Pett, Emma. "Homer, Ovid, Disney and Star Wars: The critical reception and transcultural popularity of Princess Mononoke." Princess Mononoke: Understanding Studio Ghibli’s Monster Princess. By Rayna Denison. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. 173–192. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 1 Oct. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501329753.ch-009>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 1 October 2021, 02:31 UTC. Copyright © Rayna Denison 2018. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 1 73 Chapter 9 H OMER, OVID, DISNEY AND STAR WARS : THE CRITICAL RECEPTION AND TRANSCULTURAL POPULARITY OF PRINCESS MONONOKE E m m a P e t t Th e 1999 theatrical release of Princess Mononoke in the United States sig- nalled the moment in which many Western audiences became aware of Hayao Miyazaki’s fi lms for the fi rst time. Princess Mononoke’ s early reception in the West was characterized by a focus on the fi lm’s provenance and attendant issues of cultural translation. Across the intervening years, however, there has been a distinct shift in the frames of reference employed by Western critics to dis- cuss the fi lm, and in this respect it functions as signifi cant marker of changing attitudes towards anime in Western contexts of reception. Th is chapter tracks the evolving status of Princess Mononoke by considering the fl uctuating valu- ations of the fi lm across a 19- year period. In particular, it explores the ways in which a series of comparisons between Hayao Miyazaki’s fi lm and an eclectic mix of popular and high culture reference points, from classical European epics by Homer and Ovid to Hollywood fi lm franchises like Star Wars , have been employed to localize, frame and valorize the fi lm for Anglophone audiences. Th ese cultural comparisons also reveal an intersection of discourses around genre, audience and industry, as well as refl ecting shift ing attitudes towards gender identity, race and media violence. Furthermore, by comparing and con- trasting news and magazine reviews of Princess Mononoke with those off ered by online citizen- critics, this chapter also considers developments and continu- ities in fi lm reviewing practices across a 20- year period, and refl ects on the ten- sions and overlaps between professional and amateur critics in the digital era. Methodology Th is reception study examines 855 reviews published in the US press and 210 reviews published in British newspapers and magazines between 1997 and 2016. 1 Th ese are considered alongside 570 citizen- critic reviews published on 99781501329760_pi-220.indd781501329760_pi-220.indd 117373 111/1/20171/1/2017 44:21:09:21:09 PPMM 174 174 Emma Pett Internet Movie Database (IMDb) by amateur critics and wider audiences of the fi lm. While a small number of these reviews are posted from outside of Britain and North America, the study is primarily focused on Anglophone contexts of reception, exploring the critical and popular evaluations of the text in the United Kingdom and United States. Drawing on the work of Janet Staiger and Barbara Klinger, I consider reviews of Princess Mononoke within the historical, cultural and industrial conditions in which they were produced, and with an awareness of the reviewers’ ‘constructed identities such as gender, sexual pref- erence, race, ethnicity, class and nationality’.2 Th is chapter therefore begins with a brief summary of the discourses circulating around anime in the two princi- ple countries of reception, and then tracks the ways in which these discourses shift over a period of nearly two decades. Th e use of citizen- critic reviews also facilitates a consideration of the infl u- ence of online amateur reviewing practices on the cultural fl ow and legitima- tion of anime between Japan and the West. Broader studies on the impact of citizen- critic reviews on established patterns of fi lm criticism suggest that, while they are challenging traditional cultural hierarchies of taste to a cer- tain degree, there are more continuities than dichotomies between traditional and digital reviewing cultures. 