“If you don’t get a job,
Yubaba will turn you into an animal.” Hidden in the fantastic
other-wordly narrative of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away
is an allegory about society’s toxic obsession with work. “Come on!
Get to work you little runts!” The Studio Ghibli classic
was released in 2001 and commented on Japan’s
losing its soul to capitalism in the context
of the country’s “lost decade.” Yet the film is eerily relevant
to our contemporary idea of “hustle culture” -the mindset that to get ahead,
you need to devote as much of your day
as possible to working, leaving little time
for anything else. “Work like hell, I mean you just have to
put in 80 to 100 hour weeks, every week.” Spirited Away shows that idea
to be a trap. While Chihiro may think her liberation
comes from 24/7 hustling, in fact hustling keeps her down --it’s something more intangible,
and more spiritual, that provides her freedom. “I put a spell on it,
so it’ll give you back your strength. Just eat it.” Here’s our take on how Spirited Away
pulls the mask off living to work, and shows us the need
for another dimension to life. “That’s your contract,
sign your name away and I’ll put you to work.” If you're new here,
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below to start streaming now. "Move it,
you stupid soot balls." Spirited Away follows the adventures
of innocent Chihiro, who’s forced to become a worker
at a chaotic, mysterious bathhouse for spirits
while she tries to reclaim her old life and save her parents,
who’ve been transformed into pigs by the bathhouse’s villainous ruler,
Yubaba. “I’ll give you
the most difficult job I’ve got, and work you until you breathe
your very last breath." The bathhouse environment
may be bizarre, full of odd characters
and spirits for clients, but at its core,
it is a place of work. It runs on its own
fixed time schedule. "Now get back to work." Employees sleep top to tail
in crowded rooms, and are pitted against one another
to see who can work the hardest. “Haven't’ you ever worked
a day in your life?” “Lin and Sen,
you get the big tub today.” "What?" “Hey, that’s frog work!” Chihiro’s productivity is crucial
not just to her thriving in the bathhouse,
but also surviving. “And if she doesn’t work hard,
roast her, boil her,
do whatever you want.” Simply put,
the bathhouse runs on hustle culture,
extolling the virtues of overwork and burnout. Dr Bryan Robinson says,
“When the hustle culture drives you, you unwittingly relinquish
your personal power and become a slave to internal and external pressures,” adding that 45%
of the modern day workforce brag about ascribing
to this way of life. “We have to make sure
that they all think that she knows exactly who they are.
And I've been studying for weeks.” But this lifestyle actually signals
a culture of employment that isn’t functioning as it should. If the only way to get ahead
is to work every hour of the day, then something is broken. “You’ve got some customers
on the way.” “Wait!
Give us a minute! This is clearly harassment.” Spirited Away critiqued
this culture of work at the end of Japan’s
so-called “lost decade.” “It’s an abandoned theme park.
See? They built them everywhere
in the early '90s, then the economy went bad
and they all went bankrupt.” The bad economy
that Chihiro’s father mentions is a reference to the Japanese
stock market crash of 1990, which began a period
of long-term economic stagnation. In such an environment,
work is a trap --no matter how hard you grind,
you are always beholden to financial forces
beyond your control. "Sake's on the house tonight. But first,
hand over all the gold you picked up." The film also brings into focus
the class hierarchy that a capitalist society
helps create, as the working class toils away
for the benefit of the upper class. “Welcome the rich man,
he’s hard for you to miss. His butt keeps getting bigger,
so there’s plenty there to kiss!” While the groundworkers
at the bathhouse scrub floors
and feed boilers and scrape sludge, the boss Yubaba is high up
and away in a luxurious penthouse, viewing her workers
as lesser beings. "Now get out.
