Final Paper: Ambiguity of Manga
Jing Jing (jjing2@wisc.edu)
E Asian 376 Manga (Professor Adam L. Kern)
5/17/2014
Since World WarⅡ, a new art form called manga gradually attracts public attention. Although manga can be traced back to 19th century, modern manga originates between 1950s and 1960s. Modern manga is a kind of graphic novel which combines features of comic and traditional Japanese painting. It uses both words and pictures to portray a story, which differs from pure writing or painting. Due to interesting story, nice picture and cheap price, manga gains great popularity in Japan, even in the whole world. As its popularity grows, manga becomes a hot topic that is highly debated by the public and scholars. One interesting perspective among the discussions is the ambiguity of manga. According to Berndt[2], manga is ambiguous in both aesthetic and cultural aspects. Aesthetic ambiguity refers to blurring understandings caused by fundamental characteristics. Cultural ambiguity results from hybridization of various cultures. To be more specific, on one hand, the special pattern of manga that aligns words and pictures leads to an aesthetic ambiguity from a logical sense and the vague gender identity shows the same ambiguity from an aesthetical sense. Also, on the other hand, cultural ambiguity is not only a result of hybridizing Japanese and western cultures, but also a result of mixing different features of subcategories in manga.
Some people may argue that these ambiguities have no effect in manga reading, especially for experienced readers. However, it is not the case. They not only influence a reader on how to interpret manga, but also affect his or her general understanding of manga. For example, aesthetic ambiguity c...
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Women pageant queens think they are supposed to represent the ideal of female beauty. The tomboy is especially associated with childhood and is defined by the girlhood performance of masculinity. As Michele Abate noted, “The traits most Americans are likely to name as constitutive of this code of tomboy conduct include proclivity for outdoor play (especially athletics), a feisty independent spirit, and a tendency to don masculine clothing and adopt a boyish nickname” (Abate). What does it mean to be a boy in children’s literature and the kind of varieties of boys that are represented? J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series typically features a social, educational, and physical dangers of school life that provide opportunities for adventure, mischief, and exploration. This collection of experiences allows boys to enact traditional forms of boyhood while practicing many of adult men’s culture and the ability to plan out schemes. Not all boys in children’s literature fit these conventional models of the physically robust athlete, hearty survivalist, or mischievous bad boy. Children’s literature also includes boys such as Laure in Little Women, who are described as sensitive, saintly, sickly, or effeminate. The literary and popular texts help understand expectations of boyhood and the insight into contemporary constructions of
different styles of imagery and the diction, can change the way the reader interprets the
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message are Jonathan Culler and Stephen Greenblatt. Culler points out that we read literature differently than we read anything else. According to the intertextual theory of how people read literature, readers make assumptions (based on details) that they would not make in real life.
context out of which a work of literature emerges molds the interpretation of gender in that work.
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The purpose of the essay is to answer the question: How has Archie Comics reflected changing gender norms in the United States of America from World War II to the present of women in contemporary American society, in its eventual challenge of the position of men as the dominant sex, and in its inclusion of previously marginalized sexual orientations? As entertainment primarily targeted to middle-class America, Archie is a helpful avenue by which to understand acceptable views. This paper will present gender roles portrayed in Archie Comics in three different time frames: the Forties, the Sixties, and the new millennium. It will analyze the establishment of traditional gender roles set forth in the earliest Archie Comic strips. Next it will critique the ways in which it responded to the challenges to these traditional norms and assess whether the comic incorporated these challenges or rebuffed them. Finally, this paper will evaluate the role of modern-day Archie Comics as a vanguard in the new discussion of gender roles and sexual orientation in America. For the purpose of analysis, issues of Archie representative of the era will be examined in conjunction with larger historical developments. These include: the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the post-feminist world following the 1970s, and the rise of LGBT acceptance.
During the late 20th century, Japan experienced the rise of feminist movements who desired to change the feminine historical narrative. How did Japanese women become empowered? The paper will demonstrate that the empowerment of Japanese women shifted the representation of them within the medium of anime films, during the late twentieth century. Specifically, it will analyze the female characters of Ghost in Shell, Princess Mononoke, Naussicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Patlabor. The reasoning behind these chosen films is that they each have a strong female character that have many differences and similarities, when one compares them to each other. Also, they were made within a ten year lifespan between the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties.
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