A POSTHUMAN ANALYSIS OF KILL LA KILL A THESIS Presented to the University Honors Program California State University, Long Beach In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the University Honors Program Certificate William Vasquez Fall 2016 ABSTRACT A POSTHUMAN ANALYSIS OF KILL LA KILL By William Vasquez December 2016 This paper examines a modern anime titled Kill la Kill, though the theoretical framework established by Donna Haraway in her work “A Cyborg Manifesto”. It will also examine the anime with the idea of the male gaze explained by John Berger in “Ways of Seeing” and with precedents set by scholars who have studied anime that are foundational in the medium. Using these theories this paper will establish Kill la Kill as not only feminist but a work that is complex and holds many implications socially. The end goal of this paper is to have an in-depth analysis of an anime that connects and broadens its ideas to fill the research gap made by a lack of modern anime analysis. Donna Haraway’s Cyborg theory provides a powerful lens through which to view modern texts and opens up a myriad of possible interpretations that are worth exploring. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT...……………………………………………………………………………… iii LITERATURE REVIEW.……..…………………………………………………………… 1 KILL LA KILL AS CYBORG.……………………………………………………………… 8 WORKS CITED…..…………………………………...…………………………………… 37 iv Literature Review In John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” he examines the male gaze, the idea that the female form exists in society to be viewed and observed by men. This concept posits that women are forced to concern themselves much more deeply with appearances than men do, due to the focus placed on women as a spectacle. Berger writes “a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her.” (Berger 46). This statement puts into words the very real truth of existing as a woman in society. It is the inescapable truth that women across the world are judged on their appearance as an extension and representation of their character. Berger’s writing underscores perfectly that the female form is seen as just as much a part of the female identity as is their personality or morality. This idea is further emphasized when Berger writes “The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object,” (Berger 47). It is this objectification that is the crux of the issue that Berger explores. But it is not simply a societal issue, this issue takes new light when viewed through a literary lens. Each and every character in a story is, by definition, an artificial construct of the author. This means that there exist countless female characters created by the minds of men. There is nothing inherently wrong with male authors creating female characters just as there is nothing inherently wrong with the opposite. However there runs the risk of misrepresentation due to a lack of understanding. If the male gaze is so prevalent in society, it logically follows that in many cases, female creations of male authors will have problematic characteristics that lead to poorly portrayed women. It is true that views on women have changed, at least in some places. However, as Berger writes “the essential way of seeing women, the essential use to which their images are put, has not changed. Women are depicted in a quite different way from men – not because the feminine 1 is different from the masculine – but because the ‘ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him.” (Berger 64). This raises troubling possibilities for the reader of any given text. The question then becomes, how much is a female character affected by the idea of the male gaze and how has the portrayal of the character shifted to conform to a societal ideal? These questions are important to consider whenever reading a text, but are critical when preforming a gender based analysis of a text, especially one with not only written characters, but drawn ones as well. Further discussing the idea of the limiting nature of the modern female experience is Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto. In it she discusses how modern feminism has, in a way done massive harm to the empowerment of women in general, by labelling women as women above all else. She writes that “White women, including social feminists, discovered (that is, were forced kicking and screaming to notice) the non-innocence of the category ‘woman’. That consciousness changes the geography of all previous categories; it denatures them as heat denatures a fragile protein.” (Haraway 321). In a sense, it cites womanhood as a partial oppressor of women. However, what is important to understand about this argument is not that it is a denouncement of feminism but only of the current driving ideological force behind it. The unifying banner of womanhood is in effect, too totalizing; in the midst of the struggle for progress the goal has, to a certain extent, been lost. Her use of the phrase denature is key, in this sense it is explaining that labelling all women as women removes any other identity that they may possess, and that through the struggle for all women, the fight for each individual woman is lost. Women are not a singular nor are they uniform, and attempting to reduce them to such, even as a form of empowerment ignores all other concerns they may hold. 2 Another important idea presented by Haraway is the idea that development in modern society has led to the reduction of humanity through the growth of machinery. She writes “Late twentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed, and many other distinctions that used to apply to organisms and machines. Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.” (Haraway 317) In writing this she makes clear the idea that machines have come to closely resemble life. They, in their own way, grow and develop and have processes so cleanly functioning as to appear organic. The effect Haraway seeks from this realization is not that machines be feared, but that the very understanding of life and of nature that mankind holds as sacrosanct be redefined. The ultimate expression of Haraway’s theory is not that mankind is insignificant, nor is it that machines will replace mankind. Instead she writes “From one perspective, a cyborg world is about the final imposition of a grid of control on the planet, about the final abstraction embodied in a Star Wars apocalypse... From another perspective, a cyborg world might be about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints” (Haraway 318), Haraway seeks to expound upon the virtues of a world accepting of its varied nature, one in which the individual can coexist among a complex web of interconnecting identities and concepts without risk of losing itself. Haraway advocates coexistence between contrary ideas. She stands behind the idea that this paradoxical coexistence does in fact have its benefits, she writes “The political struggle is to see from both perspectives at once because each reveal both dominations and possibilities unimaginable from the other vantage point.” (Haraway 318). Haraway’s ideal world is one in 3 which not only multifaceted, complex identities exist but also a world in which conflicting viewpoints can be accepted and understood so that they may be used to find new and powerful ways to interpret the world. Haraway’s writings are all meant to build to the significant conclusion that the ideas that she puts forth, of contradictory and yet coexisting viewpoints, can be used to create an ideal society. Haraway’s ideal society is “committed to building a political form that actually manages to hold together witches, engineers, elders, perverts, Christians, mothers and Leninists long enough to disarm the state” (Haraway 318). An ultimate coming together and unification of disparate ideas and identities in order create a more inclusive and relevant society is what Haraway ultimately demands. The current social model cannot stand and must be replaced with one that is able to include, not just in thought but in function, the many varied identities present today, and that it is only through this unity that the current stagnant social perceptions and tenants can be truly, functionally replaced. Foundationally, each text cited thus-far is essential for a feminist literary analysis of a modern work, however more specified work such as that of Christopher Bolton in his article “The Mecha’s Blind Spot: “Patlabor 2” and the Phenomenology of Anime” is necessary to properly apply this framework. Bolton spends the first few pages of the article examining the nature of the “cyborg” in anime as well as the nature of machine and human interaction. He writes “the trope of a body that is both enhanced and invaded by technology is a staple in anime.” (Bolton 454). This idea, of technology and humanity and their hybridization is an idea that some of Anime’s most famous and celebrated works examine. Bolton cites Ghost in the Shell, a 1995 anime, as the prime example of this examination, writing that it is “an evocative and sophisticated visual exploration of body, gender and 4 technology” (Bolton 454). His choice of anime is spot on, as it is the perfect example of a work examining the relationship of the body and the self, and the disconnect between the two after the addition of technology.