Hi
I was really glad to see part of Spirited Away. It was a little slow in some parts and I imagine it loses something in translation from Japanese to English. I wanted to show this movie in class to initiate a discussion about many of the concepts in our chapters: epicureanism, stoicism, the power of the name, the nature of good and evil, the presence of a supreme being. I think our film does not emphasize the dual nature of good and evil so present in Western culture. I was thinking about how good and evil were always black and white issues in the early days, but Spirited Away may be developing a different perspective.
What observations do you have about the chapters and the movie?
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Good and Evil can not really just “black and white”. For one reason what is Evil and what is Good? It will changed dependent to who you talk to. For example some people think bush was evil will others think he was a good man and for many of the same reasons. One example is the war in Iraq lots of people feel that it was an evil thing and he was just out for oil, however others felt that he did it to product America from WMDs and terrorists. Another reason Good and Evil cant really be “black and white” is that so called evil people can do good things and the other way around. There is nothing stopping a good person from doing any thing evil or an evil person doing something good.
ReplyDeleteSomething really prevalent in the first part of the movie was the idea of Western greed. Sen's parents were painfully Anglo, and her father was doubly so. (Heh.) They took the spirits' food without work, and then turned into pigs. We shouldn't be lazy like the Americans, we should have a good work ethic.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Andy to say that good and evil are not always "black and white". Instead it's a mixture of the two, a gray area if you will. Within the movie, there are aspects of both good and evil but no character (other than Sin) is completely or entirely evil. Several examples include Yu-Babba who uses magic to control her workers and even goes so far to threaten her workers with death, however she never does carry out the task. Still yet, Yu-Babba cares for a baby that she dearly loves and thus displays the act of love for another being. Another example is Haku who is perceived by others just as evil as Yu-Babba but discovers the power love to return him back to his kind self. The last example is No Face who helps Sin, but becomes in gulped greed likes others in Yu-Babba's bathhouse.
ReplyDeleteThus, I think the issue is simply the fact that all people can display acts of good and evil. It is simply what they choose to display the most. I don't think people can be completely good or evil because of Plato's philosophy. Instead, we can only have the essence of good and evil. To be truly good or evil would mean one would have to exist in the realm of the Forms. This is also the main reason we cannot consider good and evil to be black or white because there is no definition of what each is. One will always be perceived as the other in different contexts. I conclude that good and evil interact to balance the universe.
The beginning of Spirited Away has some interesting references to chapter 3 material.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Sen's parents are captured as a result of their gluttony. One could argue that the parents are pursuing an Epicurean philosophy -- that they are fulfilling a natural necessary desire for food. However, since they go beyond what they need and become gluttonous (thus engaging in the pursuit of vain pleasure), they experience painful consequences.
Sen is taking the Stoicism route. She is caught in a confusing, disorderly situation, and the only way she can continue is to conform to this reality. We see this when she gets a job at the spa and proactively pursues happiness and fulfillment despite her present circumstance.
It's time for class now, but I'll blog more on this later :)
One of the things I love about anime, and Spirited Away is no exception to this, is that there are rarely "good" and "bad" characters. Yubaba for instance, is seen as a mean old magic lady who turns peoples parents into pigs and eats them, however on the other hand, if she lets things run out of control, the bath house is no longer a relaxing place for spirits. We also see her (grudgingly) accept the "stink" spirit into the bath house, sensing that there was more to the matter, even if she could have easily turned him out with her power.
ReplyDeleteWe also see her try to negotiate with No Face, again when she could have kicked him out. Although she clearly has a dislike of humans, on the whole she treats the guests fairly and doesn't outright abuse any of the staff--with the possible exception of ordering Haku thrown away when he was bleeding on her carpet, though note she said here "he'll be dead soon anyway", which could be interpreted as "there isn't anything we can do for him anyway."
She has a rather large enterprise to run, but still finds time to dote on her baby. We see a whole new side to her when she takes care of him, but at the same time she's also a bit absent minded and didn't notice he'd been replaced until she was told. It makes me wonder what her background is--her situation with her sister, how she came to be in charge of the bath house, how she has the kid in the first place, and so on.
Yubaba, despite being the first character the viewer would pick as the "bad guy" is actually far from that simple.
I prefer societies in which the ideas of good and evil are not back and white. I feel it is dehumanizing and unnecessary. I'm not sure if any of you have read any Kurt Vonneget but in his novel Cat's Cradle ha talks a lot about religion and the qualities that make a belief system enduring. One of which was that, especially in monotheism, one entity must lose all of it's angelic parts while the other must lose all of it's piratical parts. Both of which make the other a monster.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anything we know of in the natural world is like that in the slightest so i disagree with people trying to force that behavior onto themselves. I feel like the maker of Spirited Away was trying to make this point and has throughout his career.
I prefer his philosophical view of the "forest spirit" from the film Princess Mononoke. It's very Hindu in he sense that it promotes creation, life and then destruction. the filmmaker shows this my having plants germinate, bloom and then perish as the spirit walks through the forest.