Isn't it ironic how often we set ourselves up for a fall?
I recently went out of my way (turned in books to my local library that i didn't want to return just yet) in order to watch the only film produced by the Takarazuka Eiga Co. commercially available in the US. Sword of Doom is a 1982 film about a swordsman who's so proud and arrogant that it eventually leads him to believe he can do nothing but follow a path of evil. I thought it would be a fun idea for my first post on this latest iteration of the Happiness Buh-romter blog to be a... shall we say, very Senbei-like review.
Sadly, I am forced to confront my own conscience in this matter. The story wasn't good... nor was the acting the stellar performance I was hoping to see. Perhaps in terms of artistic expression, it very nicely parallels established popular Japanese samurai film... but it still wasn't very palatable.
I've come to think the entertainment industry is just that... charged with entertaining us. Their agenda probably doesn't fall beyond those parameters.
Erica Friedman in a recent blog entry noted a common theme in literature that depicts women acting by all accounts femininely as being: "dismissed as an example of the superficiality of women." Is it a normal reaction to grit my teeth and get a red hot pain behind the eyes when I encounters such things? It's like some authors go out of their way to reinforce negative and outmoded stereotypes instead of using their position to educate or at least debunk such nonsense. After watching Sword of Doom, again, a film produced by the Takarazuka Eiga Co., it seems quite apparent that their goal lay squarely in the bounds of entertainment. Does it depict women as anything but frail and/or fickle to the point demonic? I wish. I guess it's never really been Takarazuka's position to defend women's existence, sadly. Yet, I had somehow held onto the pointless hope that so many years directing women's theatre would have eroded a male hegemonic direction of a popular movie.
And maybe it has. The truth is, I've only seen one film. I have requested two other existing Takarazuka Eiga Co. films through interlibrary loan (the only two that are available other than those on film reel: I may be a Librarian, but I grew up in the 80s... those movies might as well have been made on wax cylinder). These two DVD and VHS films were made in the 30s and 40s, with an exclusively female cast and I hope that I enjoy them more. Even if the direction doesn't employ a shall-we-say, feminine morality or more tender themes the use of strong female leading roles may make for a more enjoyable experience. The trouble is... interlibrary loan being what it is, I may have to wait months only to discover the films aren't available upon request. Maybe I'd have better luck flying to Osaka and arguing with conservative librarians (my fedora off to the illustrious Dr. Jennifer Robertson for her ever-vigilant field work).
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Friday, January 12, 2007
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