How Miyazaki Writes WOMEN

we all love the iconic heroins of Miyazaki movies and the iconic female villains as well and of course it's something I want to try to understand and learn from for my own writing but when I've tried there's been this really odd problem I've encountered starting out just trying to understand what it is I'm seeing it's very easy to start listing characteristics of these women like independent strong empowering Courageous full of emotion you can talk about how they defy gender Norms they can talk about their agency and if that's your list and you're going to use that to try to put pen to paper you're not going to get a jibli character you're going to get C everine you're going to get Wonder Woman you're going to get VI you're going to get Gwen which isn't a bad thing but what I'm saying is that it feels like we developed this terminology to describe good female characters based on the types of female characters that are popular in Western fiction and it's not like these terms don't apply to mizaki heroins they apply it just it feels like they're not capturing enough they're slightly Off the Mark or they're too general or they're just straight up the wrong word to use like TI chiro is Chihiro empowering I won't say no but is it the best term to use is she strong yeah in a way by a certain point in her Arc but again not the first word I jump to you take a character like son who definitely is strong but is son independent is that really the word you would choose for a soldier locked in a hopeless War she never asked for not really or like s defies gender norms for sure but even that just feels like the first baby step in describing what's going on with her in terms of gender stuff like just in this first scene where Ashi taka meets her she is a soldier returning from the battlefield that's very traditionally masculine but she quickly takes on this nurturing rule for her wounded family member which is kind of more traditionally feminine but what she's doing how gritty it is how dirty how gruesome that feels more masculine but at the same time she looks freaking beautiful somehow with her mouth all covered in blood but the impact of that beauty isn't supposed to be like attraction exactly it's not sexualized at all it's like ashitaka taking the beauty of the Sacred and ancient part of the world he's come to and then she rejects this man but not because he's a man but because he's a man like capital M like human man so for her it's not about the gender power dynamic at all it's about the power Dynamic of man versus animal and the man oppressor side happens to be represented by a woman who is also this super confusing mix of gender stuff she's this Captain of industry and also a former sex worker and she's nursing lepers back to health when she's not out hunting Gods like sure defying gender Norms is technically accurate here but you're at like 2% of the way of explaining what's really going on or you take a character like Sophie this woman puts the full force of her assertiveness which is a very traditionally masculine trait and it's the trait she has in spades she goes all out assertive and taking on the role of being a cleaning lady for a bunch of boys who can't look after themselves it's just not the right words it's terminology that was invented to talk about other characters so that's going to more or less be the plan here I don't want to pretend that these terms don't apply because they are okay what I want to do is slowly carefully back away from these terms not entirely but just a bit just enough to be able to see better identifiers which should be close by terms that do feel right that feel more accurate more precise and then Zoom back in again refocus on those turns with a goal of finding a way of talking about these characters that's more organic to who they are so let's start with courageous I feel like there's two types of Courage you often hear talked about there's the thing that in my head I call ahaha courage I laugh in the face of danger which is like your Intrepid daring hero who relishes the Danger cast caution to the wind Tonight We Dine in Hell and even though this may be kind of lacking an emotional depth to some extent it's fun and it's 100% effective for certain kinds of stories the second kind of Courage is something you usually hear stated like explicitly as part of a py little lesson being brave isn't about not feeling fear it's about feeling fear and doing what you have to do anyway you hear some kind of quote like this all the time in movies historically it's either attributed to Nelson Mandela or Bear Grills two pillars of human leadership in our time so when we look at the brave things that Miyazaki women do which of these types of Courage are we seeing so it seems at first like it's an interesting mix of these two we see for example Chihiro in a lot of her early scenes appearing very afraid and then she triumphs over her fear and we get some of the antagonist women casting caution to the wind and relishing that ahaha Vibe but then you get cases like son who's fighting a very unbalanced war and we have no idea if she's afraid or not it seems like she's not but also seems like she's not relishing it at all it's just kind of what she has to do and that's it end of story or on a different track takes Sophie she Ventures out into the waist on her own as an old lady she's certainly not celebrating the danger and she's also not struggling or triumphing over any fear she just sort of not feel in fear or you look at noasa in this scene nothing to fear see nothing to fear or here princess easy princess she just knows there's nothing to be afraid of and that's similar to probably the greatest example of Sho showing this trait that's maybe courage or maybe something else which is her interaction with no face everyone else is scared to death of this monster and meanwhile chihiro's talking to him like she talks to anyone really and she she just calmly refuses what he asks for and then she leaves and then later she invites him to come along on the train similar to NASA it's not triumphing over fear she just doesn't see anything to be afraid of and I think that's also what Sophie and son have going on too in this scene Shiro is on a mission she's got something she set her mind to to get done it's not that that fills her with boldness and bravery instead it's