One of the great things about the movie is how children are portrayed. When the sea plane pirates take a bunch of kids hostage at the beginning of the movie, you don’t see any parents panicking. The kids are relaxed. The pirates clearly understand the social contract where they can’t split up the kids from their friends.
It’s such a different take from modern parenting and today’s anxiety filled culture.
> It’s such a different take from modern parenting and today’s anxiety filled culture.
There has to be a happy medium between "I can't let my kids play outside or walk to school" and "Pirates took them? No need to panic. It'll probably work out."
Obviously the movie for all its strengths and beautiful flying is still sexist. When showing it to my kids I simply disclosed it’s how things used to be and it wasn’t right and things are better now. And we need to keep them better.
What is the sexist part? That two men have a fight to marry a female airplane engineer/mechanic? That a woman runs a restaurant and is holding out for some man?
The movie is pretty clear in its intent to show this as a bad thing. To the point of stating it out loud several times. The climactic fight ends with both men losing and nearly killing each other.
If you think it's objectifying and sexist, that's a you problem.
If that would be the only view of said woman, I'd wholeheartedly agree to this point. The movie (and generally life) is so much more and more complex, with good and bad sides which all belong on the screen to be watched and criticized.
An aside, my 8yo son used Porco Rosso as the subject of a school speech about a favourite film. I was surprised how few of the themes were lost on him, especially those of war, comradeship, and the other side of every coin. Not to mention those points that only a child discovering the world can savour, that I'd missed myself (or at least misplaced since I first saw the film at around his age in the 90s).
When I was growing up, for whatever reason, Leprosy was used as the outstanding example of a decease that completely incapacitated and made people social outcasts to the point they were sent off to islands to live with other Lepers. I don't know why this was culturally a big deal, I imagine it to be the same as quick sand for American children, just something adults were panicking way too much about. I am Mediterranean for context.
When I watched Mononoke, the scenes in the Iron Village completely befuddled me for a long time at first. This city both constantly establishes itself as a place with a deeply negative effect on the surrounding wilds. They're actively destroying the outskirts of the forest where a bunch of animal gods live, and yet at the same time, they're all nice, and oddly gender affirming and... The villain employs Lepers.
As in, they had nowhere else to go, so she took them in. And she has no problem taking a gun they built directly off their hands, completely unafraid. I grew learning that Lepers were being thrown out because everyone was afraid and they were highly contagious and no one knew what else to do, so having the villain, unironically, show the grace I learned belonged to "The modern world", was like a brick tossed directly inside my brain. She was the reason Ashitaka was dying, she was the reason the pig monster showed up. And yet, she was not a bad person.
Good art. Felt a lot of empathy for Ashitaka. Thought about it a lot, made me grow a lot. And all because someone in Japan, somehow, laser targeted me on my sensibilities on Leprosy. So random.
I wouldn’t call Lady Eboshi a villain or really anyone in the movie, not even Jigo (no allegiances, just working a job). Everyone has different motivations and the movie is about those motivations conflicting. Not because anyone is particularly wrong or bad, they just want different things. No one is perfect, sometimes pursuing the things we want is destructive to the things others want. The gods tasked with protecting the forest ultimately lead to the deer god’s death.
That’s the joy in most Miyazaki movies. Any other movie would have an obvious evil villain. Miyazaki gives all of his characters motivation that is immediately relatable. Sometimes characters that appear to be villains at the beginning are heroes at the end.
All of these things mirror the real world. Rarely is someone actually intentionally evil. They may have different priorities, goals, fears, and motivations, and those may produce behaviors or beliefs that seem bad, but without understanding the why or what, it’s easy to just assume their “bad” people. Ashitaka doesn’t take the bait and is kind, respectful, and generous to everyone who isn’t obviously doing something atrocious (like the samurai slaughtering peasants).
Princess Mononoke is easily one of my favorite movies of all time and my favorite Miyazaki movie.
If there is a villain in Mononoke, it is the unseen Emperor, living in luxury somewhere in Asuka, drinking tea and seeing other people as simple Shogi figures.
It is the emperor that wants immortality and triggers the chain of events that get the main forest god killed & cause a lot of destruction. And in the end - he is still unaffected, while Eboshi & co have to rebuild all of their infrastructure almost from zero... :P
I think you're conflating villainy with evil. Eboshi abandons her village for cash in the climax of the film. SHe's told the village is in trouble and says "let them deal with it, mama's gotta make that cheddar"
Jigo lays a trap that sacrifices hundreds of his own men in order to kill a god.
