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mikogalateaBefore I get into this repost, I should start by saying that I do not hate Penguindrum by any means. In fact, I think it's a good show, even if it's nowhere near as good as Utena in my eyes.
I just have a huge problem with the way it handles certain elements, especially in a certain situation that occurs in episodes 14 and 15. I've even touched on it a little here on DW before, though I never went into it in as much detail as I do in this rant.
To sum up the rant -- which was originally from around 4 years ago -- I feel that after Utena did a good, respectful job at handling the topic of rape for the most part, Penguindrum took a very big step backwards in that regard.
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The rape jokes and ~oh so funny~ perving on random girls by #1 don't exactly get things off to a good start. To single out one of the grossest examples, are we really meant to think that a scene of #1 shoving a thermometer up a nurse's ass without her knowledge (never mind consent) is comedy gold? I certainly don't believe so, but Ikuhara seems to think differently.
As for the attempted rapes themselves... to give Ikuhara credit where it's due, I appreciate that he at least acknowledges that female-on-male and female-on-female rape are things that exist, and that they're not good things. That still doesn't change the fact that there are huge problems with how the situations are presented -- especially the female-on-female one.
Perhaps surprisingly, I don't have so many issues with the Ringo/Tabuki scene. That's not to say it didn't have any issues at all -- there was some male gaze that drooled over Ringo there, for a start -- but what made it less awful to me was the fact that Ringo was at least called out on what she did, in a way that ultimately helped kickstart her character development and led to her becoming a better person. In other words, her actions had repercussions.
Another key difference between the Ringo/Tabuki and Yuri/Ringo scenes, before I go on to address the meat-and-potatoes of this post, is who the perpetrators were in relation to their victims. Ringo was a child -- a very fucked-up, misguided and desperate child, but a child all the same -- so despite the fact that she did some rotten things, I find it hard to hold too much against her. (And anyone who dares to do so much as insinuate that she had what Yuri tried to do to her coming after her earlier actions is going to get slapped.)
Yuri, although an incredibly fucked-up person herself, was an adult who drugged and forced herself on a teenager.
Contrary to an argument I've seen elsewhere, I think the Yuri/Ringo scene was presented in an exploitative way. There wasn't just a little bit of male gaze applied to poor Ringo; there were pans over her sweaty legs, her sweaty cleavage, her sweaty naked hip... you get the picture. And since she was drugged up at the time, she couldn't even say anything about it until the beginning of the next episode. Meanwhile, there was plenty of attention given to her would-be rapist's feelings as Yuri went into an angsty monologue -- about half of which we'd already heard in another, frankly more effective, angsty monologue from earlier in the same episode.
In short, the scene tried to make viewers feel more sympathy for the perpetrator, while the victim was temporarily reduced to an object.
Come to think of it, Utena had a rape scene that was viewed through the eyes of the rapist, and that wasn't presented as anything exploitative; in fact, it was made abundantly clear that the viewpoint was meant to be unsettling for viewers. The scene itself was all about Utena's feelings as she went into her erratic monologue, and it stayed focused on her face for most of it while never gazing at her body; in other words, the victim was presented as a sympathetic subject -- a person -- not as an object for her rapist to do things to. That's more than I can say for the Yuri/Ringo scene.
Now to address how Yuri's tragic past was handled... I don't have a problem with the backstory itself. (Actually, it's the only grounds on which I feel sympathy for Yuri anymore.) I also don't have any inherent problem with characters who have sexually abusive backstories that can lead to them taking out their issues in horrible ways. What I did have a problem with, in this case, was that Yuri's backstory wasn't just used to explain her actions; it felt to me like it was used to excuse her, which I don't think is right at all. Not matter how awful her childhood experiences were or how sympathetic they made her, it still shouldn't have earned her a free pass from the narrative for what she tried to do to Ringo. Couple with the fact that she never faced any repercussions for her actions, and we end up with a frustrating karma houdini.
I'm also pretty sure the bit at the end of episode 15 wasn't trying to say "lol it was just a dream". Instead, it was all about the fact that Yuri didn't go ahead and actually rape Ringo after all, which apparently makes it all okay -- because it's not like attempted rape of a minor is a terrible crime in itself, right? Nothing to be held accountable for, right? And there's totally nothing wrong with Yuri making a gross "why don't you ravish her" crack at Shouma then, right? Or Yuri making a joke to Ringo two episodes later about how much fun they had at the hot spring and why don't they go again, with Ringo just being "yeah, okay I guess" about it, right?
I just don't get how anyone can think there was nothing problematic about the way that whole thing was handled.
The fact that there's "sexy" official art based on the Yuri/Ringo scene, like the end card from episode 14 itself, makes it all the worse to me. There's even a piece of magazine art that presents their relationship as something cute, and that's just... no.
I just have a huge problem with the way it handles certain elements, especially in a certain situation that occurs in episodes 14 and 15. I've even touched on it a little here on DW before, though I never went into it in as much detail as I do in this rant.