almost like it displaces any fear she would feel like she just doesn't have room for it she's got to go save her Dragon boyfriend and this giant monster gu is in her way and she's got to get going like let's this up now please so stepping back from courageous we're seeing a couple new ideas coming into Focus here miyazaki's women are driven i. this factor of this is what I need to do that leaves no room for fear and then unafraid is the other word i' zero in on here which is this phenomenon where they're willing to approach interact with Embrace ignore the scary things simply because they know there's nothing to be afraid of and once we've identified these terms you start seeing more expressions of them elsewhere ibosi kills a God because she truly believes there's nothing to be afraid of and yes she relishes it but it's coming from this place of not fearing what other people fear just like Chihiro doesn't fear what other people fear just like NASA doesn't just like Sophie isn't afraid of howl or this demon she meets or this cursed person or even her own curse she's not triumphing over fear she just doesn't see it as scary or threatening and then the driven thing I'm not talking about ambition it is way more basic than that it's just knowing this is my only option Chihiro needs to go to the boiler room she needs to talk to kamaji she needs to get a job that's what she's got to do even if she's afraid there just is nothing else she can do and similarly she needs to help the stink Spirit what else is she going to do in this moment this is all there is to do this is her job she has sign her life away and now she needs to do this crazy thing no matter how she feels about it Sophie gets cursed and then she just needs to go to the waist even though it's dangerous especially for an old woman alone doesn't matter she needs to find howl that's the reality and this term encompasses situations that aren't about fear as well satsky has to find may even if she can barely stand up even if she's worn through her shoes doesn't matter if she's tired doesn't matter if she's scared there's nothing she could feel that would matter more than just what she has to do now end of story I think this is leading to another term I want to talk about next which is empowerment what we've been talking about is these situations where characters need to do something difficult and they do it so what's going on inside of them in that moment where's that strength coming from and I think this is where you see an absolutely fascinating difference between Western versions of empowerment and miyazaki's version think about this scene of a female character being empowered or this scene or this scene lots of empowerment in Western fiction especially with women involves a show of empowerment the world has to be convinced many of these characters have something to prove whether that's in their own worlds or to us the audience or to the general public to the culture there's a lot of chips on a lot of shoulders here in Miyazaki movies for the heroins they don't care about a show of empowerment they don't have something to prove there are no chips on shoulders for the antagonists yes many chips lots of ego but for the heroins what's fascinating to me is that it's very empowering with very little ego son isn't fighting for Glory she's not trying to prove anything she's just trying to save her Forest Chihiro doesn't want anything for herself she wants to help her parents and she wants to save Haku NASA wants to protect her people she wants to save her world satsky is all about looking after her sister Sophie is an extremely low ego character she starts off trying to break her curse maybe and then kind of seems to stop caring about that at all and her life becomes about taking care of her new family the closest we get to the something to proof thing is Foo she has to prove to Porco that she's capable of fixing his plane but listen to this are you leaving because I'm a woman or is it because I'm too young actually it's both kiddo okay that's fair it's still a surprising lack of ego here from F you get the sense that this is just another barrier of many to doing this job that she wants to do which is build planes so you giving me the job this is so exciting I can't wait to start building so there is empowerment going on here but where is it coming from it's not like Western fiction where it's coming from this hidden potential that gets Unleashed upon the world for all to see I am special my mother was right and then we get all the fame and admiration we know we've always deserved no it's not coming from latent individual potential at all it's coming from a sense of Duty to your parents to your sister your found family your home your subjects your clients your marshmallow floaty Cloud kids and once again landing on that term Duty you start seeing it elsewhere to yes Jiro acts out of a sense of Duty to her parents but then also on a smaller scale she has a job she has actual duties to fulfill for her employer and that kind of helps her understand her capabilities and fulfilling her larger duties Sophie too her life has always been about Duty even before the curse now Sophie do you really want to spend the rest of your life in that hat shop the shop was just so important to father and I'm the eldest I don't mind and I'm not going to talk in too much detail about the boy and the Heron at least not in this video but Duty completely dominates every aspect of that movie as well and then you also see Duty by the antagonist as well abosi of course is all about duty to humans that's what drives every decision she makes every strength she has begins with a duty to her fellow ex brothel girls or the lepers she takes care of or the citizens to her town you Baba is also empowered from her work she is a bit complainy about her duties can't believe I took that oath to give a job to anyone who asks ridiculous I hate being so nice but she is honestly just really dedicated to her work and you did great even if it's for less than noble reasons we made so much money and then also on a more minor scale she's a mother and we see Duty defining her character there too and this seems to be part of a much more fundamental aspect of misaki's characters on the whole his male characters are also all about Duty although we'll soon see that they have a slightly different relationship