I've got all the lazy bums I need."] The problem with this structure
and attitude toward work is that it is inherently
dehumanizing. Workers cease to be people,
and instead become tools for their employers. Spirited Away takes this
to an extreme by literally having Chihiro
lose her name “That’s how Yubaba controls you,
by stealing your name,”, and in turn,
her identity, when she signs her contract
at the bathhouse and has to change
her name to Sen. “And it belongs to me now. From now on your name is Sen,
you got that?” One of the kanji
that Chihiro loses from her name means “to search”
or “inquire.” The kanji that is left, Sen,
means 1000. So Chihiro is symbolically reduced
from a person whose identity is linked with curiosity
and independent thought, to nothing but a number --just as capitalism views us
as only as valuable as the number of our net worth. "You drove a Hyundai
to get here tonight. I drove an eighty-thousand
dollar BMW. THAT'S my name." The biggest problem
that Spirited Away shows with hustle culture
is how seductive it can be. "Give me some gold.
Give me some tips please sir." The lure of money encourages
a competitive environment among the workers,
all of them jostling with each other
to provide for NoFace, the wealthy client sowing chaos
by liberally bestowing gold coins on the workers. “Just keep the food coming.
I wanna eat everything!" However,
eventually, as with Chihiro’s parents,
the greed of the workers is punished, as they are literally swallowed
whole by NoFace. “Wipe that smile off your face.
You’re still smiling!” Hustle culture creates this catch 22
to ensnare workers, encouraging them
to never stop grinding while keeping them at an arm's length
from any meaningful social mobility that the promise of work should offer.
So while work is presented
to Chihiro as a means of escape, the message is that
it will actually incarcerate her, and us. "I can't believe
I forgot my name. She almost took it from me." It is only in abandoning
the hustle that she’s able to get back
to her old life. On the flipside,
those who do have money also aren’t fulfilled -- as we see through No-Face
and Chihiro’s parents who represent overconsumption. “Mom! Dad!
Come on, quit eating! Let’s get outta here!” Early in the movie,
consuming turns Chihiro’s parents into literal pigs
-- a common symbol for capitalists. "Finally,
those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes,
aye." Studio Ghibli has clarified
they represent the greed of Japan’s economic bubble
of the '80s, and how the people
who became “pigs” in that time didn’t know it
or remember what it was like to have a human soul. In 2001,
after the economic downturn had revealed that capitalism
wasn’t even working to make people rich,
Miyazaki was encouraging the younger generation
to look back at Japan’s pre-capitalist,
more spiritually inclined history. At the very start of the film,
when Chihiro notices spirit shrines, “What are those stones?
They look like little houses.” “They’re shrines.
Some people think little spirits live there.”, her mother’s reaction implies
that she and her husband embody a new, materialistic Japan
that’s abandoned the country’s more spiritual past. “You’ve got daddy here.
He’s got credit cards and cash!” And the parents’ transformation
into pigs is a form of punishment for their failure to show respect
to the spirits of the place. "And you humans
always make a mess of things. Like your parents,
who gobbled up the food of the spirits like pigs."
The film designs
the spirit world to look like Japan from the Meiji period,
when Japan first began to transform into a capitalist society,
something also illustrated in the Tom Cruise film
The Last Samurai. “You see,
the emperor’s mad for all things western,
and the samurai believe it’s changing too fast. In fact,
the ancient and the modern are at war
for the soul of Japan.” As Ayumi Suzuki writes:
“the influx of the Western culture brought to Japan
both chaos and growth, represented by the mixing
of Japanese identity with Western architecture,
philosophy, fashion,
and values.” But,
“By having Chihiro live in the era of a modernizing Japan,
Miyazaki invites the audience to experience what we really were
losing as a nation and personally during that period.” Suzuki underlines
“Miyazaki's equation of labor with wage slavery,” "Yeah,
I'm Kamaji, slave to the boiler
that heats the baths.", and how the workers essentially
become Yububa’s property. He also reminds us
that Chihiro is a “child whose childhood
has been stolen from her” --and this portrayal of child labor
makes it clear to us how wrong it feels to give up
a whole life to work. Perhaps we might read
in a larger commentary, too,
about how children are treated in the capitalist system:
even when they’re not literal laborers like Chihiro,
they can face very early pressure to start training for
and proving their value as future capitalist earners. Through juxtaposing the Meiji era
with its modern one, Spirited Away was arguing
that the soul of Japan was still being fought over
by two warring belief systems. The film centers on the conflict
between materialism and spirituality. And this clash
between our material world and the pure spirit world
is illustrated through Chihiro’s interaction
with the stink spirit. When the stink spirit arrives
at the bathhouse, he is shunned by the workers
as an inferior spirit, “It’s a stink spirit.” “And apparently
it’s an extra smelly one.", while Chihiro is given the job
of tending to his needs as a test because of her lowly status. “Take this guest to the big tub
and take care of him.” “But, but I--” “No buts,
or I’ll turn you into coal.” However,
Chihiro is eventually able to figure out
that it isn’t a stink spirit, but actually a more lofty
river spirit --and she succeeds
because she treats the spirit with respect, “Just a minute sir! That’s our best herbal formula." As director,
Hayao Miyazaki said, “In my grandparents' time,
it was believed that spirits, or kami,
existed everywhere –in trees, rivers,
insects, wells, anything.
