The role of the heroine differs somewhat in Miyazaki and Disney films. As I mentioned earlier, coming from a historically oppressive culture towards women, you would think that such strong female roles would not be an as important part in Miyazaki's films, but feminism is emphasised more throughout his work than that of Walt Disney who was brought up in the West.
Starting with the suffrage movement in the 1820's, up to the "second wave" feminists post 1960's, America has always adknowleged the tradition of femenism. Disney does include strong female characters such as Mulan and Pocahontas...but they are not as strong a femenist role model as the females we see in Miyazaki's animations. His females are strong, they retain positions of power, freedom and indepence. Disney's females - even though overcoming obstacles and straying away from the duties they are expected to complete as a female (Mulan running off to be in the army,) they are still held back or constricted by a male authority (at the end Mulan choses to accept the path of marriage rather than continue her life as a soldier and reverts back into a submissive feminine role.)
References taken from this article
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2 comments:
I happened to stumble on your blog while looking for pictures of the forest imps in Princess Mononoke, lucky you. ^ ~
You have fantastic insight into the movies, and there are a lot of things that I have noticed, and that I haven't noticed. For example, I never consciously thought about the role of feminism in the movies, but once you mentioned it every Miyazaki film came to mind at the same time. ^ ^
Something you might want to think about, if you haven't already, is the role of hair and extradition from society. Most of his films (not all) have some sort of element involving the cutting of the main character's hair, and some kind of removal from their current society, whether obvious or not.
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