to it and then a lot of his antagonist are characters with absolutely no sense of Duty whatsoever yeah Curtis the other The Witch of the waist you got jigo chihiro's parents all purely indulgent or ambitious or just in it for themselves and we can add yubaba to that list as well for being resentful of her Duty as we just saw for being committed to her work only due to selfish greed and for being misguided and carrying out her parental duties but this discussion of Duty brings us to another term which I think we've been skirting around so far but not directly addressing I think this is a particularly interesting one independent so again taking a broader look independent how independent from what and it's pretty plain to just look at these characters and their situations and realize it's not that these characters are independent they're alone circumstance has isolated them in some way and it's actually a pretty surprising variety of ways because they're not like completely isolated but their lives have all been impacted by some form of isolation or social separation the clearest examples we have Chihiro who's left alone in the spirit world abandoned by her parents we also have son abandoned by her parents Kiki's story starts with her leaving her family and going out on her own Sophie goes into self-imposed Exile once she is cursed you also have satk and may who have been left without a mother and then the less straightforward examples Nosa is alone ideologically she's the only one in her world who believes the toxic jungle isn't evil you got Foo who's a girl in a stem field in the 1920s Gina is a widow three times over all three of her husbands have died and even looking at Iron Town aside from the relationship to the setting itself demonstrating their isolation and separation the women of Iron Town that bosi included were all all former sex workers and that undoubtedly came with severe social ostracization and it's true that all these characters eventually find companionship or Community or family that's a huge part of their Arc but that's only after some period of isolation so I think viewing their independence in terms of this pattern changes the feel of it pretty significantly again it's not big strong independent woman chip on my shoulder prove to the world I'm Different prove I'm not like the other girls something like that no when these characters make decisions that go against the grain that set them apart from how other people think and how other people behave there's no hesit in that because they are already aart in some sense they already have experienced being alone and that changes their orientation to these types of decisions and maybe that can go back and explain what we said about these characters relationship to fear in situations where others react with fear these characters are open to seeing things differently especially when it's about another party who's also alone when everyone else is afraid of no face Chihiro just sees another person like her who doesn't belong Sophie just sees another being suffering under a curse like hers NASA just sees another lonely creature who the world refuses to understand and Gina falls in love with the loneliest pilot in the sky once we're talking about independence and isolation in this way I think we can take another big step in understanding the writing here because we're not just talking about these characters we're talking about the world they inhabit as well and I think that's where a lot of the Nuance has been missing from the conversations about these female characters so much of it isn't about their traits their personalities it's about the greater story they're a part of it's about their relationships to other characters it's about their journey and where that takes them so let's talk about that if the starting line of these characters is isolated if we take a second and just back up and look what's behind that starting line you see that miyazaki's characters almost always inhabit what I would call a Clos world it's the forest versus Iron Town which side are you on are you with us or against us there's no middle ground there's no compromise nothing the toxic jungle and its insects are death it's black and white end of story how's world is at War you're either with the government or you're my enemy women can't be Engineers period that's it the rise of fascism you're with us you're against us spirited way I think is the most complex version of this I would say a better word to use than closed here is rigid we encounter this workplace with a super rigid way the whole operation works from what you must do to where you must go to your place in it is an incredibly rigid hierarchy you got yubaba at the top what she says goes he got all these rules that no one likes not even her own kid and it creates a social environment where everyone has very rigid opinions about what's good and what's bad Haku bad NES good stink Spirit bad money good that's the end of the conversation and then either as a direct result of the closed world or just along with it we get that isolated orientation to the world that we just talked about isolated by Family by your parents by choice ideologically social norms life circumstance or just everyday circumstance like May being left alone while Sai goes to school and that's hard for her and this alone is already just a really powerful setup for a story we got so much belt in tension here but then the next step is what I think makes these characters captivating in a uniquely mizaki way because a lot of stories start out with protagonists who are alone or ostracized or whatever but there's a much different emotional to not just to the stories but to the characters themselves and you compare that to Studio jly movies and there's just a distinctive feel you only find with these movies and to understand this we need to talk about a specific jibli female protagonist and I am saying jibli here not Miaki but I think it doesn't just fit here I think it really exemplifies this rare characteristic Miyazaki women tend to have the character I'm talking about is tsukishima shizuku from Whisper of the heart and if you don't recognize that name or haven't seen the movie there's a good chance you still know the character just under a different moniker these days shizuku is more well-known nickname is Loi girl AKA chilled cow aka the