listened to i’m your man by mitski and thought about sanuso. soon after broke out in hives. literally none of this is proof read i am so sorry.
i think an unhealthy amount about sanji’s relationship with gender and honestly i don’t think enough people really tap into the implications of sanji entering a gay relationship outside of the whole internalized homophobia thing, ESP when you pair him up with a character like usopp.
bc sanji’s deep seeded resentment towards men is smth that’s been ingrained in his character from the get, but really got expanded upon in wci. the men and boys who surrounded sanji were at best soldiers and at worst his abusers. i could go on and on about wci and its themes surrounding toxic masculinity (may make it its own post one day) but the crux of it in regards to this specific analysis is this: sanji’s representations of manhood centered violence, cruelty, arrogance, and the idea that one’s value equates to their material output.
these ideas of manhood still persist within sanji today— zeff’s attempts to teach sanji how to be a gentleman have improved sanji’s personal sense of masculinity, i feel, but i do sincerely think sanji still sees masculinity as an inherently negative thing that must be repented for by being a gentleman. and ofc, i will always find it infinitely compelling how the near idealized “knight in shining armor” character (sanji) is definitely the strawhat with the most troubled relationship with masculinity.
in contrast, usopp is very unconventional in terms of “manliness,” to a point one could even describe him as effeminate. NOW HOLD ON i’m not saying he’s a soft femboy or smth, but usopp’s character remains in close proximity to traits one would not typically note as ideally masculine; i.e, his cowardice, his reliance on other people for help, his insecurity, and his weakness in comparison to the other members of the crew, just to name a few. OH and the whole “fuck dying for honor i’m gonna live” thing but that’s more specific to japanese tradition from what i understand so um. if im wrong there dont kill me please.
and tangentially, traits of his which are traditionally feminine: his openness with his emotions, his constant pleas to be saved (damsel in distress trope), all the times he calls himself cute or bats his pretty lil eyelashes, his deep sense of empathy, and his closest friendships being with female characters ex. nami and kaya. usopp is not a traditionally masculine guy in a lot of ways, which are actually eerily similar to sanji, but he does not filter them through the veneer of stoicism sanji does— which i should note, is the exact toxically masculine instinct that sanji himself seems to despise. and most importantly to all of this, usopp does not express any shame for these feminine traits (the weakness and such is another story however.)
so like yeah textbook case of the genders i prescribe them 3 loops of i/me/myself by will wood and several therapy appointments for the blonde one. but what does it actually Mean.
sanji’s masculinity is, i feel, equal parts his shield and his greatest shame in many ways. his masculinity is crucial in being the upright gentleman zeff raised him to be, but there remains still how he treats other men— that being, with disdain for their supposed brutishness (as seen with zoro COUGH COUGH.) the resentment he feels towards men is often played for a gag, considering its largely irrational, but i feel that irrationality stems from the deeply rooted ideas of what manhood and strength were as instilled in him by germa.
so he’s constantly struggling to reconcile this obsession with being the type of man his father (his real one, not that crimson chin mf,) would be proud of— i.e, a gentleman who cherishes and protects women— which puts him in direct proximity TO idealized masculinity, and his deep seeded resentment towards masculinity and manhood itself. his worship of women, in that sense, is a crucial part of sanji’s performance as well as his dissonance— as established in whole cake. to be a good man, he must protect women, and in that sense, his masculinity cannot survive without close proximation to femininity. smth smth queer coding smth smth comphet smth smth beards.
so upon removing the only “good thing” about being a man by loving usopp, sanji is left with the tangled mess of contradictions that is his worldview. and i feel usopp’s unconventional masculinity (because believe me, usopp has his own complexes regarding his identity as a man,) is the embodiment of sanji’s internal turmoil. his protectiveness of usopp, in this context, stems not just from the kinship of their sorrow, but because of usopp’s proximity to what sanji identifies as femininity.
except, of course, usopp is also a man in all the ways that count (read also: all the ways that sanji admires and strives to embody)— he’s brave when it comes down to it and compassionate. he’s worked every day to mold himself into the man, the brave warrior, he aspires to be in spite of circumstance, fear, and his very nature. especially bc of that last part— usopp is sort of the amalgamation of a sanji’s ideal masculinity, in a lot of ways, highlighted by the parallels drawn between usopp’s struggles and sanji’s.
so, again, he embodies this internal war within sanji surrounding his ideas of manhood, and just general Weird Shit about gender. so a gay relationship would completely throw sanji into disarray in multiple ways, yes, but mainly how it would fail to reconcile with the world he’s set up for himself.
and also stepping away from the gender stuff and more into the song i mentioned at the beginning specifically— sanji’s whole thing with becoming a “monster” due to his germa gene that he’s still struggling with also ties into this. ofc we’ve all read the secret texts by this point, sanji yearning for the humanity he’s lost that usopp embodies effortlessly keeps me up at night, too. and i feel that fear attaches itself very easily to sanji’s weird eternal guilt complex.
BC LIKE. i’ve touched on b4 about how sanji and usopp (the mirrors of each other they are) are both liars, just in different ways. they both put up facades to account for low self worth, only sanji’s is much more insidious/hard to spot than usopp’s— aka, the veneer of stoicism i mentioned earlier. and i don’t think sanji would so easily give that up upon entering a relationship.
so it’s just like. dodging vulnerability, the masculinity based crisis, the eternal guilt complex, and the internalized homophobia— can’t forget that, it came free with your fucking xbox— all colliding into a natural disaster worse than goddamn sharknado.
i don’t even know how to properly end this. tldr sanji has a severe case of the genders as the worlds first male misandrist. well probably not the first but he’s definitely the best at it. either way he needs like so much therapy and also a hug maybe? and to kiss usopp that’s still deeply important to me specifically.
somg lyrics also bc i am sick.
janainaart
stormborns
blakekathryn
annaxmalina
