the fact that utena’s hair is pink is so fascinating to me because normally pink cartoon girls are in some way defined by their femininity, whether their performance of it is sincere or feigned. princess bubblegum, for example, is a character whose relationship to her role is inextricable from her relationship to her femininity, and the pinkness of her entire being (not only her hair but also her skin and usually her clothes) signifies that facade of femininity that is gradually complicated throughout the show (and also she is simply the greatest character of all time, but I digress). utena, however, does not perform femininity, but in fact masculinity. she only embodies more feminine inhabitations under duress, and it is clear that it is never her preferred mode, but rather a restrictive mode being forced upon her. and yet, her masculine presentation/inhabitation conflicts with her pink hair, which we automatically register as a signifier of utmost femininity.
however, I suggest that instead of reading utena’s hair as pink, we should instead read it as a combination of white and red. pink is, in many ways, a more diluted version of red. diluted by the color white. white being the color of the prince, the color dios and every member of the student council (save for nanami) wears. red is the color of roses, blood, sex, and violence. akio’s car is red, as are his clothes, and anthy’s rose bride dress. during moments of abject violence, red and black become the dominant colors on screen, the colors of utena’s school uniform as well as akio’s every day outfit. and touga, of course, has red hair. not red as in orange in the sense that juri could be called a redhead, but pure, vibrant, blood red. touga’s hair indicates his relationship to sexual violence, not only in terms of its color, but also its length. and like touga, utena is also a victim of grooming and sexual abuse. but unlike touga, it is not the thing that defines her identity.
her hair is pale red, mixed with the white of dios. her identity is one of striving for the ideal of princehood. and yet it is not white, but pink, muddied by the violence she must endure and implicitly exert to attain that ideal. the godlike perfection of the prince is inextricable from the abuse necessary to undergird it. if touga’s hair and outfit illustrate that through the stark contrast of red and white, utena’s hair color illustrates it through the combination of both those aspects mixed up in one person. to have pink hair is to have noble intentions problematized by an exploitative system. and the fact that we, as the audience, automatically associate pink with girlishness illustrates that point via our gut reaction to undermine her masculinity by pointing out, “but she has pink hair!!!” her identity is constantly being complicated by external factors, such as society’s judgments of a girl who wants to be a prince, or the hollow promise of what princehood even means in the first place.
tangentwithtanner
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
origamiaround
gummygunk
titsay
jbbartram-illu
discoholicmusic
pixelskylines
