Girl’s representation in Ghibli And Disney studio.
“Sometimes the smallest things can take up the most room in your heart.” – Winnie the Pooh.
Although we grow up our love of those childhood cartoons seems to remain strong. Maybe that is why animation is the first best friend children have in their childhood. Statistics show that from infants to 2.5 years old, children are considered as a daily viewer of cartoons (Aliyeve). High number of viewers indicates that animation in any form is perceived as a ‘children’s’ medium (and subsequently directed toward them. Therefore, animation can serve as a way to introduce and to educate the juveniles about adult topics, yet allow them to retain some sort of separation from reality. That is why if the cartoons world lacks diversity, it is not surprising that kids seem so quick to associate certain events or person with similar fixed images in the animation, especially regarding female representation. Rosenkrantz, Vogel, Bee, and Braverman (1968) suggested that gender-role stereotypes in the media were partly responsible for young women’s negative self-concepts. Signorielli (1989) also found evidence that television viewing might be related to more sexist views of women’s role in society. Consequently, given what we know about the prevalence of stereotyping, the role of cartoons in shaping children’s perception is crucial.
The essay will look at research and analysis of the representation of female in movies made by two leading animation studio, Walt Disney and Ghibli during the 20th century to highlight the distinct visions these studios have regarding their female protagonists. The essay will then discuss how the visions alter the Western and Asian cultures and how the collaboration of two studios change the world’s perception of women.
Why Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney?
The Disney Corporation is a major contributor to children’s media. Disney’s full-length animated films have been a popular form of children’s entertainment for more than 95 years. Its movies are one of the few types of media that can be shared intergenerationally and are quite likely a part of most children’s lives in the U.S. (Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund & Tanner 1). In other words, Disney’s film was the representative of the western’s culture throughout history.
While the works of Walt Disney Studios have traditionally been the most popular and well-known in North America, Studio Ghibli takes that role in Japan as a critically acclaimed animation studio (O’Halloran 1). Founded in June 1985 in Tokyo, Japan, with funding from Tokyo based publishing company Tokuma Shoten, Studio Ghibli was the brainchild of Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki. The name ‘Ghibli’ was based on the Arabic name for “hot Sahara wind” because the founders wanted Studio Ghibli to blow a new wind to the anime industry. Certainly, Studio Ghibli’s or Miyazaki’s movies incorporate feminism, environmental messages in the magical and fantasy-based worlds.
In 1996, Tokuma Publishing made a distribution deal with the Disney Corporation, known as the “Disney/Tokuma Deal.” This opens a door for Studio Ghibli’s works to receive acknowledgment in North America. However, this deal gave Disney the rights to distribute Studio Ghibli’s feature films not only in North America but also in Japan and across the world. The collaboration creates a shift in the attitude from North American audiences towards and expectations for female characters in cinema.
Girl’s representation in Ghibli’s film.
What promotes Ghibli’s animations in becoming the “truly beautiful, powerful examples of progressive, feminist cinema” (Iles, 2005) is undoubtedly the parallel reality Hayao Miyazaki established in order to avoid confirming the character to fixed image, but [anticipating] the character’s future development (Prats, 2017). In her article about Miyazaki, Laura Trafí-Prats compared the primary narratives of childhood subjectivity in stories – Nature’s child – with the narrative Miyazaki’s films deploy. The ‘Nature Child’s’ narrative assumes the relationship between nature and children as “a benign romance” as well as underestimates the value of culture and society in children’s development as it sees the world as binaries. In turn, Miyazaki made fiction “out of many combined references, nested stories, social and immaterial forces, and multiplicities instead of binaries.”(374) In Ghibli’s world, life occurs in relations of care, entanglement, coexistence, and worldmaking with and for others (Haraway, 2008). Laura Trafí-Prats also strengthens her point by giving an example of the world in “Nausicaä From the Valley of the Wind” (Miyazaki’s first feature film), which is situated a desolated world that has been poisoned by human technology. Nausicaä – the female protagonist – is a young princess living in a kingdom that depends on wind technology to protect itself from the insects’ attack and the spreading of the deadly jungle. Miyazaki places his female lead in a complicated, hybrid and imperfect world in order the create depth to the character’s personality. As a result, “Miyazaki’s children or tweens are not so much about purity or innocence as about a sensory-motor openness, elasticity, and malleability” (LaMarre 130).
“Miyazaki’s subtle and complex worldview allows [us] to ‘break the rules’ of Western culture, to go beyond the Hollywood happy endings, or the need for a defined good and evil, and embrace the world in all its ambiguity, heartbreak, and hope” (Napier 62).
