...where the reckoning of self happens.

October 20, 2017 11:53 AM

What Miyazaki’s Heroines Taught Me About My Mixed-Race Identity, by writer and poet Nina Li Coomes.

Other examples of Ms. Coomes' work:

Writing
* How I learned to hunger (cw: body image and eating disorders)
* Half and Half and Wholly Human: Searching for Meaning in “What Are You?”
* On tomatoes
* How Not to Buy Lunch

Poetry
* Astral Cannibal
* Customs Confessional
* the last time you took an airplane
* eve to her maker; in defense of hunger
* Salome Dances the Seven Veils, Asks for the Head of a Baptist in Return

More

posted by zarq (6 comments total)

Miyazaki has been all about bodily transformation and transition in his work. Porco Rosso's main character is transformed by a witch into a pig sometime before the movie begins; where a western film would have that as its centre, Miyazaki's movie is stunningly blasé about it, the fact that his (possible) restoration occurs at the film's crisis notwithstanding.

Ponyo switches back and forth between girl and fish (inexplicably sporting chicken feet in the middle), Arietty's whole world is dominated by her tininess, the male lead in Princess Mononoke is slowly turning into a monster and has spotty control of his limbs...it's not quite up there with "flying" for his motifs, but it's a big one.
posted by Quindar Beep at 12:48 PM on October 20, 2017 [9 favorites]

Wow. I really loved this essay.

The films provide no neatly packaged conclusion for the continued ambiguities of their heroines’ hybrid existences—girl or wolf? girl or spirit? girl or crone? The viewer and the heroines themselves might never know, and perhaps they aren’t meant to. Perhaps, in never giving them the full-circle homecoming, Miyazaki is telling us something important about bodies in flux: There is no easy answer to be had; only the conflict, the question, and the transformation it offers. The space between the person one is and the person one is becoming is where the reckoning of self happens. It is where we write our stories, where we recognize the complexity and turmoil of moving through this world in a body flawed and pressed upon by politic and expectation. Though it may not be the home we started in, our bodies become the homes we inhabit.

I think this is one of the (many) reasons why Miyazaki's films have always spoken so strongly to me.
posted by mr. manager at 2:23 PM on October 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

I didn't expect this to resonate quite as much as it did--my nonwhite side seems like it's about as opposite to Japanese as you can get, somehow. But I've always been drawn to stories about fairies and changelings, I think, for similar sorts of reasons--stories about in-between kind of lives and not-belonging-ness. I always liked Miyazaki's films but hadn't quite identified that this is such a big part of them. I think I need to do some rewatching soon.
posted by Sequence at 2:32 PM on October 20, 2017

The Miyazaki one definitely spoke to me. I'm not mixed, but I am genderqueer, and I do feel confused and betrayed by my body's mismatched tendencies, as I go through epochs of growing into what seem like new forms. I hope I'm not taking space that's not mine talking about it, but I recognized things in what she wrote that make sense to me. I always had stick-straight, fine dark-blond hair with reddish highlights growing up, and in just the past year, it's turned chestnut and wavy, dubbed "red enough" by one friend, as I've gone through some weird hormone shifts. As I mentioned in another comment a day or so ago, my singing voice has changed and deepened in that time, too. So much of our identities can be bound up in these things that shift and change over time, or that differ to us relative to who we're next to and where we stand.


Miyazaki's heroines often forgo the homecomings typical of heroes in Western narratives

I think this is another reason I want to be them. I identify a lot with Ponyo and Sophie, and maybe that's because 1. they're both dual spirits of a sort and 2. they're strong and intrepid women, unafraid to matter-of-factly find their own way and choose who they want to be with (and lead the boys to rise to the occasion when they're feeling headstrong) and what they want to be. I feel like each has such a strong internal compass, but they're also real and vulnerable beings. And 3. they're both unafraid to find a new life for themselves and wholeheartedly embrace and explore it.

And while I think people generally tend to see me as strong, internally there are parts of me that are still finding their way and learning to be brave, like Chihiro or Arietty. That's another theme I enjoy a lot in Miyazaki's movies: children learning to be brave, through extraordinarily trying or supernaturally difficult circumstances. I don't have any kids, but I feel like watching these movies with kids, as they're still learning how to be people and successfully inhabit their own bodies, would be so rewarding.
posted by limeonaire at 3:35 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Lately I've been watching the Ghibli catalogue with my 9 year old daughter. Some movies she's not ready for yet. But the 'changing bodies' and coming of age themes have strongly resonated with her, and she's been asking to watch certain movies more than once. Specifically Ponyo, Howl's Moving Castle, The Secret World of Arrietty, Kiki's Delivery Service (an old favorite) and Only Yesterday.

It's been very rewarding for us both. She's picking out details that I might have missed or taken for granted and I'm doing the same for her. Watching them with her, I have a deeper appreciation for the stories and their overt and subtle symbolisms.
posted by zarq at 3:59 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

I can only speak of my own experience, but as a boy watching Miyazaki's films, it was exciting to have heroines I could identify with.
posted by SPrintF at 5:16 PM on October 20, 2017 [2 favorites]