Contemporary Japanese Women's Theatre and Visual Arts
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Contemporary Japanese Women’s Theatre and Visual Arts Contemporary Performance InterActions Series Editors: Elaine Aston, Lancaster University Brian Singleton, Trinity College Dublin Editorial Advisory Board: Khalid Amine, Bishnupria Dutt, Mark Fleishman, Janelle Reinelt, Freddie Rokem, Joanne Tompkins, Harvey Young Theatre’s performative InterActions with the politics of sex, race and class, with questions of social and political justice, form the focus of the Contemporary Performance InterActions series. Performative InterActions are those that aspire to affect, contest or transform. International in scope, Contemporary Performance Interactions publishes monographs and edited col- lections dedicated to the InterActions of contemporary practitioners, perfor- mances and theatres located in any world context. Joanne Tompkins THEATRE’S HETEROTOPIAS Performance and the Cultural Politics of Space Forthcoming titles include: Stephen Farrier & Alyson Campbell (editors) QUEER INSTRUMENTS Local Performance Practices and Global Queernesses Des O’Rawe & Mark Phelan (editors) POST-CONFLICT PERFORMANCE, FILM AND VISUAL ARTS Cities of Memory Sarah French PERFORMING POSTFEMINISMS Sexuality and Gender Politics in Contemporary Australian Theatre and Performance Charlotte McIvor MIGRATION AND PERFORMANCE IN CONTEMPORARY IRELAND Towards a New Interculturalism Contemporary Performance InterActions Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–35987–2 Hardback 978–1–137–45593–2 Paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Contemporary Japanese Women’s Theatre and Visual Arts Performing Girls’ Aesthetics Nobuko Anan Lecturer in Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK © Nobuko Anan 2016 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-37297-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-55706-6 ISBN 978-1-137-37298-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137372987 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Anan, Nobuko, 1973– Contemporary Japanese women’s theatre and visual arts : performing girls’ aesthetics / Nobuko Anan. pages cm Summary: “This book explores the concept of ‘girls’ aesthetics,’ where adult Japanese women create art works about ‘girls’ that resist motherhood. It traces their beginnings in homoerotic novels about schoolgirls around the 1910s and their later expression in early ‘Boys’ Love’ (BL) manga in the 1970s. The aesthetics are also manifested in contemporary theater and dance performances both in avant-garde and popular theater groups (e.g., Takarazuka) as well as in cult films. ‘Girls’ aesthetics’ are distinct from the well-known ‘kawaii’ (cute) culture and contemporary art theories that emphasize the child-like nature of Japanese arts. The book situates these aesthetics within a history of Japanese performance and visual arts during the modern and contemporary period and links them to historical events such as the violent 1960s leftist movements, the 1970s women’s liberation movements, and the post-war Japan-US relationship. The aesthetics provide an alternative to Western approaches for theorizing women within feminist theory. This is an important book for scholars and upper-level students of international performance and Japanese studies”— Provided by publisher. 1. Theater—Japan—History. 2. Women in the theater—Japan—History. 3. Aesthetics, Japanese. 4. Performing arts—Japan—Philosophy. 5. Women in the theater—Japan—History—19th century. I. Title. PN2921.A515 2015 792.0952—dc23 2015026705 Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India. To Franklin Chang This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Illustrations viii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Girls’ Aesthetics 1 1 Girls’ Time, Girls’ Space 18 2 Girlie Sexuality: When Flat Girls Become Three-Dimensional 65 3 Citizen Girls 112 4 “Little Girls” Go West? 152 Afterword: Girls’ Aesthetics as Feminist Practices 177 Notes 181 Bibliography 203 Index 215 vii List of Illustrations 1.1 Scene from Lear © YUBIWA Hotel 2004 34 1.2 Granddaughters © Shiseido Gallery 2002 57 1.3 Granddaughters © Yanagi