Podcast

In this podcast episode, the hosts analyze the portrayal of femininity and strong female representation in the Ghibli film "Princess Mononoke". They discuss the characters of Lady Eboshi, who challenges gender expectations and empowers women through economic empowerment, and San, who embodies feminist qualities while also having a nurturing side. They also talk about Ashitaka, who defies traditional male stereotypes and goes against the notion of dominating women. Overall, the podcast explores themes of subverting stereotypes and critiquing the patriarchy in the film. Hey guys, welcome to the Ghibli Gab. This is going to be our first and only episode and last episode of this podcast and today we're going to be looking at excerpts from Feminism is for Everybody by Bell Hooks and we're going to be using that to analyze the portrayal of femininity and strong female representation in the Ghibli film Beloved Princess Mononoke. There's a lot of ideas here that we want to dive into including strong female representation, the subversion of stereotypes, and critiquing of the patriarchy. I'm Isaac. I'm going to be mostly talking about Irontown and Lady Eboshi and my podcast mates will introduce themselves as well. My name is Emma and I'm going to be talking about one of the main characters, Fawn, and the wolf. And my name is Kane and I'm going to be mainly talking about Ashitaka who is also one of the main characters and kind of his role as a male in this film. So we should start off with Irontown and Lady Eboshi. I think that Irontown and Lady Eboshi are kind of the centerpiece of kind of the femininity of this movie. It's kind of the most clear example. Women in this town are doing a lot of the hard labor. They're being dominant in most of the relationships we see. And with Lady Eboshi in town, she's kind of like a very powerful and strong figure subverting expectations than what women usually have. And it's very normal for her to be in that position, which I feel like is a strong statement for femininity. Especially in this time period of when the movie was released and when the movie is actually set as well, which I think is really cool too. She has a lot of agency. She doesn't have a male figure that she looks up to or is in power of everything. She's very independent and she has a lot of agency. She does a lot of things on her own. She says, I'm doing this and that's how she rolls. She's very independent in that way. Yeah. And she, of course, she's the leader of Irontown. So she has a lot of economic empowerment, which I feel like was very important at the time. Who makes the money is who's in charge and she makes the money. And she gives this empowerment through economic empowerment through labor. She gives economic power to the women and allowing them to do work and being safe from brothels. And the quote that I want to bring up is that feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression. I feel like she's the very clear example of, especially with the women who've been safe from brothels and the lepers who've been disabled. She's ending all that and treating everybody equally. Even the men in this town are treated pretty well as well. Yeah. And it's very much almost appears like a matriarchal society. Like the men are almost seen as the lowest class, even throughout the film, they're being bullied by other men who are actually doing the harder labor. Yeah, they make fun of them and they treat them that way. Which is almost what you might see in like, I don't know exactly what period of time, but I'd probably say like 1920s, 1930s. Yeah. Like a real modern life that like almost even feats what you see. Yeah. And another quote from the reading is that like, about feminism is that, and I quote, because it clearly states that the movement is not being about anti-male and that's shown here. Like she doesn't hate men. She gives them, she just, she just is giving a lot of attention to women because they've been disadvantaged. Because of what happened. Yeah. Because of their past and allowing them to be successful. Like you said with the lepers, like she's taking them in and they're making the guns in her little sanctuary garden. She's still giving them the opportunities, but they don't necessarily have the power as the women in the society. And the thing about Lady Eboshi is that she has a lot and a lot of depth. She's not, she's not black and white. She's not an evil person or a really evil bad guy, or she's not a really good guy either. She's kind of in this gray area and she's ambiguous in that sense. She's doing the right thing, but in the way that is kind of destructive. The right for her people. Yeah, exactly. Like as the nature view it, it's completely like she's trying to destroy the nature. She's trying to get the minerals of the mine underneath all the forests. And they're like, Oh my God, she's the worst person in the world. Right. But to her and for her people, it's what needs to be done. It's building an economy. Exactly. She's very compassionate and nurturing. She's quite feminine in that way, but she does it in a way that lacks passiveness, which is seen mostly with feminine stereotypes. Yeah. So I think we're going to