Sexy fighting babes are the rage in the secondary school art set. Are these images (Saranety's "Crystal Shards" series, from theOtaku.com) sexist or empowering? It's an inane dichotomy, really. You have the infantile large eyes and the sexual come-on of the costumes but also strong, confident, dynamic figures in fighting poses with weapons. The contrast makes the drawings interesting.
That's a question for Camille Paglia. She's extremely irritating, but some of it's okay.
Thanks for those crib notes. I look forward to reading them. I know Paglia well from her Salon.com column and various essays, but haven't read the books. I found her kind of refreshing after the all the joyless feminism of my college years.
I was going to mention Andrea Dworkin as someone who I think would condemn these drawings. I've never read her books either, just bits and pieces of essays. But let's imagine a worst case scenario. The girl who drew these has a Dworkin-disciple for a junior high school teacher. Dworkin, Jr. starts berating the poor girl, telling her that her characters exist solely for the fantasy pleasures of men, and promote male violence, and that Japan is a patriarchal culture. The kid is completely traumatized. Because jr. high is the age when most people get self-conscious about their drawing and quit, she quits. It's either that or goes and gets her numchucks and sees Dworkin Jr. after class. Remembering my own junior high school art teacher ("I told you to draw football players, not these...these monsters.") I fear for these kids and hope they will find their way past the political agendas of their teachers. They should be able to work through their mentors--meaning Japanese animators--and accept or reject them on their own.
My high school art teacher was the opposite. She put up with me using The Who as subject matter for every single assignment. I made a clay bust of Pete Townshend that was a pretty good likeness, but the nose cracked. If this was all copies of scenes from Sailor Moon and I was the teacher I'd be discouraging, but the fact that she's inventing this world herself is really pretty cool.
I've been enjoying the sexy tough chick thing (to varying degrees of violence: Crouching Tiger, Kill Bill) for the past few years. But now the appeal is waning for me. Maybe its cause as I get older and accrue more self-confidence I feel more strongly that girls having power may balance out the genders, but power-weilding for its own sake is scary no matter who is doing it . There's a time for revelling and muscle-flexing, and there's a time for ethical contemplation and responsiblity. These drawings, coming from a youngster, do seem to be full of joy. Also they are really accomplished, meaning she's building some self-discipline to go with the empowerment.
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Sexy fighting babes are the rage in the secondary school art set. Are these images (Saranety's "Crystal Shards" series, from theOtaku.com) sexist or empowering? It's an inane dichotomy, really. You have the infantile large eyes and the sexual come-on of the costumes but also strong, confident, dynamic figures in fighting poses with weapons. The contrast makes the drawings interesting.
- tom moody 5-12-2004 8:36 pm
That's a question for Camille Paglia. She's extremely irritating, but some of it's okay.
- sally mckay 5-13-2004 6:47 am
Thanks for those crib notes. I look forward to reading them. I know Paglia well from her Salon.com column and various essays, but haven't read the books. I found her kind of refreshing after the all the joyless feminism of my college years.
I was going to mention Andrea Dworkin as someone who I think would condemn these drawings. I've never read her books either, just bits and pieces of essays. But let's imagine a worst case scenario. The girl who drew these has a Dworkin-disciple for a junior high school teacher. Dworkin, Jr. starts berating the poor girl, telling her that her characters exist solely for the fantasy pleasures of men, and promote male violence, and that Japan is a patriarchal culture. The kid is completely traumatized. Because jr. high is the age when most people get self-conscious about their drawing and quit, she quits. It's either that or goes and gets her numchucks and sees Dworkin Jr. after class. Remembering my own junior high school art teacher ("I told you to draw football players, not these...these monsters.") I fear for these kids and hope they will find their way past the political agendas of their teachers. They should be able to work through their mentors--meaning Japanese animators--and accept or reject them on their own.
- tom moody 5-13-2004 7:39 am
My high school art teacher was the opposite. She put up with me using The Who as subject matter for every single assignment. I made a clay bust of Pete Townshend that was a pretty good likeness, but the nose cracked. If this was all copies of scenes from Sailor Moon and I was the teacher I'd be discouraging, but the fact that she's inventing this world herself is really pretty cool.
- sally mckay 5-13-2004 9:29 pm
I've been enjoying the sexy tough chick thing (to varying degrees of violence: Crouching Tiger, Kill Bill) for the past few years. But now the appeal is waning for me. Maybe its cause as I get older and accrue more self-confidence I feel more strongly that girls having power may balance out the genders, but power-weilding for its own sake is scary no matter who is doing it . There's a time for revelling and muscle-flexing, and there's a time for ethical contemplation and responsiblity. These drawings, coming from a youngster, do seem to be full of joy. Also they are really accomplished, meaning she's building some self-discipline to go with the empowerment.
- sally mckay 5-13-2004 9:43 pm