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owlectomyIshida Miki, "Purity and Freedom"
This is, oddly enough, mostly about Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika, and comparing its status as a seinen show that's very focused on the bonds between girls with the status of BL -- a josei/shoujo genre that's very focused on the bonds between men. That's kind of interesting but eh, I don't think it's relevant enough that I need to take notes on it.
OMG, Wiscon in 2 weeks!
Takemiya Keiko and Hagio Moto started writing shounen ai after reading the works of Herman Hesse, like "Under the Wheel" and "Demian" [Huh! I did not know that! However, I did read "Demian" in high school after finding out that's where the quote in Utena about how the chick will die if it doesn't break out of the egg comes from.] Takemiya took from them a sense of "pure eroticism" combined with spiritual friendship. However, when homosexuality shows up in German bildungsromans, it's usually not about romance; it's about power and humiliation. Takemiya's reading of it was, according to Ishida, a "misunderstanding" from someone who didn't have the right to participate in male society. [I think that Takemiya may be more sophisticated than Ishida gives her credit for; the background level of sexual violence and sex-as-power in "Song of the Wind and Trees" makes me think she was hardly unaware of what those German bildungsromans were really about. Same goes for Hagio Moto.]
"If the shounen ai works of the 1970s seem more passionate, literary, and daring than modern BL, it must be because the authors knew what they were getting into by taking their first steps into this new territory" -- shoujo manga with very few girls in them, and all the critical attention around "Why do girls like this stuff?"
"This question is one that makes readers of yaoi and BL feel weird and awkward, maybe especially when it's not meant derisively. For one thing, it automatically problematizes fans of yaoi and BL; and the more you try to answer it sincerely, the more it gets into questions of 'are you popular with the opposite sex,' 'do you have a boyfriend,' 'what kind of sexual experiences have you had'..." [LOL this is true]
This is, oddly enough, mostly about Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika, and comparing its status as a seinen show that's very focused on the bonds between girls with the status of BL -- a josei/shoujo genre that's very focused on the bonds between men. That's kind of interesting but eh, I don't think it's relevant enough that I need to take notes on it.
OMG, Wiscon in 2 weeks!
Takemiya Keiko and Hagio Moto started writing shounen ai after reading the works of Herman Hesse, like "Under the Wheel" and "Demian" [Huh! I did not know that! However, I did read "Demian" in high school after finding out that's where the quote in Utena about how the chick will die if it doesn't break out of the egg comes from.] Takemiya took from them a sense of "pure eroticism" combined with spiritual friendship. However, when homosexuality shows up in German bildungsromans, it's usually not about romance; it's about power and humiliation. Takemiya's reading of it was, according to Ishida, a "misunderstanding" from someone who didn't have the right to participate in male society. [I think that Takemiya may be more sophisticated than Ishida gives her credit for; the background level of sexual violence and sex-as-power in "Song of the Wind and Trees" makes me think she was hardly unaware of what those German bildungsromans were really about. Same goes for Hagio Moto.]
"If the shounen ai works of the 1970s seem more passionate, literary, and daring than modern BL, it must be because the authors knew what they were getting into by taking their first steps into this new territory" -- shoujo manga with very few girls in them, and all the critical attention around "Why do girls like this stuff?"
"This question is one that makes readers of yaoi and BL feel weird and awkward, maybe especially when it's not meant derisively. For one thing, it automatically problematizes fans of yaoi and BL; and the more you try to answer it sincerely, the more it gets into questions of 'are you popular with the opposite sex,' 'do you have a boyfriend,' 'what kind of sexual experiences have you had'..." [LOL this is true]
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(no subject)
11/5/13 14:10 (UTC)Most definitely. In my (limited) reading, shounen ai seems just to have split the two elements and embodied them in different people: the pure romance of one's same-age/ kouhai beloved and the power and humiliation of the older/ senpai predators.
It still looks like a case of women taking a male genre and rewriting it to female tastes. Mh, but then, so did Austen: except in Heian, literary genres start male almost of necessity.