fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #514 ]

[ SECRET POST #514 ]

⌈ Secret Post #514 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[that's McKay from SGA, by the way; ass-recognition courtesy of

failaga]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 13 pages, 305 secrets from Secret Submission Post #074.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 4 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 - too big ], [ 1 2 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ], [ 1 - random link, wtf? ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's a lot of Reborn secrets.
(Having just gotten into the series, I think I'll just enjoy it over here in this corner now and stay as far away from the fandom as possible. D:)

128. How does whether or not you want to see their relationship as friendship/platonic love/sexual love make their story any more or less empowering? From the beginning of the story, instead of waiting for a prince to come and save her, Utena became her own prince and saved herself. And finally (though Utena's love, regardless of what sort of love it was, clearly helped her to do so, just as hers had Utena) Anthy saved herself too. And then Anthy goes off to (maybe) find Utena again in the world outside Ohtori Academy, because, hey, once you are a free agent and not a Rose Bride, you can follow your own desires wherever they lead.

Moreover, whether or not you want to think they were friends or lovers or whatever you please, I wouldn't call their relationship Romantic. Maybe they'll end up together, maybe they won't--and if they don't, I don't see either one of them wasting away in a tower and never loving again. But wanting to love or be loved in itself, or needing and fostering genuine connections of all kinds with other people, doesn't make you weak and certainly isn't inherently unfeminist.

The Reborn fandom is extremely low on wank on the main comm, although they can be a little weird at times (in a good way).

Don't base a fandom on a F!S of all things.

It's not a question of WANTING to see it in a certain light; I didn't see it as romantic at all until I read an interview with the director where he said it was. I can see it now, which wouldn't bother me except that I feel it was totally unnecessary. He stated that he doesn't like heterosexual romance because it distracts from the plot, but instead of leaving romance out completely, and because the show is saying that girls don't need a "prince", he put a completely arbitrary romance in between two girl characters... essentially because he felt they needed to be romantically linked with someone at the end of the story. I'm assuming, anyway, since I really can't find a point to it otherwise. That's why it bothers me.

I really don't see anything arbitrary about it. It's clear that they're -close-, and it doesn't really matter to the meaning of the story how close, or in what way close. The romantc overtones are just there to give the story an emotional center, as far as I can see.

I mean, the end of the story could be seen as pretty bleak--no one but Anthy remembers Utena at all, we don't really know what happened to her either, and then Anthy wanders off into the great unknown. I don't think it's hard to see why the director would want to emphasize the connection between Utena and the only person who even remembers her at the story's end. Anthy just walking away on her own, away from Ohtori but not towards anything, is less uplifting than her walking away looking for her friend/lover/whatever.

Whether you see it or you prefer to think of it in one way or another or not, I don't think it takes away from the message of the story at all. Women may not need 'princes', or traditional Romantic love, but this doesn't mean they don't need anyone other than themselves, or need human connections or love of any kind.

I would agree with it being an emotional center if it wasn't so subtle to the point of being obscure. As it is, it just feels tacked on for the sake of having a romantic relationship for the main characters.

And yes, the ending would be bleak if left as it was without Anthy stating her intentio to find Utena, but it would have been easy for the writer/s to construct a scenario aside from that to tell us that she was still all right. And before I saw the romantic implications, I loved seeing Anthy walk through the gate toward the outside world, free to do anything. I never saw it as bleak or depressing because she was finally free and off to live her own life and I found it incredibly uplifting.

And no, I don't think that women don't need to have any human connections or love, far from it, but I'm viewing this as a writing decision made by someone to make a point. If the implication of leaving Ohtori is that you've matured and left behind your emotional baggage, then what's wrong with Anthy simply taking her things and exiting, instead of telling us she's going to find Utena? If their romance was so important, why is it only periphrially hinted at? And why did the director say he used a lesbian relationship because he found hetero relationships too distracting to the plot-- wouldn't it make more sense not to have any relationship, in that case? How are homosexual relationships less distracting than heterosexual ones? And why, if it was so subtle, was there any point to having their relationship be romantic at all? Wouldn't a strong friendship work just as well?

