#wanted to read a piece abt princess mononoke & this was good

[jageunyeoujari]

The Other envisioned in Disney's Pocahontas (and Pocahontas II) is characterized by typical symbols of difference—backwardness��which is coded largely in the representation of Native Americans. This style of depiction potentially invokes what Rey Chow calls 'a phantom history' (1993: 37), by which Western cultural critics tend to turn the native (intentionally or unintentionally) into an object that is manageable and comforting through the manipulation of history. That is, the static Other remains frozen as a specimen, while the privileged Self keeps developing as time progresses. This concept illustrates a way in which a problematic notion of time lag between civilized whites and backward Native Americans is highlighted to serve white critics' (Self) appetite for consuming the Other. This process of Self/Other demarcation emphasizes that history brought into the present enables white ethnocentrism to re-establish superiority in relation to the imaginary Other. That is, historical setting can provide the perfect site for the dominant power to reinstate what Said calls 'imaginative geography' (Said, 1995: 54), which upholds the myth of the timeless native Other and illuminates the progression of the Anglosphere.

[...] While Pocahontas is inclined to induce interpretations based on dichotomous perspectives, by designating the Powhatan as the Other and the settlers as Self, Mononoke highlights the existence of multiple Others in Japanese society. This representation of otherness challenges the dichotomous concept of Self and Other, as well as subverting the myth of the Japanese as a homogenous nation. In Mononoke, all characters except Lord Asano (who is only mentioned when his samurai briefly appear) and the emperor come from various groups of Others in society. It is these Others that move the narrative forward.

For instance, Ashitaka is from the ethnic group known as the Emishi—a clan that fought against the Yamato regime and was marginalized to the Northeastern parts of the country. From the seventh to the thirteenth century, the central government treated the Emishi as an uncivilized ethnic other, or an abject. The narrative of Mononoke foregrounds this marginalized clan (or the Other) while the Yamato Imperial Court (the central government) —the alleged Self—is hardly involved in the narrative. The central government is mentioned in characters' conversations, but the film's plot predominantly revolves around social Others, including the Emishi, San, the wild woman in the forest, and those whom Lady Eboshi hires in the iron-town—prostitutes and lepers. This evokes the current population of Japan as a composite of differences and conflicting values that includes the Yamato, Ainu, and Okinawan peoples, as well as zainichi Koreans (Korean permanent residents in Japan). It is indeed a historical fact that stretching back several hundreds of years, various races and ethnicities, including Asians and Oceanians, have moved into Japan, and at the time that the Emishi existed, Japan was such a racial melting-pot (Kuji, 1997: 78-80).

[...] Relating to the multiplicity of otherness, the interactions between different groups demonstrated in Mononoke are not likely to induce the notion of 'abjection' by which one excludes outsiders/others to secure boundaries separating them from one's own group. That is, identity recognition for each group in Mononoke is not accomplished by exclusion or assimilation, but through a dialectical process of blurring the lines that mark differences. The boundary blurring is intensely envisioned in the iron town—a carnivalesque site—where marginalized Others and the 'abject' are empowered. In this site, no authority figure is identified, and therefore there is no single power pushing the narrative forward.

This manifestation of the iron town evokes Bhabha's (1994) concept of space 'in-between'; a space that destabilizes dichotomous patterns of identity formation with hybrid identities and allows for a new subject to emerge. This space is specifically exemplified by three main figures: Ashitaka, San, and Eboshi. These three characters signify the ambiguity of identity categorizations: mainly in the blurring of the line between nature (spirits and animals) and culture (humans and civilization). San—a combination of princess and mononoke (a possessing spirit)—symbolizes a liminal space between nature and culture. San is biologically human, despite her wild disguise with a wolf-pelt shawl and spear to perform as an Other—she tells Ashitaka, 'I am a wolf.' Thus, her identity does not conform entirely to humankind or to nature.

Eboshi's characterization is also transgressive. On the one hand, she is a typical industrialist and rationalist; on the other hand, she is also attached to the uncivilized Other, drawn together from several historical character types. Image analyst Kano Seiji describes Eboshi as a daughter of the Shimazu clan who is forced to marry a daimyo (feudal lord) and resists her husband, which then leads her to being sold to become a prostitute (yujo), until finally she is taken by the head of a Japanese pirate group (wako) whom she eventually kills (Kuji, 1997: 73). The depiction of Eboshi as the head of pirates and a murderer underscores her ruthless and cruel persona, which aligns with her other side as the calm and rational leader of the iron-town.

Likewise, Ashitaka is biologically human, but as he becomes possessed by a curse, his body is invaded by a mononoke, symbolic of an abject other. In other words, his identity is a hybrid of his original self and a foreign other. He thus lies somewhere between human/civilization and the forest where mononoke exist. The notion of abject manifested in Ashitaka's body is slightly different from Kristeva's (1982) 'abject' that refers to a part that needs to be rejected for establishing one's identity. Instead, Ashitaka's abjection represents a part that is never completely removed from his self, but lives with him to complete his identity. In this respect, in-between-ness presented through Mononoke disrupts the notion of Self/Other itself, rather than simply inverting positions between Self and Other.

National Identity (Re)Construction in Japanese and American Animated Film: Self and Other Representation in Pocahontas and Princess Mononoke by Kaori Yoshida