I managed to write that whole thing on RGU and the female body politic without ever really articulating why it matters, so let me take a shot at that now.
the opening words of bell hooks's preface to All About Love have stuck with me since I first read them. she wrote:
When I was a child, it was clear to me that life was not worth living if we did not know love. I wish I could testify that I came to this awareness because of the love I felt in my life. But it was love’s absence that let me know how much love mattered. I was my father’s first daughter. At the moment of my birth, I was looked upon with loving kindness, cherished and made to feel wanted on this earth and in my home. To this day I cannot remember when that feeling of being loved left me. I just know that one day I was no longer precious.
I imagine anyone can relate to this passage, but it especially reminds me of RGU's depiction of girlhood. in commentary, Ikuhara so often talks about the need to be precious and special, the center of attention. in my view, to be a princess means exactly that--to be a girl, a valued, loved, and protected girl, forever.
but the problem is, there's always the threat of that status being taken away, of being cast out of the light of love. RGU grapples with this like no other piece of media. I'd argue that Nanami, Anthy, and Utena are the three most central female characters, and all of them face this dilemma. Nanami sees that Touga is the center of things, a powerful and special person, and the only thing that brings happiness into her world is his attention. her every fiber is bent towards maintaining her position as princess through her relation to him. Anthy has been exiled from princesshood for so long that she now exists as a mere parody of it. unable to believe in love, all that's left for her is to go through the motions. Utena is not seeking to be a princess at all, and yet she is still forced into to contend with the fact that "all girls are like Rose Brides in the end." her girlhood is stolen from her that night with Akio; in the eyes of the world, she has lost her innocence and purity, the things which make her worthy of love.
I claimed in that original piece that RGU has a very feminine sensibility, but afterwards, I wondered if that is entirely true. I think I was right, but I didn't touch on the fact that RGU is a story about "romance," even as it plays on the "romantic," using those terms as Ikuhara does. Utena is a heroic character setting out on a quest to be her true self, and along the way changes the world.
most stories which aim to depict female empowerment do so by putting women into masculine roles. RGU may seem to do the same at first, but its feminine sensibility and narrative trajectory take it in a different direction. ultimately, it is a story about the trials girls face on their path to womanhood. it excludes nothing: neither the girlish and childish nor the dark and uncomfortable. it is cathartic in its invocation of the feeling of loss that comes with adolescence, but it asks that the audience fight through that pain to reach what's on the other side of it.
in the opening sequence, Utena and Anthy ride horses through the air, appearing to storm the Castle Where Eternity Dwells. this never happens in the show. my teenage self was disappointed by this: I felt like it was false advertising. but now I see that this imagery was appropriate. Utena and Anthy are heroes, are empowered, just not in the way I was expecting when I was a child myself. RGU portrays girlhood experiences which are typically seen as either unworthy of exploration or too shameful to be depicted as the stuff of legend. the fact that it puts itself forward as a "girly story" may have kept it from holding the same elevated status as NGE, but I respect it all the more for that.
tangentwithtanner
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