Gender Performance in the Takarazuka Revue
Charles Chao
Essay Questions: i. “The body is a historical situation, as Beauvoir has claimed, and is a manner of doing, dramatizing, and reproducing a historical situation…. The act that one does, the act that one performs, is, in a sense, an act that has been going on before one arrived on the scene. Hence, gender is an act which has been rehearsed, much as a script survives the particular actors who make use of it, but which requires individual actors in order to be actualized and reproduced as reality once again…. Gender reality is performative, which means, quite simply, that it is real only to the extent that it is performed.”
Judith Butler
Discuss this statement in relation to Dreams Girls and aspects of Takarazuka Revue.
“I, Kaeki Mori, am leaving. Farewell colleagues. Goodbye to being a man. Goodbye Takarazuka!” These were the ending words of the film documentary Dream Girls. As the credits roll, skeptical audiences might wonder: how true is that announcement? Or is it just a part of the performance? In line to what Judith Butler said that gender realities are “real only to the extent that it is performed”, Kaeki Mori renounces her stage identity and stage gender. Yet, does that mean that the Takarasienne can really say “goodbye to being a man” the moment she stops performing the role of one? In fact, was she ever a man in the first place?
This essay seeks to examine Butler’s statement and discuss the fleeting concept of gender reality both in itself and in relation to the surreal dream world of Takarazuka Revue. To propose that the Revue, while existing as a good example of a world with artificially created but functioning gender roles cannot be taken to be a reflection of the real world nor a reliable substantiation to Butler’s statement that gender realities are real “only to the extent that it is performed” for the Takarasienne are both subverting and reinforcing gender realities while being constantly aware of their own
Essay Questions: i. “The body is a historical situation, as Beauvoir has claimed, and is a manner of doing, dramatizing, and reproducing a historical situation…. The act that one does, the act that one performs, is, in a sense, an act that has been going on before one arrived on the scene. Hence, gender is an act which has been rehearsed, much as a script survives the particular actors who make use of it, but which requires individual actors in order to be actualized and reproduced as reality once again…. Gender reality is performative, which means, quite simply, that it is real only to the extent that it is performed.”
Judith Butler
Discuss this statement in relation to Dreams Girls and aspects of Takarazuka Revue.
“I, Kaeki Mori, am leaving. Farewell colleagues. Goodbye to being a man. Goodbye Takarazuka!” These were the ending words of the film documentary Dream Girls. As the credits roll, skeptical audiences might wonder: how true is that announcement? Or is it just a part of the performance? In line to what Judith Butler said that gender realities are “real only to the extent that it is performed”, Kaeki Mori renounces her stage identity and stage gender. Yet, does that mean that the Takarasienne can really say “goodbye to being a man” the moment she stops performing the role of one? In fact, was she ever a man in the first place?
This essay seeks to examine Butler’s statement and discuss the fleeting concept of gender reality both in itself and in relation to the surreal dream world of Takarazuka Revue. To propose that the Revue, while existing as a good example of a world with artificially created but functioning gender roles cannot be taken to be a reflection of the real world nor a reliable substantiation to Butler’s statement that gender realities are real “only to the extent that it is performed” for the Takarasienne are both subverting and reinforcing gender realities while being constantly aware of their own