My generation does not believe this,
but I like the idea that we should all treasure
everything because spirits might exist there, "It means that our world
is filled with gods. That they are beyond counting.", and we should treasure
everything because there is a kind of life to everything. "Gods show up in places
where you least expect them."
When the workers pull
what Chihiro thinks is a thorn out of the stink spirit’s side,
we see that in actuality it’s years of accumulated human junk
that’s been dumped into the river. “Sen where are you?”
“Well done.” The pollution resulting from
humanity’s materialism has poisoned the river spirit’s essence,
and turned him into something foul and unpleasant. "Hey! We're not open!
Go! Please! Go! Leave us!" The reason Haku has forgotten
his identity is likewise because the river he’s the spirit of
was destroyed to build apartments. "My name *is* the Kohaku river." "They filled in that river.
It's all apartments now!" "That must be why
I can't find my way home, Chihiro." Thus humanity’s obsession
with overconsumption is shown to have devastating environmental
and spiritual costs, a point which echoes the messages
of other Studio Ghibli movies like Ponyo and Princess Mononoke. “What I want is for the humans
and the forest to live in peace!”
Spirited Away shows
spirituality and respect for the non-material world
to be antidotes to the potential ugliness of materialism. It's spirituality that saves Chihiro --her holding onto something
that she can feel and trust even though it can’t be articulated, valued, or measured.
“Haku!" There is a clear generational divide
in Spirited Away. Right from the start,
Chihiro senses the danger of the world they’re entering
while her parents don’t. “Did you hear that building?
It was moaning.” “It’s just the wind." Chihiro is out of place
in the bathhouse, too, the only other young people being
the ambiguously aged Haku, and Yubaba’s gigantic baby son,
Boh. “You’ll get sick if you go outside,
so stay here and play with me.” In Spirited Away,
youth is a kind of superpower, “Will you take her to see Yubaba?
She’s a tough little girl. I think she can handle it.”, yielding a sixth sense
that the adults don’t have. "You still haven’t noticed
that something precious to you has been replaced.” For Chihiro,
this sixth sense manifests in her relationship with Haku --and how she’s able to hold on
to her trust for Haku throughout the film, "You're a good friend.", despite older characters telling her
she should be wary of him. “He’s Yubaba’s henchman,
don’t trust anything he says.” From her very first meeting with Haku
he seems to know her "How did you know my name's Chihiro?" "I've known you since
you were very small.", and it’s later revealed
that’s because he’s a river spirit who once saved her
when she nearly drowned. “You were the one who carried me
back into shallow water, you saved me!” In the end,
she’s rewarded for trusting her intuition about Haku, "I knew you were good!", instead of what others told her. Tasha Robinson argues that Chihiro,
and indeed all of Studio Ghibli’s child heroes and heroines,
embody the Japanese idea of Genki, or as Robinson puts it, “a mixture of driving energy
and indomitable good cheer.” "There's a fish!
Oh look there's another one!" "So,
how do you like the new place?" "Dad it's perfect!" "Look at this!
