The violent world of anime for men will be examined in an upcoming talk by Betsy Birmingham, associate professor of English and associate dean of arts, humanities and social sciences. Anime is the term used for Japanese productions that use hand-drawn or computer animation art.
Birmingham’s talk, “Anime’s Dangerous Innocents: Millennial Anxieties, Gender Crises and the Shojo Body as a Weapon,” is scheduled for Wednesday, April 16, at 4 p.m. in the Main Library Weber Reading room.
“Anime is a big part of the Japanese television industry. The shows I’m talking about portray girls who are very violent; they are created for late teen boys and adult men,” Birmingham explained. “Some scholars say these are powerful girls, but I’m suggesting these girls are manipulated to be violent, but that’s not the same as powerful.”
The presentation will show clips from several anime series that feature exceptionally dangerous schoolgirls such as Saikano, GunSlinger Girl and Black Cat. According to Birmingham, the characters may signify male fears and anxieties about the newly found cultural and economic power of girls in modern Japanese culture.“I’m interested why, in our contemporary cultural context, we are developing many examples of girls who are violent in the service of men. These are not empowered girls at all, but they represent an anxiety a male audience is having with women’s changing roles in society,” she said.
Birmingham said by examining the Japanese anime programs, perhaps more analysis will arise of programs being produced in America. “We can see the same type of thing happening in our own media – they just look a little different,” she said.
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