patron saint of chill beats always there at any time of the day Watching Over Us and blessing us with chill hip-hop beats to relax SL study2 now this itself isn't shizuku the L is that they were using Loop footage from wher of the heart this scene of shizuku studying at her desk and they were hit of course with a copyright takedown but then the Channel reemerged with new original art that was inspired by that original clip of shizuku but I think there's a reason why a clip like that and a character like that wasn't just chosen as the face of this channel but became super iconic and memeified in its own right when people talk about why they love Studio jly movies they're often not talking about the star Lions themselves I think it really is this exact Vibe and jiy movies are filled to the brim with this Vibe whether it's Jiro and Lynn chilling on the balcony after work or Sophie and marle doing chores around the castle or Nosa in the jungle waiting out a sporf fall during her specimen run or even abosi working with a gunsmith on a new rifle the boy and the Heron we got KERO fishing Porco Roso is filled with moments like this you got Porco flying you got him hanging out in Gina's Restaurant napping on the beach waiting around while his plane is being repaired people love this mood so what is it what's the emotion here what's the feeling and why do we like it and from what I can tell it's not just something people like people want to immerse themselves in this there's almost a daydreaming quality about these moments on our end we want to be Loi girl we want to embody that vibe that mood while studying we want this Loi chill mode of being to be our mode of being instead of what what do we want this to replace exactly so just start off super basic identifying what we're seeing here this is relaxing but it's not this kind of relaxing lounging luxuriating being pampered it's chill but it's not lazy it's not Carefree we're still working or we're done with a workday or we're on break in those types of moments apparently this is the mood we want but again instead of what how do we feel when we're working or after work or when we're taking a break and I don't know about you but it's pretty difficult to just work peacefully like this or even to take a break peacefully because all the thoughts just won't stop I'm thinking about how much editing still needs to get done is the video going to be finished on time or should I push this part off to tomorrow or maybe I change my schedule on Wednesday oh shoot I have to message this person set up this meeting and pay this bill and buy this thing on Amazon but which one should I buy is this too expensive should I budget more am I being financially responsible that's why I got to finish this YouTube thing on time maybe I should pull it all nighter but I got terrible sleep last night I should sleep better I should eat better I should take care of my health more I'm so exhausted I have a headache do I have cancer am I having a heart attack I think I'm dying or I'm trying to just work but I freaking hate this part I'm bored out of my mind mind and that's making me frustrated but no I got to accept this I just got to accept it but I don't want to do my work I want to do fun stuff no that's stupid stupid shne stupid stupid stupid just keep your head down and work just be loal be this why can't you just work like this so I'm exaggerating a bit but I think that's what it comes down to there's daydreaming about being on vacation and being rich and never having to work again basically having this totally different life where we don't have any of life's problems but that's a little too unrealistic so instead we can fantasize out a person who's at peace with the life they have the word I landed on here which I'm like 90% happy with is that Loi girl is not neurotic and we are kind of neurotic Modern Life just makes everyone neurotic and with this particular fantasy we're daydreaming about life without all the frustrating spiral looping thoughts our life the same life with work with responsibilities but to be able to just not be anxious and kind of sad and worked up when we're working and be able to take a break when we're taking a break be present Embrace what our life is now and I think this quality of of not neurotic is a huge part of why we love the women in Miyazaki movies and it's more than the way we just talked about yes they made peace with their duties their jobs their responsibilities and they can be in the moment for those parts of their lives without anxiety and avoidance and frustration making them go crazy but then also these women are Unapologetic about what they want whether that's their ideals and morals and goals you must not burn down the toxic jungle you should have left the Giant Warrior beneath the Earth or they want money then you did great we made so much money or they like someone P loves s or they don't like someone go away they can say this stuff out loud directly to your face without feeling self-conscious or insecure these are not characters who are racked by self-doubt and regret and inner confusion they live life with purpose and a strong unobstructed will they feel emotion honestly both positive and negative emotion and when it comes time to turn in they can sleep well at night it is a very rare characteristic to focus in on the way mizaki does but I think these characters really are inspiring to people in a way that they often aren't even aware of we need more of this non- neurotic energy in our lives because we aren't like that I think that's where the men come in I think this's big contrast with misaki's male protagonist the men are a little neurotic in this way I'm not talking about like Woody Allen levels of neurotic not that type they still don't care that much about what people think about them they are willful they do speak their mind but they are lost in a way that the women aren't you think of characters like how or Porco or ashitaka or Haku or mahi and these characters are out in the world just kind of wandering trying to find their place and at least at first not finding it all these characters are really amazing at Duty on a small scale they can fight they can do magic they can help people they actually help a lot of people on this happen stance type basis but the idea of a bigger goal is obscured it's clouded and there's the struggle