fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2622 ]

[ SECRET POST #2622 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2622 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 076 secrets from Secret Submission Post #375.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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The 'Madoka is such a feminist anime!!" thing is always so hilarious. Anyone who thinks that Gen Urobochi would write a feminist story doesn't know a shit about the man.

Why does the author's intent matter? People are constantly hassling poor portrayals of female character where the creators had nothing but good intentions. Why wouldn't it work the other way around?

I don't give a fuck what Urobutcher thinks or what he wanted, Madoka comes across as pretty feminist to me. I mean shit, her mum is the breadwinner and her dad is a stay-at-home dad and this is all treated as perfectly normal and acceptable. That shouldn't be impressive but it is.

For me, it is a combination of the authorial intent and the actual characterization. If EITHER of these is non-feminist, then the work is non-feminist. Same goes for any other message/idea. Though sometimes I can accept the in-universe logic and see some characterizations/plotlines the way I wouldn't see them in real life.

But IA when it comes to people who don't care what the authors say. I don't get it when somebody goes all like "Johnlock (Castiel, whatever non-authorial-intent-compatible ship) is canon" only to turn around and say that something's not feminist/not pro-LGBTA+ because the author of the canon did not intend for it to be this way. Like... no.

What do you do in situations where you can't find out what the author intended?

I take guesses! And I consider my knowledge of the canon source too limited to judge certain aspects of it (e.g. whether it was intended to be feminist or not).

Watch Psyco Pass.

I don't think you can watch the Schoolgirls arch without appreciating how well he is able to play with feminist themes within a Japanese context.

Psycho Pass was good, but some of his other works are so bad that the cons outweigh the pros. Every time I remember the poor girl of Saya no Uta who was forced into becoming a monster and then a sex slave, raped so many times...

At risk of being completely obtuse, is there really supposed to be a message about feminity in that? Like, is the game really trying to say something about how women are or should be, or does all that happen for some other reason? Rape and torture are pretty bad signs, but they don't necessarily mean a work is anti-feminist--there are other meanings and messages they could fit.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-09 02:47 (UTC) - Expand

Um. The point of that is that it was fucking awful and the main dude in Saya no Uta had become a total monster. Basically the entire point of Saya no Uta is that the main guy's tragic circumstances don't outweigh his awful behavior. The game is a tragedy, which is why the "good end" is the most messed up end. It's not like he had that happen just to make some sort of anti-feminist statement. The existence of rape in a plotline is not automatically glorifying or condoning rape.

Yes to Psycho-Pass. The schoolgirl arc is the... plastination case, right? I like that too for what happens in the epilogue.

Oh my goodness, your icon's too cute!

And I think this is the first time I've seen you around here! So welcome!

(no subject)

mantine - 2014-03-09 01:25 (UTC) - Expand

Hearing Urobuchi's intents made me all the more happy that Madoka was given so much feminist analysis. I'm sure he doesn't care what foreign women (most of whom acquired the show illegally and brought him no profit) think one way or the other, but it fascinates me that he failed so spectacularly at not being feminist.

I'd like to know more about his intents, please.

More like Madoka is babby's first magical girl anime. Madoka isn't more feminist than any other magic girl anime. I prefer Sugar Sugar Rune, it was great to see a rescue arc where the girls were the ones rescuing their kidnapped boyfriends for once.

Don't most magical girl anime does that? I know Wedding Peach had one (or was it several) of the girls rescue the boyfriend, and I think sailor Moon did too. Also, that anime with the twin girls that can teleportate, I can't remember the title.

You're right that Madoka is no more feminist than other magical shows, but that seems pretty irrelevant to the discussion. I mean, nobody is suggesting otherwise.

Sugar Sugar Rune looks so cute oh my god!!

I kinda agree with this. To me, Madoka falls in a lot of trappings that is usually gender assigned in fiction. For example, the whole thing that humanity progression on the sorrow of young women thing. Sacrificial women is often a trope in anime (well, in all honesty, we can argue this is very much a global trope in a lot of ways). I mean, how many male-centered series would happen like that, even the dark ones? In Madoka, everyone gets punished for their choice, even Madoka who just turned out bittersweet. And the whole Witch thing, but at least the series made you sympathize with them once you knew what they were and how they become Witches.

But what makes Madoka Magica great how they , play around, deconstruct (and eventually reconstruct) the magical girl anime tropes and you have to have a good knowledge of it to really appreciate the series, but just because it is a deconstruct doesn't necessarily means it's more feminist than, say, Sailor Moon (who I think its feminism got toned down in the anime, imo) or PreCure.

I agree. As a long time magical girl fan, when I first saw PMMM (and this was before Urobuchi's comments, it was when the series aired) I read it as deconstructing elements of magical girl series that would be just plain disturbing outside of their idealistic genre bubble. This isn't necessarily feminist, but easily could be, since lots of magical girl conventions themselves are not ideally feminist.

The thing with Madoka is it was accidentally a story about why it's bad girls are told to hide their desires.

I don't think it was accidentally in that regard considering the whole Sayaka's arc was about how denying one's true desires/intentions (aka wanting Kyousuke to notice her and fall for her) fucked them over in the end.

But Madoka isn't the first mahou shoujo about a girl's choice to pick her desires over the greater good (that sometimes represent the belief that the collective comes first that is pervasive in Japanese culture). Sailor Moon does that aplenty.

Re: Extreme spoilers for Madoka Magica TV series

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-09 13:58 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Extreme spoilers for Madoka Magica TV series

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-10 02:09 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Extreme spoilers for Madoka Magica TV series

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-10 23:36 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Extreme spoilers for Madoka Magica TV series

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-11 01:41 (UTC) - Expand

Also, SA,

But either the choices were good or not, in the end, they couldn't escape the inevitable, turning into a Witch. Luckily Homura's wish inadvertently gave Madoka the power to overcome the Witch System and temper it so that at least the girls don't have to face a fate worse than death anymore even though the magical girls will still fall into despair.

I might admit beforehand that I haven't saw the third movie yet. I heard it was quite the game changer.

Re: Extreme spoilers for Madoka Magica TV series

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-09 05:28 (UTC) - Expand

I have very little interest in defending Madoka, but I don't think a creator needs to be feminist or have feminist intentions for a work to be rich for feminist reading. I mean, Shakespeare wasn't a feminist. He existed pre-feminism. And some of his plays are very skeevy. On the other hand, some of them also lend themselves to very interesting feminist readings.

So, I mean. If people can come up with a compelling argument for why something is feminist, more power to them?

There is people writing looooong essays about Supernatural, its themes or characterization. That doesn't mean Supernatural has any depth, it's just people projecting. This is the same.

I don't think it's quite the same. Viewing something as feminist generally doesn't require making a bunch of shit up from subtext. It's about what actually happens.

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