The entire HU crowd has been debating Kyoko Okazaki’s fashion and feminism classic manga Helter Skelter in the comments to this post. If you have any interest, you should scroll down through the whole comments section; Miriam, Bill, and Tom all make really interesting points.
Anyway, where we ended up was with this comment from Tom, suggesting that I don’t like sexist stories:
As we discussed upthread, it doesn’t matter to you what the rights and wrongs of the matter are within the terms of the story; you just dislike stories that are arranged to put men in the driver’s seat at the expense of women.
There’s some truth to this. But for me I don’t think it’s only, or solely, about stories that are arranged to put men in the driver’s seat. Such stories do tend to be sexist, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t like them.
D.H. Lawrence’s stories are an example; he’s ideologically committed to male supremacy. But he’s also intensely interested in gender politics and sexuality. As a result, he tends to have interesting things to say about those topics, even in the context of male supremacy. There’s generally a recognition in his stories of women’s perspectives or women’s voices.
As an example, if Lawrence were writing this story, Asada’s sexual investment in Ririko would almost certainly be a lot clearer, and she’d get at least a moment or two where she explicitly resisted the logic of male supremacy. Ultimately, the final story would be even more explicitly male supremacist — but there’s be a much firmer grasp on the dynamics of how that works and what that means for people’s lives.
My objection here isn’t (or isn’t solely) that Okazaki gives the man control of the narrative, but that he’s given unquestioned moral carte blanche. There’s not even a recognition that his actions could be morally questioned or contested, really. That’s what’s so infuriating about it. Someone like Lawrence is interesting because, while he’s a male supremacist, he recognizes that that doctrine can be questioned — therefore he defends it, and in so doing brings up interesting issues and even allows the other side a voice, if only to quash it. Okazaki just blandly accedes in male supremacy; she seems not even to realize that she might need to make a case for it.
That’s why it’s very hard to see this as a feminist book. Not just because no feminist argument is made, but because Okazaki doesn’t even seem aware of what the sides in the debate would look like. Again, that could well be for cultural reasons…but for a Western reader (or for me) it’s still really irritating to see the male detective treated as the long, courageous crusader for justice at the same time as he’s acting like a stalker, and not see any suggestion on the part of anybody in the manga that this might be creepy or wrong or, you know, kind of stupid.
I'm very interested in Tom's response, but I wanted to throw this in: I've dug into "Feminism in Japan" a touch more. IIRC you're not a Judith Butler fan; the only standout Japanese feminist writer I found is Kazuko Takemura, an English lit prof & Butler's translator. Perhaps Butler's idea of gender as performance translates well. Japan's all about "saving face," people not coming out and saying what they mean; the other model for change is a proverb about a swan, which kicks its feet underwater but on the surface is calm. There wasn't an activist feminist movement as in the US for this reason, I suppose, as well as the fact that American models are essentially legislative. The 70s goal in the US was an amendment; you can lay down all the amendments you want in Japan while 2000 years of history has a nice chuckle.
Which is why I'm not sure about the framework you're applying. You write, Okazaki just blandly accedes in male supremacy; she seems not even to realize that she might need to make a case for it; I don’t see that she has acceded. I see a lot of power struggle, where Ririko rebels against Mama and her handlers. It’s flawed self-actualization from a shallow person, yeah, but it’s there. And Asada’s not a controller so much as a chorus. (I don’t even see him as a crusader for justice; he’s some weird guy whose partner looks at him askance while he defies his superiors and eventually gets transferred for it.) Maybe that gets back to how I saw him as an add-on whereas Tom sees him as essential; or maybe it’s that he’s an outsider to the fashion world Ririko’s in. He’s got his gaze on it, but he doesn’t seem to participate in the culture of consumption as do the women Okazaki draws fretting over fads and magazines. There just aren’t a lot of men in this story.
I supposed I’m getting at this: when you write, Okazaki doesn’t even seem aware of what the sides in the debate would look like, I doubt she’s concerned with that part of the debate. She does seems concerned with women’s self- and media-images; she doesn’t seem to think those images are male-imposed. In its context, in a women’s magazine, I don’t think her brand of feminism takes the shape you expect it to; or am I misreading your framework?
I don’t think you’re misreading me. And the cultural context is helpful.
I’d agree that she is talking about media and fashion images, and that she doesn’t have a lot to say about how men factor into that.
I guess you could see her as a kind of Bill Cosby of feminism — forget about the oppressor, change your own morality, pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, etc. It’s hard to see how that quite works, though, since she seems so into the transgression and the beauty myth itself…it’s like if Bill Cosby decided to denounce hip-hop culture by wearing baggy pants, smoking weed, and spitting out a profanity laden rap.
