In this shit year, there
has been many casualties both personal, (as of this writing over 325,000 dead
from COVID-19) and industrial (various economic crises). One of those
casualties has been the
film and television industry. Even before the
Coronavirus ravaged our planet, movie theaters and the film going experience
has diminished. Today, movie theaters are on the life support of the big budget
tentpole films of our monoculture.Once
COVID-19 became the 21st century plague, theater chains[1] across the country began
the nebulous cycle of shut down, open with heavy restrictions on capacity, proximity,
and amenities, until the infection rates rose, then shut down again. As the
industry scrambled to figure out the best way through this crisis, there
were fights between creatives and studio executives: about pay, residuals, release dates, and
control over the final product.Then, in
an industry shaking move, AT&T (parent company of Warner Bros Studios and
HBO) decided to
place all of their 2020 and 2021 slate of films on the streaming service HBOMAX,
around the same time as its release in theaters. This decision seems prudent
and practical given the context of COVID-19. With the world in lockdown a lot
of the year, and the US going through a holiday wave of Coronavirus spikes,
streaming has been a coping mechanism for a lot of people; Tiger King, The
Mandalorian, LoveCraft Country, The Crown and the Great British Baking show;
all are being consumed at a rapid pace through a variety of streaming
applications. Pre pandemic, we consumed an average of 16 hours of streaming
content a week. Since the lockdowns began, that number has increased to an
average of 8 hours a day (This includes all content: tv, music, film). This
change, along with the aforementioned shut down of theaters, has led to a 79%
drop in the box office from 2019-2020. At the end of 2020, we’ll
see the box office top out at 2 billion dollars compared to last year’s 10-billion-dollar
gross. Thus, due to this cultural, social, and economic calamity, I cannot
write a piece about the Top 10 Sociological films of 2020. Instead, I have
decided to curate a list of 10 films that collectively encapsulate the events
and feelings of 2020.Enjoy!
In January, and later in
the year, wildfires devastated both Australia and the West Coast of the United
States. Only the Brave is the story about the Granite Mountain Hot Shots
who fought the Yarnell Hill Fire in Jun 2013.While this story is about career fire fighters, a lot of the firefighting,
especially in California is
done through prison labor. Prisoners from men’s and women’s
prisons work on the front lines for less than $2 an hour; and
up until recently in California they could not get a job
as a firefighter upon their release.Much
of the possible destruction of the 2020 wildfires were abated by those who have
been discarded by many and monetized by heartless system.
The Impeachment trial of Donald Trump dominated the
first few weeks of this year. Accused of an Abuse of Power and Obstruction of
Justice by the House and was acquitted by the Senate on February 5, 2020 in a
vote that was along party lines. A film that sums up this event of 2020 (yes,
it really did happen in 2020) is the political thriller, All the President’s
Men, that details the investigation into the Nixon’s Administrations involvement
in the Watergate scandal.Just as the Watergate
investigation implicated behaviors of Obstruction and Abuse of power causing
Nixon to resign before Impeachment proceeding could begin, The
Mueller Report (on the possible collusion in the 2016
election) determined that while there was a lack of sufficient evidence to
prosecute Trump; predominately due to a lack of
bureaucratic follow-through (meaning that Obstructionist behaviors
were attempted, but never completed) rather than innocence.
The deadliest disease of this generation, the
Coronavirus or SARS-COVID2 (COVID-19) has ravaged the planet. Over 70 Million
have been infected and 1.7 million people have died worldwide. Up until this ‘Outbreak’,
a global deadly pandemic was always something of fiction, regardless of
numerous health experts for decades emphatically expressing its inevitability. In
the United States, preparedness was greatly compromised by the Trump
administrations restructuring of the CDC response team, and politicizing
public health measures.The double bill of Outbreak and Contagion gives you a
sense of ‘what we thought a global pandemic would be like” under the most
extreme positions possible. Now, for Nostalgia sake, look back at what these
films got right, and what they were wildly wrong about. The interesting
question I have: if a virus was isolated in a small town, do you think there
would be conversations about wiping out the entire town with munitions?...
To protect the populace and slow the spread of the
Coronavirus in the United States, on March 13, 2020 massive stay at home orders
were implemented. Outside of those classified as “essential workers” many of
the industries had to switch to working remotely from home or shut down
entirely. Our current level of technology has allowed our economy to limp on,
without being completely annihilated. However, this has exacerbated social
class divisions (more on that later). Groundhog Day was chosen for this list
not as a literal representation of quarantine, but to represent the repetitious
feeling that accompanies being stuck in your home for 9 months (and counting),
and to add some levity to a list that is considerably dower. For some of us, the continued repetition of
daily life in our homes was a welcomed respite from various social mores,
especially if you were economically stable. While for others, quarantine has intensified
mental health issues, especially depression leading to an
increase in rates of suicide since the March lockdown began.
