Greed And Materialism In Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away

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The animated film director Hayao Miyazaki is most known for his 2001 film Spirited Away. The film centers around the character Chihiro who finds herself stuck into a spirit world after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba. With her parents cursed, Chihiro is forced to work for her and her parents freedom. Miyazaki uses the bath house and the witch Yubaba to depict the greed and materialism that surfaces within a capitalist society. The film begins with Chihiro and her parents driving to their new home. Her father decides to take a shortcut and the family comes across an abandoned theme park. As they wander around the park, they see a stall that is serving fresh food. Her parents immediately sit down and start to eat the suspicious food without a care. Chihiro, who has grown irritated and worried about the abandoned park, questions her parents actions. Her father replies “Don’t worry, you’ve got Daddy with you. He’s got credit cards and cash!” Miyazaki uses this initial scene to display the inherent greed …show more content…

All she cares about in the film is earning gold and her baby Boh. The baby Boh is used in the film to emphasize Yubaba’s extreme materialism. Yubaba’s twin sister, Zeniba, breaks into her office to retrieve the golden seal that was stolen from her. Zeniba decides to punish her sister for this by turning Boh into a mouse and Yubaba’s henchmen into Boh. Yubaba doesn’t realize what Zeniba has done until Haku points it out that something precious to her has been replaced. Yubaba believes that Haku is talking about her gold initially until she finally understands that her means Boh. She is so absorbed into the wealth that the bath house gives her that she didn’t even recognize that her baby was actually her henchman in disguise. Miyazaki uses Yubaba to emphasize how materialism has caused her to lose sight of her family and focus solely on earning as much gold as she

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