Miwa 2003 60 2.1 Illustration from Princess Knight © Tezuka Productions 75 2.2 Illustration by Takahashi Macoto for Shō wa Note © Takahashi Macoto c. 1970–4 76 2.3 Scene from The Heart of Thomas © Hagio Moto/Shogakukan Bunko 1974 79 2.4 Scene from The Heart of Thomas © Hagio Moto/Shogakukan Bunko 1974 85 2.5 Scene from The Heart of Thomas © Hagio Moto/Shogakukan Bunko 1974 93 2.6 Scene from The Heart of Thomas © Studio Life 2010 106 2.7 Scene from Summer Vacation 1999 © NIKKATSU/Aniplex Inc. 1988 109 3.1 Scene from The Rose of Versailles © Ikeda Riyoko Production 1972–2 118 3.2 Scene from The Rose of Versailles © Ikeda Riyoko Production 1972–3 122 3.3 Scene from The Rose of Versailles © Ikeda Riyoko Production 1972–3 126 3.4 Illustration by Nakahara Jun’ichi for Girls’ Friend © Nakahara Jun’ichi/Himawariya 1937 133 4.1 Profile of the members of KATHY © KATHY c. 2005 154 4.2 Scene from Mission/K © KATHY 2002 166 viii Acknowledgements I would like to thank many people who supported me during the writing of this book. It was Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei, my mentor at UCLA, who first opened a door to the world of performance studies for me. Under her guidance, I developed a greater understanding of the body in performance and visual arts, and I am very grate- ful for her continuing encouragement. Janelle Reinelt, my mentor at the University of Warwick, where I was a Newton International Postdoctoral Fellow, saw the development of this book from the beginning. I am deeply indebted to her for her enthusiasm as well as for her acute comments on multiple drafts. She told me about the Newton program at a conference in LA and this fellowship brought many valuable experiences and encounters. My life would have been very different if we had not met there. I would also like to thank Elaine Aston, who, with Janelle, read the manuscript and gave me detailed suggestions and comments. I feel privileged that they shared their thoughts with me. My sincere thanks also go to my teachers, colleagues, and friends, who read parts of the text at various stages and whose work and personal charms have been a source of inspiration for me: Michael Bourdaghs, Sue-Ellen Case, Elin Diamond, Susan Leigh Foster, Milija Gluhovic, Yasuko Ikeuchi, and Jiayun Zhuang. I am also grateful to Tadashi Uchino, Naomi Tonooka, and Azuma Sonoko for providing helpful information. I would like to extend my thanks to the Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck College for providing me with a good research environment, and to the School of Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick for providing abundant schol- arly opportunities through which I was able to develop my perspec- tives. I also thank my colleagues Jane Arnfield, Laura Cull, Elizabeth Kramer, and Jenny Lawson at the School of Arts at Northumbria University. Many thanks go to Elaine Aston and Brian Singleton for including this book in their series, and to Jenny McCall, Peter Cary, and Paula Kennedy at Palgrave Macmillan for their editorial assistance. I would also like to thank Nishihara Momi, my dearest ix x Acknowledgements “girl” friend, who helped me locate materials in Japan. I am very grateful for our more than twenty years of friendship. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the artists and companies who have granted permission for m e to print images of their works: Hitsujiya Shirotama of YUBIWA Hotel, Yanagi Miwa, Shiseido Gallery, Hagio Moto, Shō gakukan, Tezuka Productions, Takahashi Macoto, Studio Life, Aniplex, Ikeda Riyoko Production, Himawariya, and KATHY. The book has greatly benefitted from the excellent images they generously provided. Earlier versions of parts of Chapters 3 and 4 appeared as “The Rose of Versailles: Women and Revolution in Girls’ Manga and the Socialist Movement in Japan” in the Journal of Popular Culture (2014) and “KATHY’s Parody of Singin’ in the Rain” in Portrayals of Americans on the World Stage: Critical Essays, edited by Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr (2009). Thanks to Wiley and McFarland for permission to reprint them. My heartfelt thanks go to my parents, Anan Etsuko and Kang Chang Ho, for their love and support.