If you’ve got no analysis of patriarchy *and* no moral framework for regeneration *and* no vision of solidarity, it’s just hard for me to see how you’re feminist.
I mean, I guess it’s because she’s a woman transgressing and being admired for it. But the woman in question isn’t really transgressing, it seems to me; she’s doing just what she’s supposed to — mainly being beautiful. Nor is she necessarily being admired; the book is very ambivalent about whether it wants to condemn Ririko or not.
“I see a lot of power struggle, where Ririko rebels against Mama and her handlers. It’s flawed self-actualization from a shallow person, yeah, but it’s there.”
I don’t know. Ririko is pissed off that her body’s melting. But mainly she wants to hold on, not get out. The sense I get is that she’d be happy to hang on forever to her existence if she could.
I guess Ririko is supposed to be the Courtney Love character. And I never really got why Courtney Love was supposed to be a feminist icon either — hey, look it’s a woman behaving like an asshole fashion victim! Yay? (Though, to be fair, Love actively talks about feminism, while Ririko does not.)
bill,
i think you're alone (on this blog) in seeing asada as just a peripheral subplot. it seemed to me he was set up as the moral centre of the book, which is what made me hate him so much.
with his cute little monologues throughout the book, he's supposed to be the one who has his head screwed on right, while ririko's world & everyone in its thrall (which is everyone in the book, except for maybe asada's cipher of a partner) has its head on dangerously wrong.
his speech about how he's looking forward to aging is the healthy & cosmically balanced counterpoint to secret-abortion-surgery-land's, while at the same time he has an (author-approved, in my opinion) unabashed appreciation for fashion-magazine beauty (which is freaking disturbing if he knows how everyone's getting it, what it's doing to them, & how he plans to help that process along), *especially* the fakery ("her bones don't match her face" etc) & self-destructiveness of it (see his ode to "sunset boulevard", & also the question of what he knows when).
which is connected to your observation that"[okazaki] doesn't seem to think those images are male-imposed," which is a big problem for me feministically. asada's obsession with ririko's looks is seen as good, whereas the schoolgirls' same obsession is seen as bad, because it means they'll grow up & perpetuate the system. men's objectification is not to blame for the beauty-industrial complex, only stupid girls' emulation.
it would be different if asada were seen to be oblivious to fashion-world beauty & thought ririko looked nice, he supposed, just as nice as a lot of women he knew who weren't fashion models, & he doesn't know why women do that shit to themselves because they look fine anyway, but he wants to stop this injustice & save ririko because they were feathers together once.
men-don't-care-about-looks-like-women-do is an equally sexist conceit at heart, but at least it would sidestep asada's complicity in creating ririko's world before he destroyed it.
“My objection here isn’t (or isn’t solely) that Okazaki gives the man control of the narrative, but that he’s given unquestioned moral carte blanche.”
Okay, that too. You’re very clear about what you think the story’s sexual politics are; you are not so clear about the plot (because none of us are). That creates a decent probability that your feelings about a given character have more to do with your view of the story’s gender politics than with the character does.
Asada struck me as a storytelling convenience and a custodian for the author’s bag of tricks. He gets to explain because somebody’s got to explain; he gets to investigate because harm is being done and the story needs somebody to work against the harm doers, if only for the sake of conflict. He believes he had a past life with Ririko because, apparently, he did.
Working up feelings about him as a personality is pretty hard for me to do. Toward the end his story takes off in some strange directions that I didn’t process but that didn’t seem to have much to do with any moral superiority on his part. Telepathic link, tiger, childhood flashback to dead parents. Oh my, a lot’s going on there and I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to find out.
Bill — Do you know if X-Files was big in Japan when Okazaki did this book? Asada seems like a Muller ripoff.
Miriam — The scenes I remember of Asada fussing over Ririko’s looks all had to do with her looks’ artificiality; he was putting it together that she’s a pastiche (as with his remarks about her interview patter). Of course there may be moments I’ve forgotten where he appreciated her looks the way any man who likes models would. But he’s working to make it impossible for her to continue looking that way, since he wants to shut down the clinic.
Finally, I find the plot’s second half such a model, and especially the surprise denouement in Mexico, that I think it’s premature to come to any strong conclusions about what’s going on.
tom,
i was pretty sure that he was *into* the fascinatingly artificial looks of ririko, not just gathering them for evidence. but i would probably have to reread it for proof.