I'd put both of them in the villain category. Before the battle, I wouldn't put either of them in that category, but the climax really makes them out to be awful people. Eboshi in particular hides behind smiles and buying up the contracts of prostitutes (to make them her slaves) and helping lepers until the climax when she completely abandons them, throwing them to the wolves in service of money.
She has made a somewhat Faustian bargain with the other warlords and by extension the emperor. She is very different than them in caring for outcasts, but the state is still the source of her power, so when the emperor wants the deer-god's head she goes hunting, thinking quite naturally that this is the best she can do for her outcast villagers. Money for the village's needs (they are far from self-sufficient), the emperor's favor, and (as far as she knows) an end to god-attacks on the village? Of course she goes. The villagers are equipped to deal with more short-term threats, she made sure of that.
She is absolutely a non-evil, non-villainous antagonist.
I’m not saying they aren’t antagonists. Villains by definition are cruel. Jigo and Eboshi don’t act out of cruelty. They think their actions are the appropriate way to survive in a rapidly changing world.
Eboshi is socialism. She cares for the people in her village and will overthrow gods and warlords to protect them. She’s in direct conflict with the forest gods and has what she thinks is an opportunity to bring peace. She’s willing to put herself in jeopardy for her people. I have never assumed anything but her pure altruism for the people of her village. She’s the type of leader you want to protect you and don’t want to be up against. That protection doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and just like historically socialist societies, she’ll use violence to achieve what she sees as ideal.
Jigo is capitalism; self centered and money motivated. He’s just a bounty hunting mercenary. He doesn’t care about the consequences, just about getting his job done. He does have some loyalties and is very honest about his approach to the world. The men he eliminates are not his men, but local samurai who are the least morally ambiguous. He’s not a hero trying to protect Irontown from the same samurai, but at the same time, he needs to ensure he comes out with the prize, otherwise he doesn’t get paid. He’s calculated and efficient, and his men actually kill two birds with one stone.
My point was that, as Martha Gellhorn once said about post-war Germany "No one is a nazi, no one ever was. There may have been some nazis in the next village". Even one's own pictures might get distorted by self exculpation.
I recently re-watched a few movies by Anthony Minghella (I liked his Ripley). I was surprised that the theme of two movie (and he didn't made that many) was treason and the author sided with the traitor. (Cold mountain, The English patient.)
There's something about the way Ghibli does aircraft (and clouds!) that is simply magical. One can almost taste the freedom of flight every time a ship or craft is on screen.
I'm very rarely moved by art and movie magic, but whatever Ghibli does with flight just really gets me every time.
I had the pleasure to visit Croatia and the sky seemed familiar to me somehow... and I realized I was on the opposite coast of the Adriatic Sea. What I remembered was how it was rendered in Porco Rosso, which I had seen years before visiting IRL.
Watching the movie again, I am amazed at how precisely Miyazaki captures the exact feeling of the sky and sea of the Adriatic in summer.
They clearly want to believe it was a valid response, but I didn’t bother responding because we, they, and everybody else, knows it was an obvious cop out.
It start by making citations form Roffat, Takai and Okuda, to blindly classify Porco Rosso as an "anti war propaganda" movie. The article did not even discuss this classification.
- Is "Porco Rosso" anti-war or anti-fascist (or both)?
- Is it even propaganda?
The article cite "The Wind Rises" just to tell than this other movie also have the same themes (war, fascism, planes) but do not even even try to analyze if this other movie is "propaganda" too. At last make a paragraph to compare the two movies.
The article have around 30 citations (including 4 auto-citations) mainly to state the obvious to anybody who have watched the movie or read the Wikipedia page.
And finally the conclusion is something like: "i have see this movie and now is will now state the obvious about it".
At least, try to explain :
- Why "Le temps de cerises"?
- What about "The Princess and the Frog" in the story?
- What was the real meaning of "porco rosso", as an insult, during the fascism period in Italy?
It’s such a different take from modern parenting and today’s anxiety filled culture.
There has to be a happy medium between "I can't let my kids play outside or walk to school" and "Pirates took them? No need to panic. It'll probably work out."
If you think it's objectifying and sexist, that's a you problem.
Said women repeatedly calls out that behavior. The pointlessness and harm caused by macho culture is a theme throughout the movie.