or frustration or rebelling or even just like a brooding Vibe when it comes to figuring out what you're supposed to be in a bigger sense the best example this is K and my neighbor tooro this kid is is filled to the brim with masculine energy and he has no outlet for it he's not useless he's just kind of lost when it comes to what to do with himself until May runs away satsky needs to find her and then we have this glorious moment of him rising to meet this new calling as a man to help out this person in need and similarly how finds his purpose Haku finds himself finds his name Hashi taka figures out where he stands these are all glorious moments for the characters of breaking through that struggle and finding that purpose or Duty or place or identity it's them coming out of their love State and then meanwhile contrast that with the women son just knows she's a wolf she's going to fight the human she's going to save her Forest an iosi knows she's a human and she's going to go kill some gods and take care of some humans Nosa is a princess and has all these princess duties but unlike asbel she always has the big picture in mind her Duty first and foremost is fixing her world and protecting the life in it this part is not a struggle at all for these women this is the easy part for them even shihiro is really scared about what her life is turning into she's really sad about it and she freaks out a bit and she has a good cry and and then she accepts her life as a worker and doesn't look back and then when something more important comes along she has zero hesitation about that either and she just leaves she gets right to it sometimes these characters are even wrong about the big picture and they're placing it but even that doesn't seem to phase them ibosi kills the forest God and then he destroys iron toown and ibosi seems totally ready and eager to change her ways we're going to start all over again this time we'll build a better town no conflict no frustration just it's time to change son despite this growing relationship with ashitaka is at no point Torn Between the human world in the forest like in a Romeo and Juliet sense oh the agony cruel fate why now just like Chihiro she has little moments of frustration I hate him I hate all humans and then it passes and she's done and she doesn't look back she knows her places in the forest she warns of Tashi taka wants to incorporate that too and that's that and I think this helps us identify another characteristic or really place it find an address for it some Miyazaki women not all of them but many of them have this Brilliant Energy to them sometimes it's in the speed of their movement sometimes it's in how they walk sometimes it's in their posture sometimes it comes through as enthusiasm or playfulness or ferocity and this stands out so much even within these stories it's just rare seeing a person in fiction or in reality who doesn't seem beaten down by life and then who also isn't possessed with energy that feels maniacal or grandiose or even just negative it's because the source of this energy isn't negative The Source isn't some terrifying inner demon the source is a pure Spirit when it's completely unobstructed by Inner struggle it's something we can imagine but most of us probably haven't experienced if you can picture taking all that energy that's wasted on overthinking and spiraling and self-doubt and self-consciousness and bitterness and resentment and frustration all these facets of the neurotic experience we all know too well for being modern humans in this Modern World Imagine freeing up that energy and think about how you would be how it feel to wake up in the morning with a noble purpose you have 100% embraced how would feel to go about your day without any little scrap of your attention caught up in what other people think of you without a single ounce wasted on worrying you're not good enough every emotion just comes out honest and raw and full and every action can have the entire force of your being behind it that absolutely would shine through as enthusiasm or Joy or Frosty or whatever else you're feeling that would reflect in your gate in your posture it would Infuse every little movement of yours with life and if you had someone moving and acting like this who didn't have that inner world that had earned this degree of energy it wouldn't feel the same it wouldn't feel right I think subconsciously we do sense that it's coming from who these women are it's coming from the inside it's something in them that's overflowing it's their Spirit shining through so brightly we can see it in everything they do and it's also not just some static trait by the way this is what allows them to do all the amazing things they do it's what allows them to emerge from isolation and ostracization to lead an entire town and kill gods or to raid a fortress on your own or to move to a new city alone or to design a kickass plane when you're a 17-year-old girl or to go on a long journey to save your dragon boyfriend or to do this which is kind of crazy but the point is powerful agency has to come from somewhere it's not enough to just make your nobody loser of a main character just decide to turn their life around all of a sudden they have to have something inside of them that can do something like that something big something strong something that not everyone would have in their situation but they have it and that makes all the difference so the upshot of all this is that we're getting a really interesting type of aspirational with these characters when I daydream about being Captain America or Goku it's because of what these characters can do when I daydream about being Kiki or Sophie it's because they have a lifestyle and a mental relationship to that lifestyle that we'd love to have we Aspire for moments like this where we see Chihiro having this mood we would love to feel when we admire a character Like Son yes she fights and she rides around on wolves and stuff that's cool but if it wasn't for the romance of her life I'm not talking about love I'm talking about the Romance of the singular purpose her life has this Noble loyalty to Nature and how there's not a single iota of her being that doubts that this is what her life is meant to be even if it means storming iron town alone if it wasn't for that life and the mindset attached to it no one would even