Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Feminist Theory

            Many major films produced in Hollywood today place males at the forefront of films, dominating the majority of roles while leaving the passive, comforting and domestic roles to women, who discuss little other than the men that control the film. I argue that by looking from a feminist perspective at two characters in director Hayao Miyazaki’s anime film Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), we can see that creating several oppositional traits present in the film challenge traditional gender roles that are evident in wider society.
 

            The Bechdel Test was developed and embraced by the gay/lesbian community and popularized in response to the lack of female protagonists present in present day films. Feminist theory is greatly concerned with these politics of representation, how different groups, primarily females, are being presented to the film’s audiences and are representative of the wider public (Gray 2010:70). In applying the Bechdel Test to Hayao Miyazaki’s film Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) we see that the movie passes with flying colours. The movie involves the military searching for the fabled city of Laputa, existing as a flying ship protected by large thunderstorms, while several smaller groups attempt to stop them. As a self-proclaimed feminist, Miyazaki often centers the plot on many female characters, projected as independent and competent individuals that attempt to repress patriarchal systems. Such is the case with Sheeta, as pictured, the protagonist in Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), a confident and strong young girl. Though the film does depict Pazu – a miner whom Sheeta meets – as Sheeta’s savior, it is Sheeta who is in control of solving the problems that arise. Escaping away from several sky pirates with Pazu, Sheeta is the one leading the way, making the decision to run into the village, hide in railway tunnels, and use the mines as a tool to losing her trackers. Also, with the help of Pazu, it is Sheeta’s efforts that destroy Colonel Muska’s chances of harnessing Laputa for the military’s benefit as a super-weapon, using the Spell of Destruction found in her mystical pendant. Miyazaki gives Sheeta the characteristics that traditionally fall to the male, in both Hollywood and Japanese films.

            Miyazaki also challenges traditional representation in creating the character of Dola, a matriarch heading a pirate family of sons that loot the skies, a job that opposes the patriarch system of governance in place. As a heavier-set woman, her presence is felt much more than other pirates in the skies as well as the villain Colonel Muska. Her loud aggressive behaviour and courageousness significantly overshadow the actions of her three smaller sons. Her overbearing personality is creatively juxtaposed to her husband’s submissive and very passive quality, contributing little depth to the movie. After initially pitting Dola against Sheeta, Miyazaki allies the two in a front against Colonel Muska and the traditional Japanese society he represents. Even the colours Dola and her family wear are reversed, with Dola wearing blue (a colour often seen as the exemplary colour associated with males) and her sons and husband wearing orange frocks and pink bottoms. Miyazaki utilizes Dola in a creative way to again challenge the representation of women in film in direct ways.

            We see here how director Hayao Miyazaki has reversed traditional images and roles of men and women in Japanese film to challenge past and contemporary gender roles and inequalities in wider Japanese society, one arguably the most tied to its roots in terms of values. It is no surprise that in 2002 he won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature with his work Spirited Away (2001) and been nominated for his 2004 flim Howl’s Moving Castle.

References

Gray, Gordon

2010  Film Theory. In Cinema: A Visual Anthropology, Pp.35-73. Oxford, New York: Berg.

Miyazaki, Hayao

1986 Laputa: Castle in the Sky. 126 min. Tokuma Shoten. Japan.