Animated Society vs Reality
Idealizing, simplifying, and ignoring what is…
Some of you are a bit older than some of the newer crazes going on in culture and anime has been steamrolling in with big eyes the last decade. Anime was already popular in it’s root cultures based in japan and then venturing out to the mainland at the off-shoot of computer technology. I am not an analyst, so I don’t have any specific numbers other than the anime industry has reached a total net worth of about 24 billion dollars as of last year.
What I find interesting is that the character appearances born out of japan changed the appearance to many of the characters. Even though japan doesn’t really deal with a big obesity problem like America, the facial constructs provide an interesting question as to why Japanese artists wanted to animate another reality that wasn’t so based on current reality. There is nothing inherently wrong with this let me start out by saying. But one thing that brings me to question the relationship of the Japanese skin color in animation to the skin color of the actual people.
I realized that the japanese people have different ranges of skin color, as do some other asians that are not stereotypically yellow nor are they all white as many of the anime’s suggest. But anime’s aren’t necessarily to be relatable to just Japanese people as so many other people have grown interest in this interest. But what I think that bothers me the most is the ideation of many of the characters to esteeming a trendy fashionable attractive appearance especially with women. Many of the video games out there may be more inclined to push this envelope.
So I think there is nothing wrong with fantasizing over how beautiful and attractive characters in a show or game can be but when it gets to the point where we ignore the flaws in our current society, and try to sketch them out of the picture often, this doesn’t just relate to beauty but many other social issues such as financial inequality, I sense strong a disservice is being dealt and many of the industry producers are too blinded to recognize this for a number of reasons.
So I guess the question now is why?
To me it is fairly obvious and that is because throughout all of history, women have been put down and objectified for specific roles that have locked themselves in their personified gender. For we all know what culture tells us growing up which is boys should be strong and competitive and women should be weak and submissive. That is changing as time continues but at the same time, the anime production in society isn’t really doing much about this, and one of the root causes starts with money.
But I would honestly say that this goes beyond money because money is a neutral form of exchange. Money doesn’t say: “I kinda like men a bit more than women”, money takes on what we choose to perceive into it. So we might as what influenced people to use money to selectively target men as the superior gender and women the inferior? Well I think this is out of the question for most of our history textbooks, for they don’t even try to tell us of the many horrible influences that led to religious idoltry and scientific fanaticism. But one thing that I have made clear through my posts is that there is a certain type of being that has a malavolent intent. I am not saying they aren’t human, but they clearly lack fundamental human qualities found in most people.
I would not say that this makes them any less equal to anyone else, for I do believe strongly in the document of 1776 saying that all men (and women) are created equal. To feminist activists I know you may argue my previous point but I will let you argue that while I choose to share the points that I want to share in this story. But I think there is a obvious correlation in history, that at the onset of gender persecution, there have always been these specific types of beings throughout history who sought power and fortune quite ruthlessly.
So if these naracricists are somewhat of the cause for much of this facination on the body and co-depenent relationships with the sprinkles of spicy drama feuds built into the production, then if we are going to want change to happen, we must understand that people are going to have to get alternative sources of information than just their classic social media trending sources and their shows they watch. People will have to volunteer to make the sacrifice in hope of a better future as well as a better life for themselves, by using some form of communication to paint a different picture.
I am not advocating for anime to go away, but I am advocating for the consideration that perhaps the way we make anime is not actually in our best intentions despite the cultrual attatchments that have formed a connection with many of its viewers. I do sense there is a little bit more creativity or themed intimacy that is not purely lustful in the anime industry, but I sense quite strongly that is outweighed by the world view of how women and men should be in relationship to a very old ideology presented to the race long long ago.
Many will disagree but thats fine with me
I know many people will say that it has helped them overcome depression and create more meaning in their lives, perhaps even fueling them to pursue more creative work in their lives. My argument is that when you begin to like and form an attachment to a specific world view, often how these shows are personified, you cannot help but lock yourself into a psychological disease called cognitive dissonance. It’s really nothing to be ashamed about because we use are left side of our brain so much in life to discern between what is true and what is false, but very few of us are actually taught how this is the biggest part of life on earth that has been manipulated to give credit to people who are so strictly left brain oriented.
When we are given all sorts of information that is backed up by numbers, by studies, by surveys, by groupthink movements that institutionalize themselves as being what is effectively true most of the time, then the spiral of cognitive dissonance begins to almost create a predatory personalty disorder for many of the founding directors. This then trickles down into the minds of the masses and box-labels cultural engineering with gender specifc roles that are locked to further stimulate the psychological disease.
But anime’s don’t have to foster these toxic patterns that only breed further toxicity in society, and many of may have watched the film spirited away. There are some story lessons in their about the determination to keep trying to find your purpose and also about how there are kind and courageous individuals out there willing to help you, but I have not heard of many others besides one I have only heard of called violet evergreen. I will post a link here to reference one more that I heard of from a youtube channel (bewareeeeee youtube clickkkkkkk baaaaaiiiitttttt), called “Kimi no na wa” (Japanese) or “your name”. But other than these I have not seen or heard of others that may really challenge deep social constructs even though personally I would not say spirited away was very aggressive in challenging them, but on some levels studio ghibli did what they did.
In conclusion to everything that I have shared here, I think it will take some time before some real headwinds begin to rise on the horizon, but the only thing I know about how this can happen is if we become the headwinds ourselves. And in this age, it may seem very hard on how to do this especially if your thinking about involving direct judgement through the courts and what not which I am not asking anyone to do nor am in favor of that. God that would be hell trying to do anyways, but what I am favoring is that people advocate for specific types of unseen trends within societies informational cyber interactions.
You don’t have to be a master at delivering great debate cases for your arguments but I think we are at a time where people need courage to try to express some form of communication which doesn’t have to be through words, a new perspective on what is really going on within the social matrix. How is it affecting people psychologically and how is it molding the conditions we live in while allowing a small select group of a few men mostly, to gain most of the revenue that people work very hard to create? This may sound like a lot to hand or take into consideration but remember, we don’t need more heroes, we need more volunteers to choose the other direction than what is comfortable and normal. They don’t have to be big steps and rather I often advocate for consistent smaller steps that are quite big once you add them up.
So without further adu, I am happy to have shared this with all of you and I want to wish you a positive and optimistic side to what life can be like, we just must choose to percieve that reality and reality will over time begin to take the form of our perception. I am not saying don’t completely ignore what is traumatic or socially hard to acknowledge, but see it for what it is and then shift your focus to what truly is what we all want, which is to swim in the river of life, of our basic humanity, to serve others in knowing that we are actually serving ourselves.
I love all of you!