now move on to San and the Wolves, I feel like. I feel like that's going to be very interesting. Yeah. So San is the other main character throughout the movie. We see her a lot in the environment of the wolves and outside a lot. I don't actually recall seeing her. Does she have like a home or is she? There's that one cave, but kind of like a stone place they go to. Right. But they'll actually tell her to come back to rescue her. That seems to be like their dwelling. Right. Okay. Yeah. So she's quite literally raised by wolves. She, I think because of her past, they took her under their wing and nurtured her while she grew up. She shows a lot of true feminist qualities. Some evident ones throughout the movie are her outfit. She wears very ragged clothing. She has a cape that's made out of wolf's fur. Her facial appearance, she wears red war paint, showing that she's ready for battle and she's wanting to. She has short hair, sort of like a tomboy, which is very feminist in a way. When she is fighting, she uses spear and daggers, which is again, a very, I guess, manly option. She has very similar personality traits of a man as well. So she's very stubborn. She doesn't like when things don't go her way. Throughout the movie, I guess you see it a little more at the end, but she doesn't really open up to Ashitaka. She has her guard up and she's very protective of the things that she cares about, which you can tell is very evident as herself. She very much wants to protect herself and protect nature and the things that she cares about, which are the wolves. I kind of like the quote as well, most men are disturbed by hatred and fear of women. I feel that being a woman and her being a woman, she is quite intimidating. If I was Lady Eboshi, I wouldn't want to deal with her. I see her running with a wolf and I'm like, no, I'm okay. But I also think she does portray, in the end, a very feminine quality where she does take care of Ashitaka. Throughout the movie, she does have that nurturing sense. I think that does come up during the movie, but not at the start. She's one of the most masculine characters in this movie. Definitely, more than Lady Eboshi. More than Ashitaka as well, in some ways. I just wanted to touch a little bit when you said dress. You focused mainly on San's clothing. I feel like most of the women throughout the film, even in Iron Child, they don't necessarily dress what we would think of as feminine. They just dress to what they need for their day-to-day work. I think that's also just another quick point to bring up there. They're not presenting themselves as trying to be feminine. Exactly. Something I really found interesting was the scene where San has to take care of Ashitaka. And her being a very masculine figure, she's kind of uneasy in that situation, and she's not very used to it. She was very apprehensive, almost like she didn't know what to do or how to move or how to act. You see the feminine character being unable to take care of someone, which is kind of a conflict that we have in our modern society. It seems wrong. Especially at that time when the film was released and earlier on in history, a woman being the kind of character in the role, that's something we normally associated with. It's not necessarily true. I feel like San plays masculine society. I think in this case, feminism is society itself, and her being a masculine figure as a man. A quote I wanted to say was, I tend to hear all about the evil of feminism, or the bad feminists in this case, society, and how they hate men, San. Even interestingly, it says how they want to go against nature, which is very fitting. We have San in this masculine position, being scared and hating the rest of society, which is quite feminine, empowered, with Lady Eboshi and all that. I think that's really interesting. Since we've been talking about Ashitaka, do we want to flip that and talk about... I would love to talk about Ashitaka. I think he's an amazing character for this film. Initially, we see Ashitaka. He's in his own small village, away from Irontown, and the whole conflict that's going on that we see throughout the film. He gets disturbed with a curse right off the way, and his quest line is to solve this curse. That's how he meets San, and Lady Eboshi, and all these characters throughout the film. Eventually, the quote that I want to focus on from the reading that I've made a couple points off in relation to the film goes, males as a group have and do benefit the most from patriarchy. Cut the quote a little bit, because it's a fairly long quote. Those benefits have come for a price. In return for all the goodies men receive from patriarchy, they are required to dominate women, to exploit and oppress us using violence, if they must keep patriarchy intact. I just want to talk about how Ashitaka's character almost goes exactly against this quote, which I think is really cool in this film, because he acts like a man. He's a cool warrior that you might assume has those qualities that were mentioned in this dialogue here, but he goes against it. When we focus on the demon that he has, I think the demon is almost a representation of that anger, of those violent qualities that we