Only Not Quite
Or: The Reverse Harem isn’t Equal
[A blond, white boy lies on the grownd in a white jacket and shirt, smiling. The text says, “I’m scared I’ll never love a guy as much as I love Tamaki Suou” source: http://animangaconfessions.tumblr.com/post/9677303129 ]
So, this post isn’t JUST an excuse to show a confession about Tamaki (although I love Tamaki). What I really want to talk about is asymmetrical objectification. See, shoujo anime has, thanks to its root in shoujo manga (yay Tautology!) supposedly represents the feminine view and therefore should contain healthy doses of objectification and sexualization just like comics for dudes, right?
Yes, well… Kind of. See, David Willis gets HALFWAY there in his brilliant send up of gender roles on Shortpacked!, but doesn’t follow through by demonstrating how characterization and the “gaze” of the work contribute to objectification. And here, the tropes that indicate the work’s pedigree as shoujo (manga for girls) actually eschew the kind of degrading sexualization that women receive in many shounen (manga for boys, see Fairy Tail, for an example).
Ouran provides a particularly good example, because unlike, say, Kaichou wa Maid-sama (which has a completely DIFFERENT set of problems) the boys here are appealing, but not objectified. All five guys are “built for speed” as Amber of Shortpacked! put it and they all have large eyes (true of all anime, of course, but again, if you compare Tamaki Suoh to Takumi Usui, you get what I’m driving at), but the devil is in the details and this time, it’s the poses. See, when Tamaki rushes in to save Haruhi, or Mori mugs for the camera shirtless while chopping wood, what we see is men doing and our admiration for and attraction to them comes from displays of bravado/strength/competence. Contrast this to panty shots of fallen girls or pans over them in their swimsuits on the beach and you’ll see where the problems lie.
True, Ouran offers us plenty of fan-servicey spreads when we introduce the boys in their costumes, but it still adheres to the unspoken rules of male sexualization. Notice that the butler outfits and kimono from the garden party show very little skin in comparison to the short skirts of maid cafe employees.
