Utena and BtVS
16 Apr 2005 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salineaDownloading 39 episodes of a serie is way too fucking slow. In one month and a half I'm only at 36% of getting the whole of the Utena serie and it frustrates me extremely. Can't go all over and it and analyse it properly until I can watch it again, and fully.
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coffee_and_ink compared the Utena ending to the FMA one. Of course I'd rather she had compared it to Buffy.
Obvious similarities between the two series : the reversal of gender roles, feminism, overuse of symbolism and metaphores. But Utena in general is I think more extreme, more indepth and more... well revolutionary ^_^ Though they both have the great advantage of managing to apply feminism to more than relationships between men and women.
Utena is in a way very political. Or more accurately, it talks very acutely about power as it is in every parts of human interactions, even those that could seem very innocent, and suggest a political outlook on it. We're talking about a serie where two keys words are "Prince" and "Revolution", doesn't this strike people as strange ? Those are antithesis.
Especially when you remember that Utena makes obvious references to the very old shoujo "Roses of Versaille" which was during the French revolution. I wonder if there's some essay around that explores this topic. If not I'd like to do one... grrr why is that download so slow ?
The role of "Prince" in Utena and the role of "Slayer" in BtVS are very similar. Both are saviors, rescuers of people in distress, and both are roles of sacrifice. There's this dark outlook all through Buffy where the fact that Slayers are young girls sacrificed by a ruthless society which ends not being all that grateful to them. In Utena, the crowd is so greedy for Dios to save them they have no regards from his state of being, nor do they even try to think of another solution than asking for Dios to save them.
Of course in Utena, the role of Prince is romanticized. Who says Prince says Princess, and people keep telling Utena that she cannot be a Prince because she is a girl...
In a way the girl sacrified by the Shadowmen in Buffy, the one that is reviled for her darkness in the prologue of Tales of the Slayer, is almost closer to the role of Anthy as the witch, the other, pierced by a swords of hatred.
In both Utena and Buffy the power of fighting, of saving, of the Prince and of the Slayer, end up being shared. In Utena it is implicit, it's in the fact a "Revolution" occurs (and what does a revolution does but end up princedom to give power to the people ?) and that Anthy decides to save herself by walking out of Ohtori. In Buffy, that power is only shared by all the Girls-who-could-Slayers. There was a lot of discussion at the time as I remember. Though the metaphore if of spreading the power, the end result is more like a widened Oligarchy.
coffee_and_ink compared the Utena ending to the FMA one. Of course I'd rather she had compared it to Buffy.Obvious similarities between the two series : the reversal of gender roles, feminism, overuse of symbolism and metaphores. But Utena in general is I think more extreme, more indepth and more... well revolutionary ^_^ Though they both have the great advantage of managing to apply feminism to more than relationships between men and women.
Utena is in a way very political. Or more accurately, it talks very acutely about power as it is in every parts of human interactions, even those that could seem very innocent, and suggest a political outlook on it. We're talking about a serie where two keys words are "Prince" and "Revolution", doesn't this strike people as strange ? Those are antithesis.
Especially when you remember that Utena makes obvious references to the very old shoujo "Roses of Versaille" which was during the French revolution. I wonder if there's some essay around that explores this topic. If not I'd like to do one... grrr why is that download so slow ?
The role of "Prince" in Utena and the role of "Slayer" in BtVS are very similar. Both are saviors, rescuers of people in distress, and both are roles of sacrifice. There's this dark outlook all through Buffy where the fact that Slayers are young girls sacrificed by a ruthless society which ends not being all that grateful to them. In Utena, the crowd is so greedy for Dios to save them they have no regards from his state of being, nor do they even try to think of another solution than asking for Dios to save them.
Of course in Utena, the role of Prince is romanticized. Who says Prince says Princess, and people keep telling Utena that she cannot be a Prince because she is a girl...
In a way the girl sacrified by the Shadowmen in Buffy, the one that is reviled for her darkness in the prologue of Tales of the Slayer, is almost closer to the role of Anthy as the witch, the other, pierced by a swords of hatred.
In both Utena and Buffy the power of fighting, of saving, of the Prince and of the Slayer, end up being shared. In Utena it is implicit, it's in the fact a "Revolution" occurs (and what does a revolution does but end up princedom to give power to the people ?) and that Anthy decides to save herself by walking out of Ohtori. In Buffy, that power is only shared by all the Girls-who-could-Slayers. There was a lot of discussion at the time as I remember. Though the metaphore if of spreading the power, the end result is more like a widened Oligarchy.
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Date: 17 April 2005 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 April 2005 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 April 2005 04:54 pm (UTC)