There is an ongoing debate on how to depict women in film, and top Japanese animators strive to create heroines who are complex characters but can also connect with the audience on a deeper level. Although these animated individuals may be portrayed to be perfect with their strengths and creative brilliance, they also have faults and weaknesses and make mistakes just like any other normal person in the world.
“[Their heroines are] not [just] properties or franchises; they’re characters the filmmakers believe in,” writes Charles Solomon, a New York Times movie critic.
Belle, a movie directed by Mamoru Hosoda, is the story of a teenager named Suzu who lives a double life as an introverted high school student and a globally-beloved singer. Her music reflects the love and pain she has experienced in life, especially after her mother’s death, which was the result of attempting to save a drowning child in a flooded river. Suzu is outraged rather than proud of her mother’s heroic act, considering that her mother sacrificed her life for a stranger and left her only family member, Suzu, alone in the world. Suzu feels angry at her dead mother because the dead woman is unaware that her talented daughter was so devastated by her mom’s death that the girl abandoned her musical gifts in mid-career.
In contrast, in the American animated film Beauty and the Beast, Disney artists portrayed Belle as an independent, intelligent woman who takes life’s tragedies in stride. Although Belle feels mildly apprehensive about her missing father, she never seems to long for her dead mother—in other words, Belle does not grieve for a lost family member like a typical person does. In my opinion, American animated-film heroines express far less profound, complicated emotions than do their animated Japanese counterparts.
“When you think of animation and female leads, you always go to the fairy tale tropes,” Hosoda said through a translator. “But they really broke that template: It felt very new. Similarly, what we tried to do in ‘Belle’ is not to a build a character, but build a person: someone who reflects the society in which we live.”
The audience can better relate to Japanese animated films as they put themselves in Japanese heroines’ perspective; they can relate to such characters as role models. Watching them on the big screen makes the experience deeper and more meaningful since it feels as though the viewer’s similar experience is acknowledged by the public – it feels almost as if viewers can step into a heroine’s community. Also, Japanese animators appear to do a better job of delineating women who feel like they are “on the outside looking in.” Such animators reassure viewers that it is perfectly normal to be different from the crowd in mainstream society.
Speaking through a translator in an interview about his Oscar-winning film Spirited Away, Miyazaki said, “I wanted the main character to be a typical girl in whom a 10-year-old could recognize herself. She shouldn’t be someone extraordinary, but an everyday, real person — even though this kind of character is more difficult to create. It wouldn’t be a story in which the character grows up, but a story in which she draws on something already inside her that is brought out by the particular circumstances.”
Sources:
file:///C:/Users/admin/Downloads/For%20the%20Most%20Complex%20Heroines%20in%20Animation,%20Look%20to%20Japan%20-%20The%20New%20York%20Times.pdf
“[Their heroines are] not [just] properties or franchises; they’re characters the filmmakers believe in,” writes Charles Solomon, a New York Times movie critic.
Belle, a movie directed by Mamoru Hosoda, is the story of a teenager named Suzu who lives a double life as an introverted high school student and a globally-beloved singer. Her music reflects the love and pain she has experienced in life, especially after her mother’s death, which was the result of attempting to save a drowning child in a flooded river. Suzu is outraged rather than proud of her mother’s heroic act, considering that her mother sacrificed her life for a stranger and left her only family member, Suzu, alone in the world. Suzu feels angry at her dead mother because the dead woman is unaware that her talented daughter was so devastated by her mom’s death that the girl abandoned her musical gifts in mid-career.
In contrast, in the American animated film Beauty and the Beast, Disney artists portrayed Belle as an independent, intelligent woman who takes life’s tragedies in stride. Although Belle feels mildly apprehensive about her missing father, she never seems to long for her dead mother—in other words, Belle does not grieve for a lost family member like a typical person does. In my opinion, American animated-film heroines express far less profound, complicated emotions than do their animated Japanese counterparts.
“When you think of animation and female leads, you always go to the fairy tale tropes,” Hosoda said through a translator. “But they really broke that template: It felt very new. Similarly, what we tried to do in ‘Belle’ is not to a build a character, but build a person: someone who reflects the society in which we live.”
The audience can better relate to Japanese animated films as they put themselves in Japanese heroines’ perspective; they can relate to such characters as role models. Watching them on the big screen makes the experience deeper and more meaningful since it feels as though the viewer’s similar experience is acknowledged by the public – it feels almost as if viewers can step into a heroine’s community. Also, Japanese animators appear to do a better job of delineating women who feel like they are “on the outside looking in.” Such animators reassure viewers that it is perfectly normal to be different from the crowd in mainstream society.
Speaking through a translator in an interview about his Oscar-winning film Spirited Away, Miyazaki said, “I wanted the main character to be a typical girl in whom a 10-year-old could recognize herself. She shouldn’t be someone extraordinary, but an everyday, real person — even though this kind of character is more difficult to create. It wouldn’t be a story in which the character grows up, but a story in which she draws on something already inside her that is brought out by the particular circumstances.”
Sources:
file:///C:/Users/admin/Downloads/For%20the%20Most%20Complex%20Heroines%20in%20Animation,%20Look%20to%20Japan%20-%20The%20New%20York%20Times.pdf