3 In his discussion of online reviewing cultures, Matthias Frey argues that online reviews and blogs oft en allow for an expansion of space for writing. Th ere can be a utopian design to these new forms. Whereas print columns have continued to shrink over the decades in the switch to smaller tabloid formats and to give more space to dwindling advertisement, online reviews and blogging allow at least the possibility of fi ve- thousand- word treatises, unscathed by the machinations of rogue copyeditors or subeditors’ mangled titles.4 While Frey recognizes the democratic potential of online reviews, he goes on to acknowledge that citizen- critics still face a struggle to achieve signifi - cant visibility within the vast public sphere of the Internet.5 Whilst likewise not adopting a wholly utopian view of citizen- critic reviewing cultures, in this chapter I consider the tensions, interactions and dialogue that occurs between traditional print and online fi lm criticism, and the extent to which one informs or infl uences the other. Th is is particularly relevant to the period of time under examination, which begins in 1997 when Internet culture was in its infancy, and concludes in 2016, at a point when the overlap between print and digital reviews has made distinctions between the two increasingly blurred. Comparisons between the content and style of professional and online fi lm reviews are particularly signifi cant when considered in the light of Shyon Baumann’s work on the cultural legitimation of fi lm as art. Baumann argues that the valorization of fi lm as an art form by professional critics has played a signifi cant part in the elevation of fi lm culture more broadly within traditional 99781501329760_pi-220.indd781501329760_pi-220.indd 117474 111/1/20171/1/2017 44:21:09:21:09 PPMM 1 75 Homer, Ovid, Disney and Star Wars 175 taste cultures. 6 Th is has primarily been achieved by drawing on a high art dis- course and valorizing the director as an artist, or auteur. However, more recent research on amateur reviewing practices, such as the study conducted by Marc Verboord in 2010, suggests that ‘peer- produced content generally draws more on popular aesthetic than on high art discourse’.7 Similarly, Jodi Holopirek’s 2007 study of online reviews suggests that while professional fi lm critics gen- erally off er a comprehensive overview of the fi lms they review, citizen- critics more commonly aim to please a specifi c audience and focus on the ‘entertain- ment value’ of the fi lm in question. 8 Andrew McWhirter’s study of fi lm criticism in the twenty- fi rst century pro- poses that there are now six distinctive schools of fi lm journalism: academic, sophisticated, populist, trade, consumer and fandom.9 Of these, he identifi es IMDb reviews as falling into the category of ‘consumer journalism’ in that they primarily aim to attribute a value to the products and convey their per- sonal views on them. Th is diff ers, McWhirter suggests, from fan journalism, which he argues is more purposeful and has a bias towards a particular genre, fi lmmaker or actor.10 Th is study of the reception of Princess Mononoke in the United States and United Kingdom therefore also includes a consideration of the extent to which these qualities attributed to online fan or consumer review- ers by Verboord, Holopirek and McWhirter can be detected in the amateur reviews of Japanese anime written by IMDb citizen- critics, and to what extent such reviews have shaped or otherwise infl uenced the cultural legitimization of Princess Mononoke in the West. Transcultural Contexts of Reception Princess Mononoke was Hayao Miyazaki’s fi rst fi lm to be released in the United States following the high- profi le deal between Tokuma shoten and Buena Vista International, enabling the media conglomerate to distribute Studio Ghibli fi lms in the United States. Th e decision to distribute Princess Mononoke on the Miramax label, rather than on the more family- oriented Buena Vista distribu- tion arm of Disney, marked the fi lm out for a middlebrow, culturally sophisti- cated audience.11 Princess Mononoke ’s premiere at the New York Film Festival that year further accentuated the way in which the fi lm was being culturally positioned within the US marketplace. Much was also made by professional critics of the quality of the adaption, which the New York Post felt had ‘been eff ectively translated (by Neil Gaiman) and dubbed into casual Americanese without losing its Japanese essence and voice- overs’.12 Discussion of Gaiman’s translation, and of the choice of stars cast for the dubbed version (including Clare Danes, Billy Bob Th ornton, Gillian Anderson and Minnie Driver) meant that US reviews devoted considerable attention to the process of presenting Princess Mononoke in an accessible and appealing way for American audi- ences. Even the most positive critics, such as Ty Burr in Entertainment Weekly , 99781501329760_pi-220.indd781501329760_pi-220.indd 117575 111/1/20171/1/2017 44:21:09:21:09 PPMM 176 176 Emma Pett speculated ‘I’ll be very curious to see if American audiences can handle it’, 13 thus compounding the sensitivity swirling around Princess Mononoke’ s prov- enance and cultural otherness. Overall, though, the reviews focusing on issues of cultural diff erence were off set by a number of highly positive evaluations of the fi lm. Although Princess Mononoke only took $2.2 million at the US box offi ce (compared with 10.7 billion yen in the home market) is it was widely considered to be a critical success.