The Theory of Objectification in Anime

Objectification…that term is thrown around a lot. We hear it a lot…especially when it comes to sexism. In particular, I’ve written this as a bit of a precursor to the entire field of anime and the role of female characters. This post is intended to be more of an introduction to the concept and the problems surrounding it more than actually deriving anything unique or specific.

So, what exactly IS objectification? If we do something as simple as a Google search, the definition pretty much reads the conversion and treatment of a human into an object through tone and text. This might be hard to engage as a reader, so I’ll try explaining it below:

Sentence Structure

What an odd place to start you may say. Why do we start here you ask? It’s because I find if we retrace the basic concept of a sentence, it’s easy to relate the structure to the role and term.

So, in a sentence, we have two key nouns: a subject and an object. Simply put, a sentence can be broken down into subjects doing something to an object. For example, in the sentence “I charged the door”, I am the subject, the door is an object, and the action is charging it.

All well and good, but how does this help us understand objectification? One of the biggest aspects of character traits is the concept of agency. Agency is the power for a character to influence the fictional world around them. If they are in trouble, can they help themselves? If they need to convince someone of something, can they? So on and so forth. When we take this back to our sentences, if they can do these actions, they are subjects. They are actively doing something. In the simplest sentence, we can reduce it to a similar structure of the above: The [character] [did something] [to someone else].

Passive Wording and Objects

This is where objectification itself comes in: an object cannot retain the structure above without breaking grammatical conventions. If an object is conducting in action, it creates something called “passive voice”. I should know…most of my sentences become passive voice unless I actively seek to remove it from my work. Let’s use the same door charging example above though. I we decided to keep the same structure but have the object (door) act, we could get “The door was charged by me”. Notice how the object is acting. This creates passive voice. One of the easiest ways to identify passive voice is if you need to specify upon whom the object is acting upon. This isn’t a hard and fast rule but it should catch most of them. In this case, it is “me” who is being acted upon by “the door”.

Stop Dancing Around the Subject Man…How Does This Help?

With that background in mind, we can describe a story in brief sentences like the above. Our hero rescues the captive, our hero defeats the bad guy and so forth. Now let’s take a second here and get something straight: using characters as objects on its own is not a bad thing. In fact, this is pretty much key in this regard. If any interaction occurs between characters, we will almost invariably need to create objects out of characters. Even “I hit Adam” means you’ve turned Adam into an object that you can hit to a very small degree.

Where characters become objectified is when their personality becomes almost exclusively defined by how other characters act on them. They do not exert a will or any agency on the universe but instead are continually subjected to the will of other characters. For example, Peach (fine..Princess Toadstool) would always be treated as an object. If we use the sentence structure I defined, we’ll find she’s always the object of her stories when we describe the original Mario Brothers game. Peach was abducted by Bowser. Peach was moved to another castle (presumably by Bowser again). Peach was rescued by Mario. In each case, she’s the object. It’s unfair to pin this all on the game, sure, since storytelling in video games itself were fairly limited at the time, but we don’t get the sense that Peach did anything.

And is objectification on its own bad? No. The implementation of it an become concerning though in associating groups of individuals with being object.

Group Objectification

This is the only you’ve most likely heard about before. In particular, objectification of female characters in anime sometimes becomes a particularly sticky subject as claims of them being used as purely bait for male characters becomes emphasized. Indeed, I think you could make a point of that by saying that poorly written harem anime exemplifies this at its worst: each female character only exists to appeal to a small part of the viewer profile and do not interact with each other.

But at least you get fields of pretty girls for all your trouble…or something.

And here’s where I’ll declare something fundamental in my opinion: anime is not a medium isolated from the “real” world. Society affects it and it affects society. How much can be debated – god knows people still debate until they’re red in the face how important or influential movies and video games are for children. However, we certainly know that entertainment is not isolated. The way you see the world is changed and altered by what you watch and read. Have you never seen a show or read a book that you feel you should integrate into you system of thought or process? If not, I would imagine you are in the minority. Heck, Extra Credits (again, I love that group) just about had a fit when they were talking about Call of Juarez: The Cartel for this exact reason and it’s one of the few times they ever had to self censor themselves. I’ve posted the link talking about propaganda games (the more important aspect), but I would look that up if you have the chance.