& no "moral superiority on his part"? seriously? who in the story can you say he's morally equivalent to, from the author's standpoint? ririko? mom? hada? you were the one who said he wasn't evil, & if all of those other characters are evil to an extent, doesn't that make him morally superior?
you say "He gets to explain because somebody's got to explain; he gets to investigate because harm is being done and the story needs somebody to work against the harm doers."
you don't think it's problematic that, in a female-written story about the evils of the fashion industry aimed at a female fashion-mag reading audience, the author's stand-in, & the bringer of justice, & the only main character who isn't a "harm doer" is a man with no investment in the fashion industry?
i really think he's the authorial voice. if he were just a plot device, he wouldn't be allowed to talk about his theories of beauty so goddamn much.
(man, the more i think about the morals of the book, the madder i get. i'm not steamed at you, tom, i hope you know.)
Tom, Miriam’s definitely right about this; it’s something I glossed over but when she said it I sort of smacked my head and said, “oh right!” Asada definitely expresses sexual interest in Ririko’s artificiality; he finds her appealing *because* she’s artificial…and it also seems, because *he knows* she’s artificial. I don’t think any X-files is needed; he’s Sherlock Holmes, or any other detective.
I didn’t find the plot confusing at all. We kind of keep going around on this, and, you know, I can’t prove to you that I don’t find the plot confusing, I guess. But it made straightforward sense to me; I didn’t lose the thread or feel like I didn’t know what was going on. Asada’s burbling about past lives and feather and etc. — that made sense with his character and with how the book worked and with my expectations for how this sort of story should go.
You seem to want to make narrative primary, and themes secondary…that isn’t how I read or appreciate or understand comics (or fiction, or whatever.) Narrative and thematic material and atmosphere all goes together. So, for instance, I don’t find Kafka difficult to understand just because his plots don’t make sense; rather, I understand the “plot” as serving an atmospheric or thematic function that isn’t necessarily related to being able to follow every event a, b, c, or taking every event literally.
Okazaki isn’t Kafka, obviously…but she’s not…oh, Arthur Conan Doyle, as long as I mentioned him already. You seem thrown by the fact that the Asada/Ririko relationship isn’t firmly nailed down. It isn’t…but that’s not because it’s confused. It’s because she’s being intentionally ambiguous and/or poetic. I don’t think it works, but that’s different than saying I don’t get it.
I mean, I think you’ve put forward fine reasons for liking the book — you really like the art, and make a fine case for it; you like the sensational, over-the-top aspects of the plot, you don’t really care about the gender politics because stuff like that has to be really in your face before it interferes with your enjoyment. That all seems perfectly reasonable. For me, dumb gender politics are more irritating, I felt like I’d seen stories like this before, and the art (while good) wasn’t so transportive that it could make me ignore the other problems.
oh, & catching up on noah's comment: i don't know if this needs to be said, tom, but i find nothing wrong, morally or aesthetically, with your liking the book. i think it has lousy morals, but a lot of good books have worse morals.
i'm just going on & on about it in order to explain, to myself & others, why i found its message & the character of asano so disturbing.
X-Files showed on TV Asahi in 94 or 95; I agree with Noah that Asada’s but a stock detective. Which is why I find him inessential, or just creatively lazy.
The fact that I’m wrong and he is in fact essential makes it worse, because Okazaki’s going to pull out a Past Meeting we have no way of predicting along with a rabbit. For some reason Japanese stories pull this all the time, most sadly in the otherwise perfect Spirited Away. “Why, yes, we did know each other as toddlers…” It’s always struck me as a trick ending. Maybe Okazaki’s not headed there, but it’s the setup.
Miriam, the only trouble I have with your discussion of the book’s morality is how sure you are about whose side Okazaki’s on. I read Asada’s monologues and obsession as very unsettling. I don’t think any character has a moral center. The way to know for sure, I guess, is to do a super-close reading of H.S. and everything else she’s written, and I don’t think any of us are planning on that.
Whether a book even can have bad morals I don’t know, but I’d like to read what you think about, not necessarily w/r/t this particular book (like, in a post or something). I used to judge things with a sort of moral framework until I gave up. Now I agree with Joseph Brodsky that aesthetics is the mother of ethics, though I don’t know what he means. I’m interested in how this plays out in your response to art, or even your own creative work.
All that said, I’m glad I started the roundtable with a music riff. Noah, your hat-tip to Courtney Love is just right. I was thinking of riot grrls in general and the Slits in particular, the whole point of which was girls drinking and doing drugs, which, like Helter Skelter, must have looked revolutionary the first time someone saw it.
Thanks for the expression of goodwill. At this point I don’t think we’re really clear as to what we’re arguing about, which for me is always a sign I should get out of a discussion. So no long point-by-point rebuttals from me. I’ll just say that I liked the art, not the story, and I’ll believe that Noah (or anyone) understands the last third of the book when I see a synopsis.