Let’s DO This!
The time has come to start talking about moe. Personally, I love the stuff because I find it calming and relaxing (I don’t list K-On!! as my favorite series for nothing), but the term comes with all kinds of crazy baggage so, let’s start with this article:
Jason Thompson could probably pwn my face off with his expertise, but I recoil a little from the implied argument that enjoying moe works endorses the viewpoint that women are objects and that real women are too complicated. Of course, the argument is strong, especially in light of the APA evaluation that violent video games lead to violent behavior indicating that we can’t just “leave it on the screen”. What’s more, the increasingly pathological behavior displayed by professed moe fans indicates an active desire to participate in the world on their TVs and their computer screens instead of the messy, real world. Mr. Thompson talks in an offhand manner about the inherent simplification of women that moe causes (which will be a continued subject of this blog) shaking a shameful finger at fans who enjoy the company of Ui and Sasami because they act as a complicated maternal stand-in.
The reality, of course, is the situation is a LITTLE more complicated. Anime itself seems to know (Welcome to the NHK, Eden of the East), as do some scholarly articles that the root of the problem ACTUALLY likes in the patriarchal paradox that’s given rise to NEET Culture. Patrick Galbraith astutely points out that the environment that spawned Otaku culture and moe rises from a culture that narrowly proscribes roles for men (and women) around the idea of men as “success objects”.
If men are defined by their ability to get a job and earn money, you retain your masculinity only insofar as you perform those tasks. In an expanding economy (see: the 1980’s), this viewpoint can be sustained by rapid growth and a wealth of opportunities, but in the wake of the “Lost Decade”, it’s… harder. Cut off from the standard social definition of manhood, NEET retreat from society but are at the same time, relegated to childhood by the external world. Cut off from women due to the pressures of the ‘marriage market’, and pushed into internet culture, it makes perfect sense that NEET have evolved an appetite for these sort of one-stop mates (child, mother, friend, sex object) that Jason Thompson indicates in his article.
Since it’s clear that these girls are the product of a society that is swallowing its own gender identity (see also: trap obsession), the question should move past whether moe itself is good or bad. As a product of an imperfect society, I feel that hand-wringing at it is an exercise in elitism that discounts the fact that maybe those shows are enjoyable—in moderation. Archetypal cartooning has been around for ages (see: Looney Tunes), and will probably be around for ages more.
What’s needed, I feel, is a good, counter-narrative of complicated and interesting female characters to whom we can point as examples. Well, that and a massive, progressive cultural re-imagining of male gender roles in Japan. But hey, start simple and dream big, no?
Additional reading: That Anime Blog