The gritty details themselves may be geared more towards games, but if anybody opens it, I want to make sure you understand that these do not exist alone. What we read and see can influence how we act. And it is through this that designers need to be somewhat careful that they don’t overstep or overemphasize specific material.

I’ll give you a personal example: my ability to write has been drastically altered after playing 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors. While this was later altered by my own idiosyncrasies, the methods I go about writing characters and revealing their true character traits have changed dramatically.

So, why all this? Well, I think we need to understand that while objectification of characters themselves is not harmful, tying objective traits to specific groups is. Again, let’s return to the video above. These things aren’t effective when you think of them as such, but when they’re quietly place, you might cause shifts in thought. But if they are subtly and accidentally placed in and we don not think of them as effects that can alter our thought, we can be prone to changing our opinion because of them. And this is where I believe most people feel concern if they think about objectification of characters in anime: too many objectified characters of a specific group can lead to thought of that group being more of an object because they have been engaged as such previously. Again, this heavily comes down from the female character side, but there are other small sections on this.

Really, and I’ll emphasize this as many times as I think it’ll take to get through: objectified characters are not an issue. Objectification itself isn’t an issue. But objectification of groups repeatedly through different shows may influence the viewership if they are not aware of it. I will also repeat that it’s impossible typically to measure the effects of it and should not be taken as an excuse to censor or to alter. But awareness is key. Being aware means being capable of recognizing when objectification is used. By recognizing, it is possible to not be prone to incidental indoctrination as described in the Extra Credits video.

Well, that’s all for now. Hopefully I’ll have something more fun to talk about next time.

The Anime/Video Game Connection

So this has been a post I’ve been trying to string together for a while.  This topic is one I’ve thought long and hard about…so my apologies in advance if I skip steps or forget to explain something; I’ve been working at this for so long that I’ve probably assumed you know some things I just don’t bother to explain.  The concept is about how close anime and video games actually are.

Reading this over, I realize how much passive voice I’ve used.  Screw it though.  It’s 1:30 AM and I’ve spent a couple different mornings working on this.

Anyways, the fundamental reason I’m writing this post is because I’ve noticed a very strong trend in Western media: video games and anime typically don’t get a lot of recognition as an art or explored medium.  And it almost purely seems to be the two.  I mean, the two seem to get a lot of flak for any nudity, violence, and more.  They aren’t given respect as a medium.  They sometimes deal with mature subjects, but aren’t treated as if they can competently grapple with such topics.  Yet transpose such stories to literature or film…or even some live action TV settings and they can get lauded for dealing with a tough story or situation.  I mean, Black Swan gets away with a literal scene of “Milas Kunis eats out Natalie Portman” and gets cheers for the whole movie being creepy.  Don’t believe me?  Ask TVtropes.  Heck, at one point acclaimed film critic Robert Ebert decried that video games could never be an art.  He later changed his tone, saying that it really isn’t possible for him to judge, but you get the idea of how industry really does feel about games in general.

I’m rambling again.  Let’s redirect this topic: if we tried to add the same sex scene into a reasonably melodramatic game for, to keep the parallels similar, adding a level of “creepiness” to the game, I don’t think it’d fly very well.  I don’t mean “add sex for the sake of sex” in anime or video games.  I mean adding it for a good reason in story.  I’m honestly scratching on the order of 1 game which has ever tried that (Red Dead Redemption) and really didn’t get decried for it.  Well, maybe if you’re looking at smaller and less observed games, visual novel fans may point me to Katawa Shoujo, but let’s keep it at big title games as I’m not sure if moral guardians are trying to smoke out visual novels too much.  Actually, that reminds me, I should go try that out at some point…oh, how my “must try” list keeps getting longer and longer as I get older.  Unfortunately, I see similar tones come out about anime.

At this point, I will again highlight that this is strongly an indicator of Western media and should not be misconstrued how others may view anime.  I can’t speak to that as strongly.  However, Western readers…please take a second to think about how anime is viewed by the typical person you know.  Think about what happens if you said you, again, tried to add the same for artistic reasons.  Then tell your non-anime fan friend.  Tell your neighbour.  Tell critics.  I don’t think you’ll get the same response.

