What are your thoughts on about Anthy? I’d love to hear them in more detail
Oh god, where do I begin. I should preface this by saying I've only watched the series once, so my understanding of Anthy's character is probably less developed than it could be!
I am currently working on a post where I read Anthy as commentary on ornamentalism and Asian inscrutability. Ornamentalism was coined by Anne Anlin Cheng to talk about the specific ways Asia itself, goods imported from Asia, and the bodies of Asian women, continually blur the lines between personhood and thingness. Where Asian bodies are reduced to objects, porcelain bowls are personified as delicate and feminine. This is the lens through which most of the cast views Anthy.
- Ornamentalism: A Feminist Theory For The Yellow Woman, p15, Anne Anling Cheng
Asian inscrutability, on the other hand, is a much more complicated term to define. Asian inscrutability has historically been used to prop up the Occident as uniquely enlightened mastery over the Orient. The Occident renders Asia knowable through surveillance, study, and categorization.
While the narrative of an exotic, wild, and unknowable Asia is rooted deeply in orientalism, the term is being reclaimed by some queer Asian scholars. Anthy is deliberately playing up the idea that the Engaged is uniquely capable of understanding her as a means of manipulation. If to be known is to be controlled, to be unknown is freedom. I believe Anthy is such an inscrutable character precisely because it is her only means of resisting the extended cast's, and by extension the audience's, gaze. This is why the Adolescence of Utena movie ends with Anthy and Utena escaping the narrative. We can no longer perceive or control her.
-Surface Relations: Queer Forms of Asian American Inscrutability, Introduction p3, Vivian L. Huang
- Surface Relations: Queer Forms of Asian American Inscrutability, Introduction p15, Vivian L. Huang
I have many more thoughts about how this intersects with Anthy's brownness, since her body being forever pierced by a million swords says a lot about how ppl view black and brown pain as less than, but this post is getting long enough LMAO
Anthy is a deeply interesting character to me because of how her Rose Bride persona plays with so many stereotypes about brown Asian women. I don't think the series is perfect- the curry episode paints India as a exotic, wild, and untameable place, for example. Leaving Akio and Anthy as ambiguously brown also robs them of any national, ethnic, or historical specificity, but I can forgive the series for it's imperfections.
Overall Anthy has my entire heart. There are no perfect victims in Utena, but she means a lot to me specifically as a survivor of rape, domestic violence, and child abuse. She found the strength to walk away and this is more powerful than any magic she could ever wield.
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