care about the fighting or the Wolves okay but there's a problem with all this that I think we have to ackowledge and it has to do with the fact that that term I landed on not neurotic just isn't really the best way to describe the situation fully I think it's accurate and it's a crucial step to where we're going next but now that we have a fuller picture of this I think a better description of what we're talking about here is that these characters have very little inner conflict and that's potentially a big problem because lack of inner conflict is a quick recipe for a boring character I think about all my favorite characters they're all about the inner conflict that is where the magic happens so that's my question on this how do we keep these characters compelling if there's not much drama going on with their inner worlds and if we try to compensate with the lack of inner Conflict by piling on external conflict like just cranking up the plot stuff then the problem gets even bigger because think about the type of plot stuff other movies do we're going to fight the bad guy we're going to win the war maybe there's some kind of big money we're aiming for maybe some kind of fame maybe it's romance and you look at mizaki mizaki is a pacifist so we're not winning any wars we're not solving our problems with fighting mizaki mov movies don't have bad guys so we're not doing that either mizaki doesn't have much respect for money or fame and then also romance mizaki is very big on love and that's something we'll talk about but his movies are often about kids so big romance is also just not really an option so what are these girls doing if they're not winning fights and making money and living the American dream or brooding and agonizing over inner demons and the answer of course is that they're making friends with the demons and I think this is the other huge thing that we absolutely love about these characters I started noticing that with these moments oh you want to come with us uh ready to launch po hold on Miagi just loves doing this Wizard of Oz type Vibe where you have this little party of Misfits all going somewhere together but unlike Wizard of Oz where that is the main story and each of these characters have their own plot goals here there's no apparent reason why these people are coming along for the ride seems like the point is just this cozy Vibe of snuggling up together to go in an adventure until you think about that greater context we discussed earlier earlier these characters live in broken worlds where everyone hates each other animals hate humans humans hate animals we got Nations at War we got Wizards feuding Pilots feuding Lynn hates Haku and this is a world that has unfortunately kind of chewed up and sped out our girls it's cursed them it's put them in unfair unbalanced situations it's taken away their loved ones parents husbands it's isolated them it's told them you don't belong and what do they do how do they treat the monsters in their lives they give them umbrellas they feed them porridge they pay for their Buzz fair this is more than just being kind and pure these characters have an Inner Harmony and a disharmonious society they are unabashedly simple in Worlds that are hopelessly complex they're Scions of Peace in Nations and War and that last one is flip foran ashitaka but hey ashitaka's cool hanging out with women so that's fine but that's the point of these characters these characters have an openness that's born from their Outsider identities they're not afraid of gods they identifi with the cursed and the shunned they're willing to walk towards what scares other people and their stories aren't about getting closer to to Victory they're about advancing in that openness they're about healing their broken worlds bringing people together bringing peace helping others find their true path their true selves and adopt that same beautiful Loi mindset the final steps of these characters AR is about breaking through barriers they break curses they break binaries they break control they break mindsets that have destroyed their worlds they break gender barriers they even break geological barriers sometimes that's the type of heroism these characters embody their journey is to take that Harmony from the inside and project it outward to the external World take it from its broken chaotic neurotic State and transform it into a Loi world I think a related audity gets explained here that when you have movies that end at the beginning or end at a beginning like returning to your world memory is completely wiped or everything is destroyed and we start from scratch the question is how is that an ending if we're back at square one and the answer is that it's this type of endpoint that forces you to acknowledge to feel the progress that's been made on a spiritual level for lack of a better term spiritual here meaning relating to the deeper values that underly The Superficial physical world Miyazaki women are spiritual Heroes they have spiritual strengths that they use to save spiritually bankrupt worlds from spiritually bankrupt people who subjected to spiritual Peril and there's usually a parallel physical danger that helps us keep track of this deeper kind of Health but that's only there to prove to us what really matters and that's the realm of action for these Heroes Journeys it's worth pointing out that this doesn't have to do with women necessarily as we see with some of misaki's men who take on similar roles but I think mizaki recognizes as accurately that there is in real life a trend of men getting lost spiritually getting lost in the physical caring too much about it too much about money and reputation and getting sucked into these battles over all that stupid stuff and that contrasts also in real life with women whose traditional responsibilities have included a lot of non-physical duties like raising children and providing emotional care and making a home that's comfortable and peaceful and yeah women have been excluded from a lot of the overly physical stuff but maybe somehow that's fostered a mindset that does value less physical things like love and emotions and relationships Miyazaki is a huge feminist but he doesn't seem like the type of feminist who is put off by traditional gender stuff and you see the value he places on it all over his movies Sophie is a housekeeper it's what