Now, I think this may be a bit unclear, since there are legitimately some people who probably do think the Black Swan scene is over-the-top, so let’s try another example and just cut it down to the barest elements.  Let’s tell someone you’re making and artistic [blank] with nudity in it.  Tell a hundred random people you’re making an art house style novel.  You’ll probably get a quick question, but people understand it.  Heck, people jump to Game of Throne’s defence when they say it has too many breasts in it, saying it’s just being fair to the literature source material.  Nobody complained about that.  Actually, this works on two levels, since this reflects both our ability to accept mature themes in both live action shows as well as literature.  Literature, especially, is recognized as a traditional art medium.  Heck, after a little cleaning up, On the Road is considered a classic.  If that doesn’t define pure art and its ability to utilize odd and somewhat controversial elements, what does?

At any rate, follow this up by asking some people about making artistic movies with nudity.  Again, a few questions, but it’s perfectly accepted.  I mean, I started off with an example of a fairly unusual sequence which people seem fine with.  Heck, what I was talking about above utilized sex as a strong fundamental point in a movie.

For full effect, now try asking about making artistic video games using nudity.  Again, ask completely random people.  I’m sure many of you will get questions as “what exactly IS that?” or laughs if you tell them it means adding in tasteful nudity for effect.  I mean, this is the same genre that has is infamous for the God of War 3 scene, am I wrong?  And that is one of the most famous examples of sex in video games to come out of the recent era.  Extra Credits did an excellent video on how immature nudity is handled and this story keeps getting reflected back when you think about video games and sex.

Finally, tell them you’re planning to add nudity into an anime project you’re working out.  Once you explain what anime is, I suspect your response will be along the lines of “oh, you’re making hentai”.  Cue your eyes rolling and wishing I had never sent you on this journey.

Just great, isn’t it?  So, why all this disconnect?  I mean, it’s not like artistic games and artistic anime don’t exist.  If you’re like me and collect these sorts of shows and games over time, you start building a unique collection of creative and unique medium to enjoy.  Heck, even anime or video games recognized as artistically valid rarely change these opinions.  Spirited Away won an Academy Award in 2001 for best animated film and it’s STILL not recognized widely as an artistic medium. So what’s up?

It’s all about acceptance and appearance in my opinion.

What do you think of when you think book?  I personally imagine a well established organization, one who has shown to be a mature, understanding genre.  Same with movies.  There was a time in which they were worried about violence, but that’s slowly died down in favour of video game bashing.  When these mediums get their hands on controversial matter, people don’t start attacking them and saying that they are overstepping their limits.  It might not always happen that they deal with it properly, but people are willing to give them a leash.  As an artistic medium, as the Extra Credits video above discussed (should you have watched it), it has earned that right of passage by showing that it can competently deal with it on a reasonably consistent basis.

And this is where I feel video games and anime have been lumped together by Western society at large: both anime and video games are not given proper respect in Western society with regards as artistic mediums in part because they don’t do enough to defy common conventions.

I keep referring to the Extra Credits video, but I feel there are huge comparisons you can make between anime in the West and video games in this respect.  When the mediums started out, they were a blank slate.  For years, they have both dealt with them at only the barest of levels: fan service.  I mean, anime was well-known by the ’90s as being the medium of drawing pretty, perfect girls…long before it became nearly standard practice.  And, hell, this was the decade where Lina freakin’ Inverse could be at the butt of breast size jokes (which, when artists realized this, has led to a really funny trend in recent years in her art).

No, seriously.

At any rate, let’s continue.  Anime and video games developed a pattern really quick of handling sexuality in really immature ways.  The common exports of the ’70s to ’90s were often shows aimed for younger audiences (ranging from Pokemon to Voltron) with the extremely rare exceptions outside of that.  Unfortunately, the adult medium permeated as well.  This led to quite the market of adult materials playing alongside it.  What this leads to in both mediums is the concept, whether right or wrong, that they simply aren’t a full-fledged artistic medium because of the fact that there isn’t proper handling of mature subjects yet.  And, as such, they aren’t really treated well with the aspects of their medium which actually do a good job dealing with it.  When you hear the words “sex” and “video game”, we don’t think of well handled topics.  You think of hypersexualization and treatment of characters more as sex symbols than all else.  Similarly, when I think “sex” and “anime”, my mind typically wanders in all the wrong directions in its handling, from the pointless (even when compared to the manga) use in High School of the Dead to the ever-present representation of moe character design to flat-out hentai.  I don’t go to scenes like the one used in Gundam SEED where, the longer and harder you think about it, the more you realize it’s really creepy what’s going on and how it really shows how mentally shattered the characters in the scene are.