I broke my own
rule of choosing only narrative films that represent 2020, to include Do Not
Resist in this list representing police Militarization. While the current
organization of police militarization has been going on since the civil rights
movements of the 1950’s, the recent protests sparked after the deaths of George
Floyd.[2] caused tensions between
the over equipped/ under trained police to boil over again with civilians. The
film Do Not Resist was made after the Michael Brown murder by police in
Ferguson Missouri and touches on the several factors that allowpolice militarization to continue namely: the
surplus of weapons generated by the Military
Industrial Complex, the MCLEA
Act and the 1033
program.
Police Violence against black and brown people has
been an epidemic since the
formation of posses to capture runaway slaves. There is an imbedded cultural and systemic
racism of the criminal justice system (which includes policing, prosecution,
and punishment) and the overall antiblackness of the United States. Mind you,
this antiblackness refers to the blackness within black bodies, as the US
culture has attempted and has been successful at the appropriation of black
culture. The same could be said for my
selection here, Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing. Not only does the police
murder in the film seem prophetically like the death of George Floyd, but the
film also gets appropriated by white critics as a stellar piece of cinema, without questioning or
contemplation of what the film means; especially to the black
experience.
White
supremacy and racism have been the bedrock of the culture and structural
organization of the United States since its inception.With the election of Donald Trump, we have
seen an increase in visibility and activity of hate groups, culminating in the protests
Charlottesville. In 2020, during the presidential election, Donald Trump identified
Antifa as a terrorist organization and would not denounce white supremacy
during one of the debates. Instead, he told the hate group known as “The Proud
Boys” to “stand
back and stand by” which they interpreted as a call to action.Skin, dives into the inner world of
white supremacy that has been written about extensively by sociologists
in the field Based on a true story, the film reinforces the idea that love
can conquer hate, and is supported by data from the new-ish book Healing
From Hateby Michael Kimmel.
In Jun of 2020, North Korea vowed to
increase its nuclear program, as peace talks failed. Around the same time
North Korea blew up the
joint liaison office they shared with South Korea. This, coupled with
Russian hackers
infiltrating US Nuclear Launch systems in December of 2020, increased the
tension and threat level internationally, causing many people to believe we
were on the brink of nuclear war. A similar sudden shift in Nuclear fear was
dramatized in the 1983 film WarGames. A film about a computer hacker who
gets into the Government network and accidently starts a nuclear war thinking
it is a game. The dramatization was so close to reality that it lead to the creation
of the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984. It is important to remember that pop
culture is soft power.
2- Presidential Election * Double Feature* Wag the Dog (1997) and Election (1999)
The year’s presidential election has reinforced
divided political lines scouring them deep into our collective psyche. The country’s
conservative base has devolved into a bunch of increasingly vitriolic race bating
xenophobic conspiracists, meanwhile centrist democrats, fearing the loss of
their own wealth and power, pushed out/against more progressive ideas and
candidates in their own party to nominate the most milquetoast candidate rather
than a radical. And even with that centrist choice that was supposed to appeal
to all people, the race was close. So close that we
can not call the Biden win a repudiation of Trump or Trumpism. After these
4 years, especially this last one 74 million people still voted for Trump. This
means that Biden only won because of A. Trump’s (mis)handing of the pandemic
and B. The overwhelming support
and activism of black and brown folk The
films in this double feature point to the relationships between politics, media
violence and the insider “horse trading” that often goes on.While these films directly parallel the 96’
election cycle, many of the tactics were repeated and perfected in 2020.
2020 marks the 10 year
culmination of the anti-intellectual
movement in the United States. Over the last decade we saw increases in Anti
Vaccers, anti- maskers, climate change deniers, and a multiplicity of conspiracy
theorists. While there has always been a level of animosity for the academy,
often viewed as isolated individuals in their “ivory tower”, there was an
acceptance of basic public school science facts. Since 2010 we saw that
acceptance and trust in facts and the scientific process be both questioned and
rejected by tens of millions of Americans.There is a fundamental flaw that is created if you can not agree on
objective truth. The minute we start breaking apart the foundations of acceptable
ideas of reality, our society breaks down.Idiocracy while does not
pin point the anti- intellectual movement as the catalyst for the destabilization
of society, it does present a future that is hauntingly similar to some
of the events of 2020. This is particularly disturbing as we seem to have gotten
there a lot quicker as Idiocracy is set in the year 2500.