When I watched Mononoke, the scenes in the Iron Village completely befuddled me for a long time at first. This city both constantly establishes itself as a place with a deeply negative effect on the surrounding wilds. They're actively destroying the outskirts of the forest where a bunch of animal gods live, and yet at the same time, they're all nice, and oddly gender affirming and... The villain employs Lepers.
As in, they had nowhere else to go, so she took them in. And she has no problem taking a gun they built directly off their hands, completely unafraid. I grew learning that Lepers were being thrown out because everyone was afraid and they were highly contagious and no one knew what else to do, so having the villain, unironically, show the grace I learned belonged to "The modern world", was like a brick tossed directly inside my brain. She was the reason Ashitaka was dying, she was the reason the pig monster showed up. And yet, she was not a bad person.
Good art. Felt a lot of empathy for Ashitaka. Thought about it a lot, made me grow a lot. And all because someone in Japan, somehow, laser targeted me on my sensibilities on Leprosy. So random.
That’s the joy in most Miyazaki movies. Any other movie would have an obvious evil villain. Miyazaki gives all of his characters motivation that is immediately relatable. Sometimes characters that appear to be villains at the beginning are heroes at the end.
All of these things mirror the real world. Rarely is someone actually intentionally evil. They may have different priorities, goals, fears, and motivations, and those may produce behaviors or beliefs that seem bad, but without understanding the why or what, it’s easy to just assume their “bad” people. Ashitaka doesn’t take the bait and is kind, respectful, and generous to everyone who isn’t obviously doing something atrocious (like the samurai slaughtering peasants).
Princess Mononoke is easily one of my favorite movies of all time and my favorite Miyazaki movie.
It is the emperor that wants immortality and triggers the chain of events that get the main forest god killed & cause a lot of destruction. And in the end - he is still unaffected, while Eboshi & co have to rebuild all of their infrastructure almost from zero... :P
Jigo lays a trap that sacrifices hundreds of his own men in order to kill a god.
I'd put both of them in the villain category. Before the battle, I wouldn't put either of them in that category, but the climax really makes them out to be awful people. Eboshi in particular hides behind smiles and buying up the contracts of prostitutes (to make them her slaves) and helping lepers until the climax when she completely abandons them, throwing them to the wolves in service of money.
She is absolutely a non-evil, non-villainous antagonist.
Eboshi is socialism. She cares for the people in her village and will overthrow gods and warlords to protect them. She’s in direct conflict with the forest gods and has what she thinks is an opportunity to bring peace. She’s willing to put herself in jeopardy for her people. I have never assumed anything but her pure altruism for the people of her village. She’s the type of leader you want to protect you and don’t want to be up against. That protection doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and just like historically socialist societies, she’ll use violence to achieve what she sees as ideal.
Jigo is capitalism; self centered and money motivated. He’s just a bounty hunting mercenary. He doesn’t care about the consequences, just about getting his job done. He does have some loyalties and is very honest about his approach to the world. The men he eliminates are not his men, but local samurai who are the least morally ambiguous. He’s not a hero trying to protect Irontown from the same samurai, but at the same time, he needs to ensure he comes out with the prize, otherwise he doesn’t get paid. He’s calculated and efficient, and his men actually kill two birds with one stone.
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I'm very rarely moved by art and movie magic, but whatever Ghibli does with flight just really gets me every time.
Watching the movie again, I am amazed at how precisely Miyazaki captures the exact feeling of the sky and sea of the Adriatic in summer.
It start by making citations form Roffat, Takai and Okuda, to blindly classify Porco Rosso as an "anti war propaganda" movie. The article did not even discuss this classification.
- Is "Porco Rosso" anti-war or anti-fascist (or both)?
- Is it even propaganda?
The article cite "The Wind Rises" just to tell than this other movie also have the same themes (war, fascism, planes) but do not even even try to analyze if this other movie is "propaganda" too. At last make a paragraph to compare the two movies.
The article have around 30 citations (including 4 auto-citations) mainly to state the obvious to anybody who have watched the movie or read the Wikipedia page.
And finally the conclusion is something like: "i have see this movie and now is will now state the obvious about it".
At least, try to explain :
- Why "Le temps de cerises"?
- What about "The Princess and the Frog" in the story?
- What was the real meaning of "porco rosso", as an insult, during the fascism period in Italy?