associate with men in society. Particularly, I want to focus on one scene, where it's Ashitaka and Lady Eboshi. I have a hard time pronouncing that name. They're talking in their garden about the two conflicts. I think we mentioned earlier how Eboshi, she's destroying the forest, but she's doing it for the benefit of the people. Ashitaka knows that this is needed, that it's for the people to survive, but the demon inside of him wants to kill Ashitaka, because it's brought so much conflict into his life, and there's all these things going wrong, and his immediate reaction is anger. I feel like that demon inside of him represents that anger and violence that's associated with men in society, but he himself tries to hold back that demon and knows that it's not the right thing to do. I think that's a really interesting part of Ashitaka's character. I also think that the protectiveness that we see of Ashitaka, both for San and all the characters within the film in general, is something to touch on as well, in relation to the quote that we talked about from Bell Hooks. One of the major scenes that I think we should be mentioning is after San attacks the village, and he's knocked out unconscious, two of the women's guards come up with guns to kill San. Then Ashitaka walks in and stops the conflict when San and Lady Iguchi are fighting with their swords, and goats and demon hands come in to block the sword, block the fight, and he starts to take San away. The woman in this role almost takes on what the man would have done in Bell Hooks' quote, saying he's trying to resolve things with violence, because she has a gun, and she says to Ashitaka, if you move one step forward, I will shoot you. Whereas Ashitaka is clearly trying to solve this conflict that they're having without using violence. Which is very, sorry to interrupt. No, please, I'm rambling. I feel that's a very feminine quote. You were saying you wouldn't really perceive a man to do that in a war, and because Lady Iguchi is saying, oh, if you do that, I will shoot you, you wouldn't assume a woman would say that. In a typical perfect world society, in society, you wouldn't really see that, so I find that very interesting just to add on here. Yeah, and he does walk off, he gets shot, and then he continues to walk, because that demon, I think it's really interesting, that demon, the anger and the violence keeps him alive, keeps him going. He's angry now that that conflict is over, they're not resolving that conflict. So I just thought that was perfectly fitted around that quote. I agree, I agree. Yeah. You guys have anything more to say about Ashitaka? I think that, I think what you're really saying, what's really interesting is that it's keeping him alive. I think that's the message to say that, kind of that toxic masculinity, like the bad things that come from masculinity, are so ingrained in society, he's literally cursed with it, and it's inside him, but it's needed for him to even stay alive, and it's keeping him alive. So I think that the masculinity is so ingrained in society that it needs it for it to function at this point. Yeah, and also in the sense of that particular moment, like what our values and qualities are, without it, he wouldn't have been able to keep going, which I think is interesting to note as well. Yes, it's horrible, but in that exact moment, he tends to go forward. Right. Really interesting. Yeah. Does anyone have anything else to add? I think the gender flipping is really interesting. I agree, I agree. You could, I feel like you could talk about that forever. The flipping of gender roles, San being the most masculine character here. Whereas Ashitaka is almost like this, not necessarily feminine character, but has a lot more feminine traits, like that caregiving quality, and wants to protect everyone as well. I just think that's really fascinating, that complete flippinism, which is just so neat. Almost the way they've drawn them, in a sense. Like how they look. How they look. Yeah, San has blood on her mouth the first time we see him. Yeah, he's got his blood on his mouth. You know, Ashitaka's kind of put together. He is like, I feel like his hair is longer. You know, I find that just the way that, oh, remind me of his name again. Who, who, Misia... Mizaki? Mizaki? Yeah. I find that even just the way that he develops these characters is very, kind of just goes with the gender flipping, and like how, how you can really like analyze that. I feel like that's definitely something we can talk about in a future episode as well, if you want. A future Ghibli dab episode. Yeah, a future Ghibli dab episode. That's definitely something that comes up a lot, is that, like, the strongest role in the film is a female character, and then the men are like, it's always almost like love. I feel like we could leave that for next time. Right. And he uses that contrast so much. It's almost like satire to make fun of society. Exactly. Right. Being kind of very masculine based. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good job, guys. Oh yeah, that was our presentation for the Ghibli dab. Thank you very much for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time. Bye, guys. Bye.