There seems to be
irrational hope for the future that 2021 will be better than 2020. Sometimes, a
fool’s hope is all we can hold on to. Yet, for Academic Cinephiles like me who
worship film, I just want to back to church. Stay Safe everyone and have a acceptable
holiday season, sheltering in place and remotely connecting with friends and
family.
The
eighth film in my retrospective on the films of Hayao Miyazaki is the
ethereally sublime Spirited Away. This
film, like The
Dark Knight in Christopher
Nolan’s filmography, is the film in Miyazaki’s body of work
that has received the most analysis, critical praise, and award acclaim. While the production of the film sees
Miyazaki flirt with corporatization, the product of such a morally questionable
bedfellow being both lucrative and anathematic, his thematic criticism of the
economic system by which that partner sustains itself is such subtle shade,
that it often goes unnoticed. By using
the trappings of the studio system for international distribution, Miyazaki is
able to sew the seeds of doubt in the audience in order to question capitalism’s
complete and utter viability.
PLOT
10-year-old Chihiro,
unhappy with her family moving, is reticent to check out an abandoned amusement
park with her parents. As a reluctant
spectator she watches as her parents are taken over by a spell and transformed
into pigs. Now trapped in the Spirit world with her name stolen, she must work
off her debt in a bathhouse for wary gods. Yet, with the help of a young boy
Haku, she hopes to free her parents from their transmogrification and thwart
the witch that ensorcelled them both.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Unlike his previous films which
either blend together fantasy and the real world, or completely take place in a
fictional world itself, Spirited Away does both. It bookends the fantasy
world with reality. With this decision, Miyazaki is able to use the spiritual
plain as a metaphor for growing up; a symbolic rite of passage that one must
pass through. Pointing to the fact that even if there is no magic in “the real
world”, the process of “growing up” does, at times, feel like sorcery.
Miyazaki’s second film to exclusively
feature Shintoism and Kami (Spirits), Spirited Away anthropomorphizes
and modernizes (to some extent) the spirit world. Thus, showing the spirit
world as something that is tangible, while also having order, structure, and
rules. It is a place that values
personhood, trades in identity, and abhors disruption. Yet, the overall plot of
the film does not take place in the spirit world per-se, but in an oasis/
resort where the spirits vacation from the drudgery of their eternally
monotonous and arduous existential existence. Which, given the state of some of
these spirits, is far more grueling and traumatic than typically depicted in
Western versions of the afterlife; that tend to focus on and value leisure and
serenity above all else.
Unlike Princess
Mononoke, which features specific spirits (kami)
that exist in the Shinto and Buddhist religions, Miyazaki is intentionally
vague in his references, as he wanted to craft a story encompassing the essence
of Japanese folklore, rather than provide an exclusive retelling of a specific
story. In this way, Miyazaki paints in
broad strokes of Mystical divination. As Chihiro is entering the spirit world
she passes through a torii, which is a gate that is often used in transition
from one plain of existence to another. Additionally,
the bathhouse where Chihiro (Now called San after her name is stolen) works,
embodies the Shintoist principle of spiritual purification. The spirits are
rejuvenated once they leave the bathhouse.
Yet, specific spirits from Japanese folklore are not referenced or
traditionally depicted. Instead, Miyazaki develops his own various creations. The
most famous of these is “No-Face”, which in the film can be a surrogate for any
number of different spirits, individuals or concepts, and has become the second
most marketed character for Ghibli behind Totoro.
The other big mystical/magical aspect that separates this
film from all of Miyazaki’s other work; is the way that it uses Kanji. Kanji is
a Japanese form of language and writing that is based in pictographs. The “words
or phrases” that are used often are a representation of a picture or a drawing
that describes what the word means. Thus,
if you change the way that word/ name is written, you can give that word or
name an entirely new meaning. This is what happens to Chihiro when the Witch
Yubaba removes parts of her written name and binds her with a “new” name
derived from the original. Through this action Miyazaki is representing the
importance and power of language and identity.