she wants to do and her story is about the importance of that role son is a warrior but she spends half her screen time taking care of other people her mother Ashi taka Oto iboshi is the exact same way fio is an engineer but we also get little moments like this I'll go make us some coffee and then I'll get back to work I think looking at this stuff and also looking at the stuff that defies gender Norms you really just see what mizaki does value he's just Pro women he thinks women are amazing and he wants them to be able to do what they want to do if that's the traditional stuff that is so important that is the spiritual Foundation that underlies everything in our lives and if it's the other stuff then you go girl go fight human Supremacy go do science do art build planes burn Birds whatever you want to do more power to you at no point does he want women feeling lesser because they're women the closest we get is that focene are you leaving because I'm a woman but even here that doesn't really bother her she just brushes it off and finds a way to do what her Womanhood is supposedly preventing and she does it and it's glorious and the chauvinist male Pig becomes a significantly less chauvinist male Pig still a pig but less chauvinist and I think that's the other thing people really appreciate about these characters as feminist icons that almost all these women have close relationships with men that they cherish being a man isn't this bad thing sometimes it's bad just like sometimes the women are bad but since misaki's protagonists are all about Harmony of course we're not going to see some story about girls beating the boys boys are gross men are trash that defeats the whole purpose of these types of heroes and these types of stories if we do have some kind of contentious relationship with men if we have situations where men are being creepy or being clingy or being pushy the reaction we see is to just get away from it and maybe if we're lucky we can help them too and I think this brings us to the last major feature of Miyazaki heroins and in my opinion this is the most perplexing of them all I'm talking about love this is a prominent topic for nearly all the major female characters mizaki writes and in my opinion it's always been kind of weird like tell me what the scene even means we must test the boy if s's love is true it's a big responsibility but I really love her so he's a 5-year-old boy and she's a goldfish what or you have turnip head in how's Moving Castle not just falling in love with Sophie but considering her his one true love where did that come from Chihiro and Haku of course is also weird because she's a child and he's a body of water and also they barely know each other ashitaka and S don't really understand why they fall in love if they even do fall in love I don't really know what this relationship is supposed to be it's kind of just vague from beginning to end and honestly I have the same question about how and Sophie definitely the most traditional romance in any of the movies but I have no idea why they fall for each other and this seems like a topic that Miaki almost feels a compulsion to force into every movie in some form even if it's not like an actual romantic relationship we still see attempts at romance or unrequited love or some kind of romantic tension or even just hints of pre-teen romantic tension so what's this about what does mizaki see in in love what does he want to say about love and then I think the big question when I think about love I'm thinking about romantic feelings and attraction and a desire for intimacy and closeness I'm thinking some form of you complete me I may be thinking about Destiny also like this is who I want to spend the rest of my life with I'm your density and for being real that's just not what's going on in any of these examples these are childhood friendships it's people who help each other who support each other it's people whose goals are aligned and that's not romance so the question is why treat it like romance okay so I'm going to link a video that has a slightly more normal approach to what all this is about it's not that different from what I'm going to say but I'm just concerned that what I'm about to say is going to be slightly biased based on my own values although I do think that they align with mizaki here so maybe not I don't know but anyway I think where this starts is that somehow at some point in human history it's like the whole world decided love is just the greatest thing ever in the entire Human Experience and the highest form of this greatest value in modern times is specifically romantic love and that starts with love at first sight it progresses into into a big dramatic kiss and from there eventually sex and this is the one true love that every character in every story seems to be looking for and once they find it that equals happily ever after it's like a sure thing 100% that's the formula and mizaki sees all this and he rejects it and this is evidenced by the biggest romantic failure in his movies Curtis Curtis is like the symbol of dumb modern Hollywood values in misaki's movies he's all about superficial things and reputation he's full of ambition to become famous and then of course we get the love at first sight based on attraction which for him translates obviously into lifelong commitment because happily ever after and misaki's characters react to that with a mixture of amusement and confusion and they reject him Theo is not moved by his advances and Gina of course rejects him and even says this to him explicitly love is a little bit more complicated here than it is in America so here's my theory taking a connection like a childhood friendship and people helping each other and supportive Partnerships and slapping on a loaded term like love as a label even if it doesn't quite fit it's almost like mizaki is forcing us to reckon with the question what if this was the type of love that we held up as Humanity's highest value what if the thing we cared about most in life the thing we made every pop song about the arc we included in every Hollywood movie the thing we believed would fill us with bliss and joy the thing we truly believed would lead to happily ever after wasn't love at first sight and kisses and sex but helping each other healing each other equality and partnership like take a moment and actually