Female Representation in Contemporary Japanese Cinema: Challenging a Patriarchal System of Rewards and Punishments
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Female Representation in Contemporary Japanese Cinema: Challenging a Patriarchal System of Rewards and Punishments Sarah Chovanec 24 June 2016 MA Media: Film Studies University of Amsterdam Thesis supervisor: Dr. Abraham Geil Second reader: Dr. Maryn Wilkinson TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 1. JAPANESE FEMINISM AND SOCIETY ................................................................. 8 1.1 GENDERED SOCIETY IN JAPAN .........................................................................................................................8 1.2. WHAT IS JAPANESE FEMINISM? .................................................................................................................. 10 1.2.1. Feminist Developments Since Ūman Ribu ..................................................................................10 1.2.2. Japanese Versus Western Feminisms ............................................................................................12 1.2.3. Japanese Feminist Concerns..............................................................................................................14 2. MEMORIES OF MATSUKO...................................................................................... 18 2.1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................... 18 2.2. MATSUKO’S FEMININITY .............................................................................................................................. 19 2.3. PATRIARCHAL RULES .................................................................................................................................... 21 2.4. CHALLENGING A PATRIARCHAL MENTALITY............................................................................................ 22 2.5. DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................................................................... 24 3. 100 YEN LOVE............................................................................................................ 29 3.1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................... 29 3.2. ICHIKO’S FEMALE PASSIVITY ....................................................................................................................... 30 3.3. ICHIKO’S RELATIONSHIP TO MEN ............................................................................................................... 31 3.4. CHALLENGING PATRIARCHAL BOUNDARIES ............................................................................................. 32 3.5. DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................................................................... 34 4. NANAYO...................................................................................................................... 38 4.1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................... 38 4.2. MULTILAYERED GENDER IDENTITIES ........................................................................................................ 41 4.2.1. Matriarchal system of rewards and punishments...................................................................42 4.3. THWARTING HETEROSEXUAL PATRIARCHAL EXPECTATIONS .............................................................. 44 4.4. DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................................................................... 46 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 50 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................... 54 i Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Abraham Geil for his constructive feedback and wonderful support throughout my research and writing process. I also thank the University of Amsterdam for their resources and Maryam Alaoui for helping me find further resources. I greatly appreciate Kim Dang’s help in watching the films with me to make notes about the use of women’s language and other translations (although I unfortunately had to leave out most of the work we did in the thesis’ final version). I am deeply thankful to Dr. Aya Ezawa from the University of Leiden for taking time to discuss Japanese feminism and society with me. Although I would have loved to take more time to discuss this topic, our conversation was very insightful. Finally, I would like to especially thank my boyfriend Freek Gielis for his continuous support and my father Dan Rome for his invaluable feedback, ideas, and encouragement. Abstract This research paper contributes to the young field of Japanese feminist film studies by examining how a feminist critique of contemporary Japanese cinema exposes assumptions of female behaviour created by a patriarchal system of rewards and punishments. A flexible framework that combines Western and Japanese feminist interpretations of the films helps to compare and contrast Western and Japanese cultures, as well as to provide unique, insightful conclusions about female representation. The first chapter contextualises the thesis with an overview about Japanese society and Japanese feminism. The following three chapters provide an in-depth analysis of these three films respectively: Tetsuya Nakashima’s Memories of Matsuko (2006), Masaharu Take’s 100 Yen Love (2014), and Naomi Kawase’s Nanayo (2008). Each film reveals that female leads are in a punishable, outsider position according to patriarchal norms. Each of them more radically challenges a patriarchal system of rewards and punishments than the previous one. In Memories of Matsuko, a self-sacrificial heroine highlights contrasts between Western and Japanese feminist cultures, while praising a woman’s feminine qualities of unconditional love and care. 100 Yen Love also shows a difference in Western and Japanese values, while offering alternative, non-gendered ways in which women can be accepted into society. Nanayo uses a radically different female lens to complicate gender identity and suggest that gender is ultimately unimportant in human relationships. ii INTRODUCTION Japan has one of the lowest levels of gender equality in the developed world, ranked 101 out of 145 countries according to the Global Gender Gap Report in 2015 (World Economic Forum). The report assesses that Japanese women only have 60% of the same economic participation and opportunities as men do. Health care and educational attainment are ranked much higher with 98% - 99% gender equality respectively, but there is much progress to be done in regards to the respect towards and awareness of women’s bodies and freedom of choice. Even though Japan is the world’s third largest economy, progress is slow. With the rise of Japan’s women’s liberation movement in the 1970s, significant changes have been made for Japanese women in a number of areas, especially in legal reform for women’s economic and sexual rights. Social awareness of gender-based issues and a fundamental change in mentality are slower to come. Media representations of men and women are a crucial factor in influencing public opinion, yet this is a heavily neglected field of criticism in Japan. Film offers rich, multilayered reflections about societal norms and deviations, making them ideal for cultural analysis. I argue that the field of Japanese feminist film studies should be more strongly established to open up a critical space for gender representations. My research therefore focuses on how a feminist critique of contemporary Japanese cinema exposes assumptions of female behaviour created by a patriarchal system of rewards and punishments. I specifically examine how this patriarchal mechanism limits women’s freedom of choice and identity. Within a patriarchy, rewards and punishments are an invisible form of policing gender roles, and a feminist critique helps to identify and question these invisible rules. I specifically choose to focus on a rewards and punishments dynamic because it is an underlying theme that all of my film case studies share, and it helps to answer important feminist- driven questions like what the female characters’ limitations are and what makes them likeable as heroines. For reasons I will explain further below, I will analyse the following three films: Tetsuya Nakashima’s1 Memories of Matsuko (2006), Masaharu Take’s 100 Yen Love (2014), and Naomi Kawase’s Nanayo (2008). 1 All Japanese names appear in this thesis as given name first and family name second. 1 Japanese feminist film studies is underdeveloped for two main reasons. One explanation is that gender studies in Japan is still very new, as it only became academically mainstream in the mid- 1990s. Japanese scholars seem to have missed the momentum of feminist film theory in the 1970s- 80s in North America and Europe, and many of the developments in this field continue to be ignored. The second reason, which ties into the first, is that theoretical film studies is marginalised in Japanese academics, especially since the government regrettably does not financially support such