To sum up the rant -- which was originally from around 4 years ago -- I feel that after Utena did a good, respectful job at handling the topic of rape for the most part, Penguindrum took a very big step backwards in that regard.
-
The rape jokes and ~oh so funny~ perving on random girls by #1 don't exactly get things off to a good start. To single out one of the grossest examples, are we really meant to think that a scene of #1 shoving a thermometer up a nurse's ass without her knowledge (never mind consent) is comedy gold? I certainly don't believe so, but Ikuhara seems to think differently.
As for the attempted rapes themselves... to give Ikuhara credit where it's due, I appreciate that he at least acknowledges that female-on-male and female-on-female rape are things that exist, and that they're not good things. That still doesn't change the fact that there are huge problems with how the situations are presented -- especially the female-on-female one.
Perhaps surprisingly, I don't have so many issues with the Ringo/Tabuki scene. That's not to say it didn't have any issues at all -- there was some male gaze that drooled over Ringo there, for a start -- but what made it less awful to me was the fact that Ringo was at least called out on what she did, in a way that ultimately helped kickstart her character development and led to her becoming a better person. In other words, her actions had repercussions.
Another key difference between the Ringo/Tabuki and Yuri/Ringo scenes, before I go on to address the meat-and-potatoes of this post, is who the perpetrators were in relation to their victims. Ringo was a child -- a very fucked-up, misguided and desperate child, but a child all the same -- so despite the fact that she did some rotten things, I find it hard to hold too much against her. (And anyone who dares to do so much as insinuate that she had what Yuri tried to do to her coming after her earlier actions is going to get slapped.)
Yuri, although an incredibly fucked-up person herself, was an adult who drugged and forced herself on a teenager.
Contrary to an argument I've seen elsewhere, I think the Yuri/Ringo scene was presented in an exploitative way. There wasn't just a little bit of male gaze applied to poor Ringo; there were pans over her sweaty legs, her sweaty cleavage, her sweaty naked hip... you get the picture. And since she was drugged up at the time, she couldn't even say anything about it until the beginning of the next episode. Meanwhile, there was plenty of attention given to her would-be rapist's feelings as Yuri went into an angsty monologue -- about half of which we'd already heard in another, frankly more effective, angsty monologue from earlier in the same episode.
In short, the scene tried to make viewers feel more sympathy for the perpetrator, while the victim was temporarily reduced to an object.
Come to think of it, Utena had a rape scene that was viewed through the eyes of the rapist, and that wasn't presented as anything exploitative; in fact, it was made abundantly clear that the viewpoint was meant to be unsettling for viewers. The scene itself was all about Utena's feelings as she went into her erratic monologue, and it stayed focused on her face for most of it while never gazing at her body; in other words, the victim was presented as a sympathetic subject -- a person -- not as an object for her rapist to do things to. That's more than I can say for the Yuri/Ringo scene.
Now to address how Yuri's tragic past was handled... I don't have a problem with the backstory itself. (Actually, it's the only grounds on which I feel sympathy for Yuri anymore.) I also don't have any inherent problem with characters who have sexually abusive backstories that can lead to them taking out their issues in horrible ways. What I did have a problem with, in this case, was that Yuri's backstory wasn't just used to explain her actions; it felt to me like it was used to excuse her, which I don't think is right at all. Not matter how awful her childhood experiences were or how sympathetic they made her, it still shouldn't have earned her a free pass from the narrative for what she tried to do to Ringo. Couple with the fact that she never faced any repercussions for her actions, and we end up with a frustrating karma houdini.
I'm also pretty sure the bit at the end of episode 15 wasn't trying to say "lol it was just a dream". Instead, it was all about the fact that Yuri didn't go ahead and actually rape Ringo after all, which apparently makes it all okay -- because it's not like attempted rape of a minor is a terrible crime in itself, right? Nothing to be held accountable for, right? And there's totally nothing wrong with Yuri making a gross "why don't you ravish her" crack at Shouma then, right? Or Yuri making a joke to Ringo two episodes later about how much fun they had at the hot spring and why don't they go again, with Ringo just being "yeah, okay I guess" about it, right?
I just don't get how anyone can think there was nothing problematic about the way that whole thing was handled.
The fact that there's "sexy" official art based on the Yuri/Ringo scene, like the end card from episode 14 itself, makes it all the worse to me. There's even a piece of magazine art that presents their relationship as something cute, and that's just... no.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-18 12:01 am (UTC)The Yuri/Ringo scene had Shouma and his faceless friend Yamashita in the next room by some ridiculous coincidence, and Yamashita was the one listening through the wall and getting visibly excited about what he was hearing -- which makes it seem like we are meant to think the Yuri/Ringo scene is sexy. ~.~ Shouma does rush over to stop it right after that, but it's presented in a very comedic way (I think he tripped over some bedding when he got there?) that doesn't exactly do anything to improve my opinion on how the entire situation was handled.