Really…What. The. Hell.

But this is the killer, and the part I want everybody to take away.  It’s the biggest reason why I don’t think the mediums are respected artistically: the mediums of video games and anime do not do enough to defy conventional thought about the medium.  Of course, this comes with the assumption that people are rational beings.

Oh look, I jump a couple of steps there, didn’t I?  Well, here’s exactly what I mean: if people are rational, then they will change their stance if evidence proves them wrong on a basis frequent enough to challenge their current beliefs.  In this case, if video games or anime continually deal with mature subjects in a mature and meaningful way, then the public will change its mind to fit the new reality around it.  As the Extra Credits video easily identifies, the fact that this doesn’t happen confirm the current beliefs and further leaves the medium in a whole it seems unable to scale out of.

While I’ve spent a lot of time talking about sex, this applies to many other subjects as well.  Race and culture for example.  While it’s a video game example, I’ve always thought the character of Elisa from Tokimeki Memorial 4 is a brilliant example of the subject.  Elisa is a character pretty much purely written as a critique of Japan’s extremely xenophobic tendencies: even if you are a Japanese citizen, you’re not going to be treated as one unless you look the part.  As a brief summary so you get the point: Elisa is a Japanese citizen who isn’t treated as such purely because she doesn’t fit the fairly homogeneous look of Japan.

And this is why I so strongly identify with Miyazaki’s comments (talked about previously): I really do think anime can be a legitimate and defined medium alongside film and literature.  The same goes with games.  They are mediums which can offer extremely quality and unique insights into the reality we inhabit.  Games can provide a unique interactive medium, something that can strengthen certain messages.  A common example is to heighten the powerlessness the protagonist may have.  But that’s more of an aside…the highlight is that these genres have something that can they can provide to the culture at large much better than they do today.

However, the culture which people see must change with it.  The public in general needs to see and understand that anime/games are more than what they think they are.  Again, when you challenge perception, the perception needs to be changed to accommodate the new information. But the problem is, and this hold greatly for anime, that the fans are becoming more and more exclusive and the companies are acting to direct to favour that.  As I expressed in my last post, the direction of industry seems to be more of one to favour fans who are comfortable with the culture already, creating a dedicated but niche group of fans.  In fact, this is perpetuating the already existent stereotype of anime fans.  As such, there is very little challenging of the original belief.

Now, I’m not saying we should take every fan service laden show out back and shoot it.  Far from the truth.  I might not like the shows (as I have a fairly low tolerance of fan service before I roll my eyes), but that’s quite the wrong way to go about it.  The bigger step is to have aspects which challenge it, much the way Gundam SEED did in its day by showing a character having sex (for a mature intent from artistic points of view).

From hereon out, I’m going to lead more into a “how we can go about this” discussion.  It’s not terribly important to this connection that I’m trying to draw, but I feel it’s relevant enough that I want it down.  I’ll also limit my discussion to anime.

Now, this kind of leads me into the second part of what I really need to say and where I begin to diverge from Extra Credits’ well done video: I don’t think it’s up to the companies to change.  Companies, in my mind, are nothing more than machines designed to generate money.  Separate the customer from their money as cleanly and efficiently as possible.  Anime companies are just another group of individuals looking to do this separation by looking at how much we enjoy animated cells moving around.

To this end, I would suggest that to change anime, there needs to be a grassroots movement to want this sort of medium.  The simple concepts in supply and demand suggest that if people showcase a high demand, the production (assuming all else is fair) will try to fill the demand.

So, this turns into the following conclusion:

In order for anime to be respected as a legitimate artistic medium, fans need to treat it as one by showing this desire with their wallets. This will lead companies to shift production in that direction, challenging common stereotypes of anime.

Of course, it’s also important to note that first part:

In order to make change and get anime respected as a medium, we need to put our wallets on the line.

And I guess that is my challenge to you: if you want to see anime respected, put money anime which represents the direction you want to go.