Friday 23 July 2004

Pic of the day: Takeya with his portable slave, who is currently fully concentrating on eating melon bread, while her owner is trying to find a place to hide her from the landlord's daughter.

Objectifying women

I've lately watched 3 episodes of an anime called DearS. It is pretty funny much of the time. Sadly, there is also quite a bit of porn. Well, porn by my standards; evidently this is not objectionable to Japanese TV viewers, but I think Americans would see it differently. True, there are no actual genitals involved, but I get the distinct impression that the viewer is supposed to supply those. Excessive, pointless nudity abounds, and exceedingly bouncy breasts. As if the real things were not bouncy enough. But I digress.

The thing that really sets the show apart, indecency-wise, is the slave theme. In all fairness, this is integral to the plot, probably. Here is how it goes: A year ago, a spaceship with 150 humanoid aliens landed on earth. Actually it was an emergency landing, as their craft was damaged, and they had no engineers with them. Nobody on Earth has been able to fix their ship either, and the "DearS" as they are called are all a bunch of teens, mostly girls (although it is implied that there are boys, we don't see any). They are quite pretty, albeit really skinny, and have some slight supernatural powers, nothing exceptional. By now, they are trying to integrate into the Japanese society. Except one of them, who is not accounted for.

RenRenRen, the "faulty" DearS, ends up being rescued from a speeding car by a high school boy. (Surprise! Eh, no.) Evidently according to their culture, this makes her his eternal slave. This is kinda confusing for the boy. Luckily he lives alone, but the landlord's daughter checks in on him every day. That's why he hides the girl in the closet and stuff. Oh, and she is kinda skeptical of clothes initially.

While this can be funny in places, it is also disturbing, because there are so many women who are slaves in real life, and so many who have been for all purposes just that through history. There is still today a brisk trade in women, not just in developing countries but even across the borders of the world's richest and best educated nations. Apart from the outright slavery, there is the whole business of "mail order brides" and such. You don't see an equal number of "mail order bridegrooms".

Would it have been the same if a high school girl rescued a boy and he became her eternal slave? Somehow I think not.

***

The whole pornography thing is all about objectifying people, isn't it? And mostly women by far. You can see just from the front pages of the magazines that its all about showing women as bodies with no will of their own.

It's not that I can't understand that. I've had dreams, especially when I was younger, but a few also mentioned in these pages, where I was excited by helpless or humiliated women. That doesn't mean I think it is natural or right. Also when I was young, I routinely dreamed about killing men, but in real life I even avoid player vs player combat in games I play online. Most of us are aware, I hope, that dreams are not always guiding visions from God. Especially not dreams about hurting or humiliating others.

Of course, if some women want to be objectified, I can sympathize with that as well, to some extent. As an object, or a sufficiently brainwashed slave, you don't have any responsibility for what happens to you. Certainly there are times when this may have some appeal, and not least when it comes to sexuality, which is so tightly regulated by society in theory but so poorly patrolled in practice. To be able to say "But I had no choice in the matter" must be appealing sometimes. Thus also the large quantity of alcohol that goes into many western mating rituals, I guess.

But overall, I think making women into slaves detracts from what could otherwise be more appealing. And while I find some parts of this anime humorous, the slavery thing is not one such part. Not even when it is voluntary. I can see the appeal of play-acting such a situation, among many others, but that's pretty much it. Perhaps after centuries of sexual equality it may look different. But by then, I'm not likely to be around to appreciate it.