Basically, I'm questioning the decision because I personally don't get anything out of their relationship being romantic and I don't see the point. If you do, that's fine, more power to you, but I found that I couldn't come up with a good reason for the romance to be there other than for the sake of being there, which bothered me.

Utena is a story about women, and their relationships with one another. The writer of Maria-sama ga miteru said something similar, I believe, when asked whether she'd ever give the women in her story boyfriends--she said that she would not, because this was a story about their relationships with each other. To a story like this, heterosexual romance -would- be distracting, though not romance in general: there is at least one overtly lesbian romance in Marimite. (All the rest, though the story as a whole is called shoujo-ai or yuri, is not overt at all and could be called 'just very good friendship', much as Utena/Anthy can).

And as for Anthy saying that she will find Utena after she leaves, I think this is very important to the 'point' of the story for reasons that have nothing to do with a traditional 'lovers running into each others' arms' Romantic resolution. Utena is a story specifically about women (Anthy at one point says 'I think all women are Rose Brides) and about how they may raise each other up. Not, in fact, about how they should just turn around the old prince and princess paradigm to become lone princes themselves. Utena herself admits that for a long time she only acted as Anthy's prince and defended her to serve her own ego--clearly the old model of the prince just doesn't work, even when both men and women can be princes.

As far as 'leaving one's emotional baggage behind' goes, everyone else stuck in perpetual adolescence in Ohtori has easily forgotten this person who was their friend, Anthy has not. I would say the fact that she does not forget as everyone else does, is a real sign that she has moved beyond Ohtori as they haven't: she has made a lasting friendship and/or whatever else, and has committed to it and taken responsibility for it. It would be an incredible betrayal of that friendship and all that it achieved for both her and for Utena, if Anthy didn't even remember Utena, didn't even worry about her, didn't even, for that matter, feel any guilt for having stabbed her in the back before leaving Ohtori--which without Utena, again, she could never have done. (That above all else, I think, obliges her to see Utena at least one more time, if only to apologize and thank her!)

As for why something more than friendship between them is only hinted at and not made overt, why it would even be hinted at at all, well... All I take from what the director said was just that their relationship was intended to be subtextually sexual. A bit. Not that he meant for Anthy and Utena to be a destined prince-and-princess couple in the traditional Romantic sense of the word. At worst it doesn't significantly affect the meaning of the story a lot one way or another, at best it could be saying something about the fact that not only friendship but also sexual love can be positive and uplifting when it's not turned into the artificial fantasy of a princess being rescued by a prince.

(I don't mean to get all strident here and harp at you about this for pages; I do see your point. You've just made me think about this series again and I had to at least write what I was thinking down. :))

You definitely raise good points, and in theory, I don't disagree with you. That Utena is a series about women's relationship with each other is true; however it is also very much about women's relationships with men, as well, as the Utena/Touga and Utena/Akio and Anthy/Akio relationships define so well. If the director didn't want to muddle things by having the plot revolve around romantic relationships more than it did, which I think he was wise to do, then why bother having any romantic entanglements at all? That's my question.

I agree with your second paragraph very much, and I reiterate: why the need for romance there? Doesn't friendship work to this end as well?

And I agree with your third paragraph as well, but I still feel the line wasn't strictly necessary. To me, it implied more than just a brief visit, it was a quest. While I very much agree with your reasons for her wanting to find Utena, and I don't have a problem with her finding her per se, I just question the motives behind the decision to have her do so.

Your fourth paragraph makes a very interesting point and I'll mull that over. Since every other sexual relationship in the show was at best dysfunctional, it would be an interesting contrast.

And not a problem, I'm just trying to understand this discomfort I have with the ending now that I've gotten an insight into the director's decision on an aspect of the relationship I hadn't been aware of previously. Other people's views are helping me process a lot of it. :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #514 ]

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