In her research, Laura Trafí-Prats also finds out that Miyazaki’s female leads “offer semiotic, expressive, and sensorial motifs to recompose one’s life in affirming ways.”(382) She bases her conclusion by one response narrative in the sample pool of study consisted of six women between 21- and 39-years-old who were and had been consumers of Miyazaki in their childhood and youth years, and who identified as art practitioners, which states:
“In Princess Mononoke (Martin & Miyazaki, 1997), even when San and Ashitaka return the head of the Forest Spirit to its body, the viewer’s expectation that the Forest Spirit would come back to life is let down…What makes his films different from Western and other animation films is that they are not happily ever after films. The heroines have lost people in their lives, concurred their fears, and experience the traumas of war, they still have to move on with their lives and figure out how to deal with the problems they have endured. They rarely end up with a prince to save their day or help them move on, they move on as real people do when they have endured hardships.” (381)
The examination of Ghibli’s heroines was further looked at by Montserrat Rifà-Valls (2011) in which the researcher states that “Miyazaki places emphasis on Ponyo’s – the protagonist in Gake no Ue no Ponyo – process of transformation/agency in a polluted environment” – “how she makes the transition from fish to human, and the relationships she maintains with others.”(98) instead of focusing on the ending. Through this example, the author proposes a claim that Miyazaki took into consideration the viewpoint of children and other spectators to conceive spaces in which “visual and cognitive permeability allow new forms of reality and thought.” (Napier, 2005)
Another thing that makes Ghibli’s animations an advocate for feminism is the relationship between the male and female characters. Timothy Iles has analyzed this matter in his article about the gendered social construction in contemporary Japanese cinema. Taking the film Spirited Away as an example, Iles points out that Chihiro – the female lead interact equally with their male companions, both learning and teaching each other valuable lessons. “Were Chihiro to have been a young boy (and it is worth mentioning here that while this name can be both masculine and feminine, all of the dictionaries which I have consulted list it as male), the impact of the plot would have been basically unchanged.” (Iles, 2005). Montserrat Rifà-Valls also came from the same point of view in her research about Hayao Miyazaki. The researcher highlights a scene in “Nausicaä From the Valley of the Wind” which reveals “the role traditionally given to the man in the legend told in the tapestry and spoken by Grandma—the prophetess of doom—corresponding to Nausicaä, a woman.”
Girl’s representation in Disney’s film.
Disney movies, the innocent family entertainment for many decades, is rich in gender stereotypes. Malfroid emphasizes in her research about gender, class, and ethnicity in the Disney Princesses that the fantasy world Disney created is too simple. The research states that romance is the common theme in the majority of Disney’s films. Specifically, “love at first sight, based on appearances, is common and seen as the inevitable result of a boy and a girl (since heterosexuality is universalized) meeting under the right circumstances.”(Malfroid 110). Another similar research about gender role in Disney Princess in 2011 strengthens the claim by pointing out the romance in Disney’s movies either develops instantaneously or in 1-2 days. Moreover, “a heterosexual romance is inevitable and often a central conclusion of the movie.” (England et al. 565). Even the “‘daring expeditions’ outside the domestic sphere are allegedly incorporated on purpose, because…, they eventually guide the princesses towards a romantic encounter” (Malfroid 111). Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund, and Tanner also show their support in this matter by pointing out a detail in The Little Mermaid, in which the mermaid must forfeit her voice, her independence as well as identity and rely only on her body to win the love of a prince. Beth Wiersma with related study mentions the way the story ends after the marriage is unrealistic and provides a gendered message. “Because the heroine adopts conventional female virtues, that is patience, sacrifice, and dependency, and because she submits to patriarchal needs, she consequently receives both the prince and a guarantee of social security through marriage” (Rowe 217). Overall, the happy-ever-after ending has inevitably restricted and underrated the protagonist’s character development and values, while framing marriage as the ultimate goal for the female lead’s life.
In Disney’s binary world, heroines’ appearance follows a fixed image. “The physical depiction of Disney heroines seems to have followed prevalent beauty norms” (Malfroid 109). Beth Wiersma indicates that Disney’s heroines as well as supporting female characters pose specific physical traits: young thin, developed breasts, a narrow and defined hips. Over the years, heroines’ appearances have evolved from pretty girl-next-door to socially-accepted-as-attractive women with the face of a Barbie doll and the figure of a top model (Malfroid 14). Additionally, Towbin, Haddock, Zimmerman, Lund, and Tanner propose in their research that “a woman’s appearance is valued more than her intellect.”(30) They provide multiple examples such as the first gift of sleeping beauty is beauty, the Evil Queen’s motivation to kill Snow White is because the princess is the fairest of them all, the way little mermaid Ariel wins Prince Eric’s love after losing her voice; and the way Belle is praised for being pretty but ridiculed for being smart. Even though Towbin and other researchers acknowledge the slight change in the message in later films, they still maintain their conclusion that intellectual values are underrated in Disney’s films.
