ENOUGH HAVE ASKED SO HERE’S SOME THOUGHTS ON MONONOKE AS FEMINIST SHOW
- Women being denied their agency consistently causes the appearance of Mononoke. Ochou’s forced marriage, the forced abortion policy in the brothel, the possibly-real Lady Ruri’s arranged marriage, Setsuko Ichikawa’s untimely death and unpublished tale
- Even in arc 2, as…fucking uncomfortable as that revelation is, the core of it is a contrast; a woman choosing to give up her life, taking agency in a way that a man can easily take advantage of… yet for a reason that causes him to see her as a person, maybe for the first time, and rebuild his whole mentality around her.
- Women’s influence on each other. Often “I was denied this so you should be fine with being denied it too” comes up; the hotel manager in Zashiki Warashi finding herself completely lost in an old role that hurt as well as helped in a way that explicitly would be horrible to the woman in front of her, Ochou’s mother scolding her for faltering or existing as herself, Chiyo providing false evidence about Setsuko, always actions that *seem like nothing, even seem like kindnesses, but perpetuate the same cruelty those characters suffer from*; a spotlight on the holding up of institutional misogyny.
- There is, consistently, a masculine authority figure expecting to duck responsibility and neglect someone. Ochou’s husband, the priest Genkei-dono (the only one who seems to genuinely REGRET this), the newspaperman Moria, the barely-seen nobles in Zashiki-Warashi. Dismissiveness and neglect are the roots of all evil.
- Better men often include oafs; the train driver in Bakeneko, the incense specialists, there to take various Ls. The boy, cop, and train driver in Bakeneko and the two gay men and merchant in Umibozu all try to help the situation, half for their own self preservations and at least partially out of genuine care, and all seem to come away somewhat changed by the experience with at least some amount of greater respect for a woman or multiple women who either took the helm while they were screaming or screamed alongside them
- Ochou and her mother have a very nuanced relationship, with the masks of perfect behavior essentially forced on her by her mother; yet Ochou still loves her, with the same sorrow as many will love a parent who had a reason for being cruel and put the emotional burden of that reason onto the child. It was for her own good, and it absolutely wasn’t.
- Nue’s women are a means to an end, and they are a collective END in themself; an excellent take on the woman-as-prize, woman-as-convenience, and woman-as-mystery, a literal prize shaping itself into women to toy with and attract men, ready to toss them aside and play with them again later just as cruelly as the authoritative men in other arcs. They’re fools, and she makes them dance.
- but the women in Mononoke AREN’T FLAWLESS. Neither are they useless! Ochou is a very flawed woman and a very sympathetic one, the absolute center of the Nopperabou arc and the main goddamn character of that one far more than the Medicine Seller. Kayo is the most capable investigator in Umibozu and as pointed out in another set of very good Mononoke posts is a good source of authority and DRIVE for the Medicine Seller, a drive that Setsuko of the Bakeneko arc and the white woman in the Zashiki-Warashi arc also have in spades! Not a one of them is universally foolish, universally incompetent, universally perfect, or universally cruel, all are absolutely nuanced and interesting people!
And the protagonistic ones are often sex workers and former housewives, two things so often disparaged or not left for heroic roles. The Medicine Seller treats them as people, more human than himself.
One of the few times he’s horrified is in the Nue arc, when he sees the other men at the table disregard and desecrate a woman’s corpse.
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