A tunnel of trees!" Whereas Lin,
an older human who works in the bathhouse,
idly dreams of escaping one day “I gotta get outta this place.
Some day I’m getting on that train.”, Chihiro’s youth gives her the tools
to actually do so. Chihiro saves Haku
by revealing to him his real name, “You did it Chihiro!
I remember! I was the spirit of the Kohaku river!” and she saves NoFace
from his greed “I think being in the bathhouse
makes him crazy. He needs to get outta there.”, turning him back into the gentler,
less threatening NoFace she first met. “He won’t hurt us.” There is a sense that
because Chihiro is a child, she is uncorrupted
by the material trappings of the adult world. "Sen, you did great,
we made so much money!" “I don’t want any,
but thanks. I’m sorry,
but I’m in a really big hurry.”. She sees it for what it can be:
dangerous, inhospitable,
soul destroying. Miyazaki once said that, “Children understand intuitively
that the world they have been born into
is not a blessed world.” Indeed,
many films in the Studio Ghibli canon
focus on independent, strong child protagonists
who are able to navigate their own way out
of difficult situations. "Yayyy! Ahhhhh!"
"She got him!" In My Neighbour Totoro,
the two daughters, Satsuki and Mei,
can confidently move between the human and spirit world
in a way their father cannot, as only young people can see
the spirits of the forest. "Here?" "Mhm, last time the tunnel
led to Totoro"s tree." In From Up On Poppy Hill,
students at a Japanese boarding school work together to save
their school’s clubhouse from demolition. “Sit back down
or I’ll have you thrown out!” “You’re just like the old men
who run this country! Dumb and enamoured with the new!” The things that feel
important to adults -progress, money,
consumerism, "There's a new customer who's loaded.
He's giving gold away by the handful!"- are put in perspective
by the young heroes and heroines of Studio Ghibli,
especially Chihiro. Chihiro succeeds
by never losing sight of who she is, “Chihiro.”, or what she thinks is right. So if we’re plunged into a society
that runs counter to our own world view, we can, like her,
hold onto our original spirit, listen to our own inner child,
and just maybe get out of the rat race,
too. This is a film about greed,
and how giving into greed blinds us to what actually matters. "Beg for tips,
this is the time. Beg for tips,
make yourselves a dime!" Yububa,
the greediest of all, even overlooks her baby
going missing, the thing she supposedly
loves most, because she’s so focused
on her gold. "Suck up to him
and get every last speck of gold, he's...Ew,
what's that dirty mouse doing here?" But while the consumerist greed
of the bathhouse is trapping, for Chihiro the actual act of working
is often liberating. She’s able to retain
a healthy perspective on the benefits work
can offer because, unlike her colleagues,
she never allows herself to be invariably motivated
by money and greed. “What,
they’re all for me? Thanks,
but I don’t need anymore.” Ultimately,
what keeps Chihiro incorruptible to capitalist greed
is that she has a greater purpose: she’s focused on saving her parents,
and getting back to her old life. “Mom! Dad!
I got a gift from the river spirit! Maybe if you eat it,
it'll break the spell!” As David Foster Wallace put it, “Everybody worships...
And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god
or spiritual-type thing to worship... is that pretty much anything else
you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things...
you will never have enough.” "Gimme!" Increasingly,
as we’re seeing mass burnout and backlash to hustle culture,
we’re also seeing the rise of practices like mindfulness,
meditation and digital detoxes -- though often with a distinctly
capitalist bent as if you can “buy” wellness
without making deeper changes. “I cannot end my day
without a soak in one of these..." "Yeah." "...goop baths.
It’s really meant to use like the healing powers
of essential oils to kind of bring you down.” Spirited Away,
while grounded in specific Japanese ideas and spirits,
is looking at spirituality as a broader,
more immutable thing: the importance of a name,
family, friendship,
and love. "Haku.