imagine if instead of going on Tinder going out to a bar or a club looking for interactions that were based on superficial attraction with the end goal of sex if instead people went on apps and went out at night looking to help people and make connections based on deep supportive partnership and equality and just appreciating their presence and their time with you maybe for no reason at all just forming a bond with them based the fact that you're two living beings who share the same Planet it's a little bit cheesy and it doesn't feel like it fits with our modern mindsets and Lifestyles but that is misaki's world and that is the kind of love that he wants his women to be champions of I think it's a beautiful idea so what have we learned today we started out with these terms that were kind of formulated through Western data that didn't really seem like they translated well into mizaki heroins and antagonist so let's see if we can arrange our new terms into a formulation that does a better job so Miaki women are characters who find themselves in a broken rigid spiritually bankrupt environment whether that's a cursed world or a divided Society or a rigid social hierarchy and these women are shouldered with a dity and because they've been isolated by their divided broken environments that gives them this unique openness in how they relate to the world they're unafraid of what others fear they feel no need to prove or explain themselves to their peers and they are able and willing to connect with those that others have refuse to connect with and the foundation all this rests on is Inner Harmony it's that Loi ethos that's the source of their boundless drive and energy it's the reason for that magnetism that they exude that brings everyone together and shapes their journey to break through barriers to project that Inner Harmony outward and heal their world and the people around them and at the center of all this is love not romantic love but friendships supportive Partnerships helpful interactions which get all these trappings of romantic love because that's the esteem mizaki wants us to feel for these relationships what he wants us to celebrate is a world where spiritual Harmony is the highest value and where people help each other and hug each other and feel feelings of bliss and closeness and warmth not because of superficial attraction or lust but because I value you as another human being who shares my world in miyazaki's view that's a true hero and that's what being a woman is all about sub describe who is your favorite Miyazaki woman and why let me know in the comments it's been a fascinating ride trying to understand Miyazaki in this way because he is so intuition based that anytime you think you see a pattern he just kind of slips right out of it and does something else like I mention how ashitaka and son are revers for some of the male female patterns I talked about another one is Kiki not really fitting into the no inner conflict thing or maybe she is fitting into it in a different way maybe it's like this Loi way of dealing with inner conflict something like that it's just hard to nail some of the stuff down so I tried to focus more on the general Trends and it's also by the way just kind of fortunate on my end I don't know some of the movies as well as others like laputa and The Wind Rises and even Kiki to some degree I wish I could incorporate those more I'm sure they have a lot of nuance to provide to the type of topics I'm talking about but yeah so I'd love to hear who people connect to who's your favorite who you find particularly interesting compelling and also if anyone has any ideas about other features of the Miyazaki girlwoman writing style that I may have missed definitely leave a comment share your thoughts new thing to announce I'm going to be trying out uploading extended segments of my videos on patreon basically every so often I have parts of videos that I have to cut or I have parts I want to add but it's already too late into the editing process and I realized why not share that in some form make it accessible to the people who would be interested in that kind of stuff so I'm going to be giving that a try through patreon and if you're interested but that doesn't work for you at some point I do hope to do a second channel for stuff like this where this kind of content would be made available for everyone but no concrete plans on the horizon yet for a shne bonus Channel but yeah for this video a topic I realized I really should address is how mizaki uses Beauty and appearance when it comes to his female characters and usually I think these extended segments will be in the form of like maybe a 4ish minute bonus video and that's what I thought this one would clock in at ended up being about 8 minutes and I'm not going to do much editing on these it's going to be basically just audio so yeah check that out if you wish I'm going to leave a little preview of that at the end of this video but yeah I think it's a really cool topic so check that out if you wish if you're interested in that or you've just generally been enjoying the content lately consider supporting the channel via patreon join the shne patron Discord server huge thanks again to everyone on there huge thanks to all subscribers as well everyone who's been following along liking videos sharing videos commenting on videos stay tuned for more Miyazaki content the next video will be on the saddest Miyazaki movie in my opinion and note that I am saying Miaki not jibli I will leave it at that leave you guys guessing and after that hopefully something about the boy and the Heron so subscribe so you won't miss all that hope you enjoy the video and thanks for watching when Ashi taka calls son beautiful she's not taking it back because a man is calling her pretty and her heart is fluttering and she's about to go all Juliet over him it's because son has never been valued for anything about her Humanity ever like food is amazing because it tastes good and it sustains us and it's a special experience that people Bond over and that just doesn't automatically come through whenever there's food on the screen but if you make every aspect of this food experience beautiful then it draws us to

Channel: schnee

Views: 395,672

Keywords:

Id: QCUKgF3aOsQ

Length: 41min 4sec (2464 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 28 2024