Week 6 What are the underlying themes of Princess Mononoke? How does it ‘defamiliarise’ its historical setting, according to Napier (2005)?

The 'defamiliarization' of historical Japan.

“The film offers a vision of cultural dissonance, spiritual loss and environmental apocalypse’ (Napier, 2005) which seems to contrast the traditional notions of the Japanese identity.

So in order to appreciate this subversion and recreation, one must understand this ‘traditional Japanese identity’ that is spoken of and represented in films, These myths of Japanese culture and history are idealized ones of harmony, progress and an unproblematized homogenous people.

Princess Mononoke manages to ‘defamiliarize’ the myths of the feminine’s as long suffering and supportive and the myth of the Japanese as living in harmony with nature. This is evidenced through the involvement of an outsider in the struggle between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans of the Iron Town who consume its resources.

Granted this movie is set on a period usually considered an ‘apex of the Japanese high culture’ and ‘relative peace’ (Napier, 2005), Miyazaki himself acknowledges the cultural subversions in the film by saying that it is a film in which ‘the main protagonists are those who usually do not appear on the stage of history. Instead, this is the story of the marginal’s of history (Miyazaki, as cited Napier, 2005).

It is noted that the mixture of fact and fiction in the movie is a key aspect in the films ‘defamiliarization of conventional female characters and its supernaturalization of nature’ (Napier, 2005). By having gender neutral female characters who remain ‘completely outside the misogynistic patriarchal that became the foundation of premodern Japan’ (Napier, 2005) Princess Mononoke manages to ‘defamiliarize’ the feminie in the text. The ‘defamiliarization’ of nature is done through offering an ‘alternative vision to the conventional Japanese view of nature...(by viewing it as) something that can’t be tamed and cultivated.

References

Miyazaki, H. (Director). (2006). Princess Mononoke. Tokyo: Studio Ghibli Productions

Napier, S. (2005). Anime: From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (pp. 231-248). Hampshire: Palgrave/Macmillen