Thank goodness." Working harder and harder
won’t ever deliver you to the promised land,
but it’s these things that will save your life. “What’s going on?” “Something you wouldn’t recognize,
it’s called love.” "What is your favorite scene
from a Miyazaki movie?" "For me, it just doesn't get any better
than the Totoro growing scene. Just reminds you of,
just what a miracle it is that things grow. You just water these seeds
and then they just grow. You kind of forget this magic
is around you all of the time. I also love the physicality
of the way they kind of squeeze, they,
they squeeze it up and they push it out
like they're giving birth almost. And they,
they will it to, to grow. And then they wake up
the next morning and it's real, that, you know they haven't-
it hasn't grown into this big tree but there are these little sprouts,
and there's such an interesting feeling
that they made it happen." "I thought it was a dream!
Hooray! We did it!
We did it!" "How many times would we have
loved to have a- a good dream come true,
right? It's a dream come true." "Building that appreciation
and that awe for nature is one of the most amazing things
about Miyazaki movies for me. The way that the-
the young girls cultivate this relationship with nature,
and it's- it's their friend, it comes to them in times of need. It's such a beautiful way to,
to teach us to think about..." "Yeah." "...the way that the
natural world grows around us and what relationship
we want to have with it." "And that we're not
the only living creatures on this planet.
In fact, we're only a slight blip
on the larger, you know, um,
passage of time. And that we also, uh, you know,
we can really teach this to our children. You know,
I think about the black ooze and Princess Mononoke
towards the end, and how they have to deal
with those natural elements and overcome a curse almost,
as the way we treat the world that we live in." "So, another scene I love
is in Kiki's Delivery Service when she rediscovers
her ability to fly. And it's so tied to also,
that her ability to help and to- to be there, um,
to show up in a time of need. "Kiki was so brave!
She really saved the day." "We have another video about Kiki,
which is really interestingly- it's tapping into a similar theme as,
as we're finding in Spirited Away, which is this burnout,
this need to find purpose that's not just in a hustle culture." "Flying used to be fun,
until I started doing it for a living." "Both of these films are,
a lot about finding something else in your life
--a spiritual outlet-- something that nourishes you,
nourishes your mind and souls." "And- and it also has an opportunity,
it gives you a moment to just take a step,
and think about, what are we absorbing? What are we allowing to,
come into our consciousness." "Yeah." "Are we, then,
internalizing that and delivering it
into the world?" "Take long walks.
Look at the scenery. Doze off at noon.
Don't even think about flying. And then pretty soon
you'll be flying again!" "This year has been
such an opportunity to reflect, and you know if,
among that many things, And I think a lot of us went,
well, what are we dong with our time? You never know how much time
you have left. You don't have that much time
on this earth, what are you doing with it? What-
what is meaningful to you?" "I guess I never gave much thought
to why I wanted to do this." "For Kiki,
finding that purpose, I think she needs
to find her purpose in order to fly,
and that's very literal for her. But it's-but it's true
for there rest of us." "Her purpose is very much
about human connection. And it's so true,
the more you practice thinking about others
and helping, that's the most enriching. That's the way that you can
find really the most centering, um, piece I think,
is when we realize we're all part
of this larger story." "Yeah, you see that in-
in Ponyo, which is one of the..." "Oh, great point,
yeah." "...the simpler stories I think
in- in Miyazaki, but it's one of my favorites
for that reason, because it-
it is just this amazing telling of what love is. The way that Sosuke when he says,
'I will love you,'" "I will love you too." "And 'I will protect you,'
and he says that it's a big responsibility." "It's a big responsibility,
but I *really* love her." "I love Ponyo
and I love May and Totoro. I love that little girl character
who's just such a force of nature, and she's so wild,
and she just has this will. I don't know if I identify
with this character, but that scene of Ponyo just,
running on the wave, running after Sosuke
and the mom goes," "That wave as just after us." "The wild energy of her
and her devotion, the way that she's like
I'm just going to get back to him or the way that she heals people,
but it's- its this very ferocious,
wild, young energy. It's just this sweet,
sweet childish love between them." "Ponyo loves Sosuke." "And also that love comes
in many forms. I think that's shown through
a lot of Miyazaki films," "For love,
it broke the neva smell." Thanks again to MUBI
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