This week we have a lot of material to pull together: Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams's documentary Dream Girls, Makiko Yamanashi's chapter on young girls' culture and Takarazuka, Yoshiya Nobuko's short story "Forget-Me-Not," plus information from the lecture and a few example clips of Takarazuka performances.
I want you to consider Dream Girls and Yamanashi side-by-side, because they have very different responses to the lesbian undertones that are often attributed to the Takarazuka tradition. Aside from providing you with two conflicting points of view regarding this hot-button issue, the two studies also highlight the degree to which "documentary" materials (either in film or in writing) are invariably shaped by the director/author's agenda.
In contrast to Dream Girls and Yamanashi's chapter, which are both recently produced commentaries on female-female bonds, girls' culture, and the Takarazuka Revue, Yoshiya's "Forget-Me-Not" is a primary text from the prewar period. Although it does not deal with Takarazuka per-se, it does arise out of the same cultural milieu and addresses essentially the same constellation of issues.
Here are some questions to think about as you synthesize the different parts of the assignment.
Dream Girls
I'll start with the documentary Dream Girls. You can check the DVD out from the media collection in Green Library or watch it online here. Once you've seen the documentary, please consider the following questions:
1. How does the documentary present the Takarazuka performance style? What type of scenes do the documentary makers choose to show?
2. What about the interviews with the actors? How do they describe their careers? How do they talk about the status of otokoyaku (performers of male roles) and onnayaku (performers of female roles)?
3. How is the Takarazuka School presented in the documentary? What aspects of school life and curriculum are emphasized?
4. How does the documentary represent Takarazuka fans? How do they talk about the Revue and its actresses? What role does the Revue play in their lives? What accounts for their intense loyalty to Takarazuka?
5. How would you describe the documentary's agenda? How does this agenda shape its presentation of the material?
Yamanashi
Before posing any questions about Yamanashi's chapter, first let me clarify her position. Yamanashi is an independent scholar with close ties to the Takarazuka management, so you can view her account as an English-language version of the Revue's official history.
1. Yamanashi devotes considerable attention to the moga, or modern girl, a figure with which you are already familiar. How does Yamanashi describe the moga? What does she see as the salient features of this prewar feminine icon?
2. After considering the moga, Yamanashi turns her attention to the figure of the otome, or the virgin. She prefaces her discussion of this figure with a reference to a transition from a period of civilization and character to an era of culture and personality. What does this mean and how does it shape her subsequent discussion? What point is Yamanashi making with her discussion of purity and integrity as it relates to young women?
3. Yamanashi introduces the term ren'ai, or pure love, a key cultural concept to emerge in modern Japan. What is ren'ai? What is its role in prewar Japanese young girls' culture? And how is it different from concepts like giri (obligation), ninjô (emotion), and iro (desire) that we have already encountered in this class?
4. Yamanashi touches on the controversial topic of s-kankei or girl-girl bonds. What does she have to say about this widespread prewar social phenomenon? How does she connect it to Takarazuka and their fan base?
5. In her discussion of Takarazuka fan culture, Yamanashi refers to the concept of imagined communities. What does she mean by this term and how does she use it?
6. Throughout the chapter Yamanashi focuses on the issue of gender, specifically femininity. How does she conceive of gender? What does she suggest about the impact of Takarazuka and Takarazuka fandom on prewar notions of femininity? How does she interpret gender performance in Takarazuka and its impact on the Revue's mostly female fan base?
"Forget-Me-Not"
The other written document we will read this week is Yoshiya Nobuko's "Forget-Me-Not," a short story from her immensely popular collection titled Flower Tales.
1. How does the short story depict the emotional life of its female characters? Is their love "pure" or can you detect an erotic component?
2. How does the story depict femininity?
3. What gendered and romantic values does the story advocate?
4. The symbiotic relationship between prewar "young girls fiction" (shôjo bungaku) and the Takarazuka Revue is famous. Admittedly you are working from an extremely small sample, but how does the worldview, aesthetics and atmosphere of this story compare to that of the Takarazuka Revue? How are they similar and how are they different?
5. Although neither the documentary nor Yamanashi's chapter focuses on Yoshiya's fiction, their argument about the relevance of lesbian subculture to the Takarazuka Revue can easily be applied to works like "Forget-Me-Not." What, in your opinion, makes this short story so hard to pin down? Why is it so difficult, yet so tempting, to attribute a lesbian perspective not only to Yoshiya's fiction, but also to Takarazuka and prewar Japanese girls' culture in general?
6. Yoshiya is famous for incorporating elements from the writing style employed by girl students. How would you describe her written style? How does it contribute to the romantic atmosphere of the story?
JFK
In lecture on Tuesday I will show short clip from the Takarazuka production, JFK:
1. How would you describe the different elements of a Takarazuka performance: acting, musical numbers, settings, costumes, and makeup?
2. What strikes you as noteworthy about the plot lines?
3. What about the acting styles and modes of self presentation of the actresses who perform male roles and female roles?
4. Do these performances seem to offer a larger commentary on gender? Does the practice of using only female performers challenge or perpetuate conventional gender roles?
5. Outside of Japan, the response to Takarazuka has been tepid at best. This was especially the case when a traveling production performed on Broadway in the late 1990s. Why do you think US audiences were disappointed by their exposure to Takarazuka?
Miscellaneous
And here are a few general questions about the material.
1. How should we interpret the appeal of the Takarazuka Revue to its female fans? Does it offer them a free space to explore and experience more liberated expressions of gender and sexuality? Does it re-enforce normative gender and sexual roles through its policies and plot lines? Or does its appeal lie somewhere else?
2. For the first time in this class we are taking into account how consumers respond to cultural texts like a Takarazuka performance. To what extent, do you think, can fans interpret Takarazuka in ways that depart from the intentions of the Revue's management? Are there limits to fan interpretation? Does the producer/management side ultimately hold the upper hand?
3. Is the label lesbian applicable to any of this material? Are we dealing with a sexual identity or something else entirely?
4. Closely related to the preceding question: How would you define the female-female bonds presented in this material? How relevant is the world of commercial entertainment and fantasy to the real lives of women in Japan, even professed Takarazuka fans?
5. And finally what kind of commentary does this material offer on the Japanese male?
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