juriori and the female gaze (read on my neocities)
"And how strange it was that, instead of having been
forced to reveal his own secret, he had succeeded,
almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend!"
-the picture of dorian gray, Oscar Wilde, pp 132
when faced with the reality of juri's attraction to her, shiori pulls a sword from her chest. why? why can't she bear that juri looks at her like that?
first, I will say that in this post I will use the word 'attraction' instead of the more obvious 'love.' this isn't because the students of ohtori are incapable of love for one another, or even me saying that I don't believe juri loves shori. instead it's because I would say that juri and shiori's story is one specificially about attraction. touga and saionji, the show's eldests, have a narrative about sex and juri and shiori, the second oldest pair at 16, have a narrative about attraction. this is why it's so appropriate that they're both women-- there is something unique about the experience of growing into attraction as a young woman obsessed with women, and it's something which is essential to the overall story of utena.
juri never moves herself closer to shiori. she keeps a safe distance, afraid to touch the other girl or betray her own feelings. the way she feels for shiori is kept tightly in a locket, and eventually the feeling moves from the real girl to the picture. it would take a miracle, she knows, for shiori to see her as anything but disgusting. it's much safer to look at the picture than at the real girl.
the difference between the girl and the locket is the difference between the two miracles juri chases. the first miracle is the locket's: the miracle of shiori not being horrified by the way juri looks at her. the second is the real miracle: the miracle that shiori could look at her in the same way. juri must be the only woman who desires other women. it would be shocking if there was another. it would be a miracle if that other was shiori.
dios's sword falls from the sky to sever juri's rose: shiori cannot stop herself from thinking about juri. any savvy watcher of the show knows that shiori is a lesbian, just like juri. the second, more buried, more impossible miracle ends up being the one to come true. unfortunately, the locket's miracle does not. shiori is so shaken by the discovery of who, exactly, is in the locket that she becomes a black rose duelist. she had always wished to be more like juri, stronger and cleverer and more perfect, and all along juri had looked at her like that. her inability to reckon with the complexity of how she feels about juri's attraction is harnessed into a forced feeling of having 'won'-- a retreat into power dynamics that leads her to pull juri's sword. before the way she feels about juri, shiori is powerless. if she can transform the situation into one where she has power, she is safe. juri is putty in shiori's hands and she says "you're supposed to be stronger than anyone, but now you're like this..."
This is shiori's miracle: that juri, who she always admired but who was too impenetrable to get at, should have wanted her all along. this miracle is the same as juri's true one. if I have always been attracted you and no one else has ever been attracted another woman like this, it would be a miracle if you felt the same way. shiori's picture is in the locket. the miracle has come true. but, hiding this true miracle and the difficulty of facing its implications, is a false miracle, which I will call shiori's locket miracle. this is the miracle that shiori, who has always felt powerless in front of juri, should have this new power over the other girl. should be looked at like that.
shiori's locket miracle is what mikage and anthy manipulate in order to drive her to pull juri's sword and duel. juri does not show shiori the locket-- in fact, she throws it away. she discards the image of shiori for the real one. we can imagine a world where the locket stayed at the bottom of the lake and juri and shiori became slowly reacquainted. perhaps they would grow to know each other better: juri wouldn't just look at shiori, but know her. their attraction to each other wouldn't be a threat: rather, it would be a miracle. when anthyretrieves the locket from the water and leaves it on shiori's desk, she cuts short this possible development. the traumatic nature of new attraction is shown too soon, and in panic shiori represses her true desires in favor of the safety of power games. it is confirmed that juri's attraction is something both predatory and vulnerable, which means that shiori's is as well and must be destroyed.
this is the double bind of the female gaze. there is nothing seen as wrong about a man's attraction to a woman. if he wants her, that's the way it's meant to be, and she has limited means to use that attraction against him. a man can look at a woman however he wants, and men do. there's no miracle if that look is returned: in fact it's expected. the female gaze is expected to return the male gaze when asked. what happens when it doesn't? what happens when juri "never loved him" and shiori only "loved him because [she] wanted to steal something dear to [juri]"? the gaze becomes something active and dangerous-- something which can implicate them both. ohtori itself is built on the male gaze: akio's surveillance and sexualization of the students. the student council meetings are seen through his window. when utena opens the coffin and looks at anthy without the haze of heteropatriachial 'reality,' she falls out of the world. juri's attraction to shiori, a gaze which potentially does not involve a man at all, threatens to be just as destructive. shiori must keep something between them, whether it is the unnamed boy, rika, or patriachial power dynamics themselves. she cannot allow juri to see her. the female gaze cannot exist in ohtori.
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