Japanese Women's Identity in Cyberspace and Anime
SEXUALITY, POWER AND RESISTANCE: IDENTITY PRODUCTION AND REPRODUCTION IN CYBERSPACE ANIME
By Alfred James A. Ellar
Graduate Student, Department Of Philosophy De La Salle University – Manila April 2011
ABSTRACT
Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality Vol. 1 provides a contemporary feminist analysis of Japanese women and anime in terms of the relationship of identity with fundamental feminists’ themes such as sexuality, power and resistance. As such, I will argue that there is indeed a transformation of identity through anime and cyberspace which can be viewed as a social apparatus to produce and reproduce identity of women in cyberspace; that female sexuality is a power depicted in mostly of Japanese anime is a form of recuperation of identity status Japanese women; and that cyberspace as capitalist-oriented technology is domain for the proliferation of virtual violence. Consequently, from the above arguments, I resolve the issue of identity production and reproduction by concluding that anime exhibits: (1) female sexuality is a social in cyberspace; (2) androgyny is illustrated in the production and reproduction of identity as power relations in anime; (3) cyberspace is a domain of power and resistance; and (4) violence is a form of is misalignment of sexuality, power, and resistance.
Keywords: Michel Foucault, Japanese Anime, Identity, Sexuality, Power, Resistance, Social Apparatus, Cyberspace
INTRODUCTION Japanese Anime, especially films and videos, has been a dominant social interest in cyber media for nearly a decade. The term Anime is popularly associated with a typical Japanese animation featuring different characters with unusual powers and identities in different themes – adventure, action, romance, sexy, erotic, and even violent. Common settings of anime themes vary from market, street, park, school, home, neighborhood, outer space, and still some are highly fictitious out-of-this-world 1
locations. In all these themes, female characters
By Alfred James A. Ellar
Graduate Student, Department Of Philosophy De La Salle University – Manila April 2011
ABSTRACT
Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality Vol. 1 provides a contemporary feminist analysis of Japanese women and anime in terms of the relationship of identity with fundamental feminists’ themes such as sexuality, power and resistance. As such, I will argue that there is indeed a transformation of identity through anime and cyberspace which can be viewed as a social apparatus to produce and reproduce identity of women in cyberspace; that female sexuality is a power depicted in mostly of Japanese anime is a form of recuperation of identity status Japanese women; and that cyberspace as capitalist-oriented technology is domain for the proliferation of virtual violence. Consequently, from the above arguments, I resolve the issue of identity production and reproduction by concluding that anime exhibits: (1) female sexuality is a social in cyberspace; (2) androgyny is illustrated in the production and reproduction of identity as power relations in anime; (3) cyberspace is a domain of power and resistance; and (4) violence is a form of is misalignment of sexuality, power, and resistance.
Keywords: Michel Foucault, Japanese Anime, Identity, Sexuality, Power, Resistance, Social Apparatus, Cyberspace
INTRODUCTION Japanese Anime, especially films and videos, has been a dominant social interest in cyber media for nearly a decade. The term Anime is popularly associated with a typical Japanese animation featuring different characters with unusual powers and identities in different themes – adventure, action, romance, sexy, erotic, and even violent. Common settings of anime themes vary from market, street, park, school, home, neighborhood, outer space, and still some are highly fictitious out-of-this-world 1
locations. In all these themes, female characters
References: Boden, Sean. 2001. Women and anime: Popular culture and its reflection of Japanese society. http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/essay/files/SeanBoden_WomenandAnime.pdf. [Accessed February 14, 2011]. Boyd, Cameron. 2009. “Virtual Violence.” Australian Institute of Family Studies. http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/pubs/newsletter/n21pdf/n21c.pdf. [Accessed March 3, 2011]. Danaher, Geoff, Tony Schirato & Jen Webb. 2000. Understanding Foucault. London: Saga Publications. Foucault, Michel. 1990. The history of Sexuality: An introduction. Vol. 1. New York: Vintage Books. Gurumurthy, Anita & Niveditha Menon. 2009. Violence against women via cyberspace. Economic & Political Weekly. Vol 46. No 40. http://jagori.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/violenceagainst-women-via-cyberspace.pdf. [Accessed March 8, 2011]. Haraway, Donna. 1991. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. 11 Izawa, Eri. 2000. Gender and gender relations in Manga and anime. http://www.mit.edu/~rei/mangagender.html. [Accessed Feb 18, 2011]. Miller, Pat. 2007. Another rape in cyberspace. http://cerise.theirisnetwork.org/2007/11/05/anotherrape-in-cyberspace/. [Accessed February 17, 2011]. Rouse, Joseph. 1995. Power/Knowledge. Edited by Gary Gutting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Senna, C. 2010. The animated neo feminine. http://angrogynousfemales.blogspot.com/. [Accessed February 1, 2011]. Seth, Friedman. 1992. Women in Japanese society: Their changing roles. http://www2.gol.com/users/friedman/writings.html. [Accessed January 25, 2011]. St. Helaire, Colette.2009. Crisis and Mutation of the apparatus of sexuality: The bursting of the category of sex. Translated by Jean Antonin Billard and Erin Mouré. http:// roundtable. kein.org /files /roundtable /deleuze_what_is_a_dispositif.pdf. [Accessed March 1, 2011]. Whitehead, Alfred North. 1929. Process and reality: An essay in cosmology. Toronto: Macmillan Company. Zanki, Patricia. 2009. Foucault, feminism and critical autobiographical documentary: Self-reinvention as resistance in Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation. http:/ /ftp0.timeorg.net/ pub/book/psychology/ Feminism/Jstor%20Phelan%20%20Foucault%20And%20Feminism.pdf [Accessed February 20, 2011] 12