations of queer characters and stories with a queer subtext - and to show how the new images can be approached from the point of view of queer theory.