Another distinct characteristic of Disney’s princess is helpless and submissive. England and her research group concluded that “the princes often performed the climactic rescue of their own, except in Pocahontas and Mulan” (561), however, no princess did the final rescue without the help of the prince. Moreover, Towbi’s research group also points out seven in ten movies (Alice, Dalmatians, Aristocats, Fox, Beauty, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Hunchback, Mulan, and Tarzan) portrayed women as “more likely to need help and protection from men than to be independent and adventurous” (Alice, Dalmatians, Aristocats, Beauty, Aladdin, Hunchback, and Tarzan) (30). The princess also proved to have shown “a fairly submissive and limited way of being assertive” (England et al. 562). Malfroid’s research shows that while “the princesses increasingly grow intellectually and have a taste of adventure,”(110) they are “unprepared for their encounters with the outside world… and can only be overcome with the help of others.” (110)
The merging of Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney
The Disney–Tokuma deal opened the door for many Studio Ghibli films to come into the Western market for the first time while shielding the integrity of the work against possible censure or adaptations (McCarthy, 1999:48). Toshio Suzuki, a producer with Studio Ghibli, stated that other companies such as Fox and Time-Warner contacted him, but Disney was the only company willing to agree to the condition to not to cut even one second from the films. However, O’Halloran, in her research about the transnational power of anime, claims that Disney only interest in films directed by Hayao Miyazaki because of the similarities between them, particularly, the young female protagonists, magical creatures and whimsical adventures. With Spirited Away’s success at the 75th Academy Awards, American begins to take notice of Miyazaki’s works, and thanks to Disney’s influence, he has become something of a household name amongst anime fans and Disney fans. (O’Halloran 49). Miyazaki soon is regarded by critics and media scholars as the “Japanese Walt Disney.” However, Hernández-Pérez claims in his research that the frequent use of Disney references may be an attempt to “evoke the uniqueness or singularity of Miyazaki as a film figure, by comparing him with the most well-known name within the animation medium”, yet it also “obfuscates Miyazaki’s uniqueness.” (298) Nevertheless. Ghibli’s animation has established a powerful image as having “good” or “strong” female representation in Western’s cinema. O’Halloran also points out that “it is Disney Studios that has a history of female characters, and where we can see the most significant comparable elements between North American animation and Studio Ghibli films.”(50) Comparing the original three Disney princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty) to the last several Disney heroines (Rapunzel from Tangled (2010), Elsa and Anna from Frozen (2013), Moana from Moana (2016)), the progression in the types of female characters is considerable. That progression, as O’Halloran states, “starting in the field of animation, with the help of anime”(50) like the films of Studio Ghibli.
In conclusion, while Disney’s film characters have “become almost become almost synonymous with the very notion of American pop culture”(Michelle O’Halloran 5), Ghibli attempt to change “the hierarchical Japanese animation industry into a more syndicate and collaborative model” (McCarthy, 1999: 30). The collaboration of two of the biggest studios of Western and Eastern’s cinema has broken all elements of traditional femininity and female gender roles of the world’s culture.
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Works Cited:
England, Dawn Elizabeth, et al. “Gender Role Portrayal and the Disney Princesses.” Sex Roles, vol. 64, no. 7-8, Oct. 2011, pp. 555–567., doi:10.1007/s11199-011-9930-7.
Hernández-Pérez, Manuel. “Animation, Branding and Authorship in the Construction of the ‘Anti-Disney’ Ethos: Hayao Miyazaki’s Works and Persona through Disney Film Criticism.” Animation, vol. 11, no. 3, 2016, pp. 297–313., doi:10.1177/1746847716660684.
Iles, Timothy, and University of Victoria. “Female Voices, Male Words: Problems of Communication, Identity, and Gendered Social Construction in Contemporary Japanese Cinema.” Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 31 Jan. 2005, www.japanesestudies.org.uk/discussionpapers/2005/Iles.html.
Malfroid, Kirsten. Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in the Disney Princesses Series. lib.ugent.be/fulltxt/RUG01/001/414/434/RUG01-001414434_2010_0001_AC.pdf.
O’Halloran, Michelle. Only Yesterday And The Transnational Power Of Anime. qspace.library.queensu.ca/bitstream/handle/1974/23639/O’Halloran_Michelle_F_201710_MA.pdf?sequence=3.
Towbin, Mia Adessa, et al. “Images of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual Orientation in Disney Feature-Length AnimatedFilms.” Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, vol. 15, no. 4, Oct. 2004, pp. 19–44., doi:10.1300/j086v15n04_02.
Trafí-Prats, Laura. “Girls’ Aesthetics of Existence in/With Hayao Miyazaki’s Films.” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, vol. 17, no. 5, 2016, pp. 376–383., doi:10.1177/1532708616674996.
Wiersma, Beth A. “The Gendered World of Disney: A Content Analysis of Gender Themes in Full-Length Animated Disney Feature Films.” Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange, openprairie.sdstate.edu/etd/1906/.