While
in a more western context, a person’s name is decidedly not their identity, and
the meaning of their name is more so a quaint piece of trivia. In Eastern Spirituality;
however, your name has characteristics that are designed to speak to your
character, or in the case of infants, the character that you desire your
children to have. If one views the
stealing, and changing of Chihiro’s name in this specific context, then what once
was viewed as a simple contrivance to move the plot forward, becomes a horror
show. Indeed, all the characters that are felled by this spell, often have
their personalities change once they lose their identities. Because, with a new
name their foundational pictograph has changed, and thus their overall
characteristics. This is apparent in the film’s central conflict.
Before
Chihiro gets bound by Ubaba’s magic, she is timid, unsure of herself and generally
troubled. When she is suddenly bound by
the new name Sen, she begins to value community, hard work, and a sense of
independence.[2]
Because this film is clearly about the rites of passage individuals go through
as they transition from childhood to adulthood, the change in her name could
signify the traits she will exude as an adult. Thus, she seems to realize that with
all of the freedoms and choices a person can have as an adult, that it comes at
the cost of a lot of work and responsibility. Within this context, it is even
more fascinating that when she is able to have her name restored, and be reunited
with her parents, Miyazaki has her revert back to (some) of her old behaviors
and quirks; with a deeper appreciation of the time she still has left as a
kid.
Production
Miyazaki first got inspiration for
this film when he would vacation at a summer lake house, with his friend and
his family who had a preteen daughter. One day he came across some teen
magazines she had lying around, and decided to flip through them, to see what
“kids were into these days”. After which, he decided that girls of her age needed
to be taught life lessons that he felt were absent in the reading material
marketed to her. Therefore, he was determined to write a character and a story
that girls of her age could look up to; tying the heroine to an interest he had
in the spiritual nature of bathhouses.
Back
in 1996, during the production of Princess Mononoke, The Walt Disney
Company secured the international distribution rights to all of Studio Ghibli
films. Through this, they were hoping to corner the market on whimsical, family-friendly
anime from Japan, and control the video distribution rights to most of their
media. Yet, when they found out that Mononoke
was absent of whimsy, and antagonistic to families, they discarded it to
Miramax who had no clue how to market the film.[3] Feeling blindsided by the
tone of Mononoke, by the time production started on Spirited Away, Disney
executives wanted assurances that the same thing wasn’t going to happen.
Therefore, they decided to invest in 10% of the production cost for the right
to first refusal for international distribution. This was an attempt to get
more clout and control over the production process, rejecting a few other of
Miyazaki’s ideas (based on books or other existing properties) until they
accepted the idea of Chihiro and her journeys in the spirit world.
As production went long, and Miyazaki was having
difficulty cutting the story down to a manageable length (the original story
boards clocking the film in at 3 and ½ hrs)[4], Disney was questioning
the value and direction of the project. The
film was only allowed to move forward after an impassioned defense by gross
sexual assaulter John “Huggy Bear” Lasseter. Who, by Miyazaki’s own admission,
was “a bulldozer”[5]
in convincing the top executives at Disney to support the film. Lasseter
promised that they would not see a repeat of the financial debacle of Princess
Mononoke. He was correct. For their small
investment, the global success of Spirited Away allowedDisney to
make money hand over fist.
Spirited Away was the first Ghibli film
to get the full Disney treatment as a part of the complete corporate machine.
From the marketing to merchandise, Disney had their hands in every aspect of
the presentation of this film. It was this complete synergy that allowed for
the widest distribution for any Studio Ghibli film up to that date, flooding
storefronts with t-shirts, plush toys, and assorted knickknacks, as well as aggressively
pandering this melancholy analysis of achieving adulthood, to unsuspecting
ignorant western white kids.
Begrudgingly,
it also allowed for the film to be the Second Ghibli film in a row to be
featured on the critical film festival circuit; which would eventually lead to Oscar
gold.[6] Many have cited the critical and commercial
success of Spirited Away that changed the perspective of Japanese
animated films in the rest of the world; paving the way for the future success
of not only the subsequent Miyazaki and Ghibli films, but the more current
soon-to-be classics like Mary and the Witch’s Flower, Weathering with
You, and Your Name.
The
Lost Decade
One
of the most significant historical events that occurred during the production
of Spirited Away, was the Japanese economic crisis from 1991-2001. The
cause of this crisis was The Plaza Accord in 1985,[7] a joint agreement between
several countries including the United States and Japan, to depreciate the US
dollar in relation to the Japanese Yen. This caused an economic bubble in Japan
that inflated stock and property prices, which eventually burst in August of
1990 when the Nikkei index dropped 50%[8]. The banks were eventually
bailed out by the Japanese government, transforming several financial
institutions into “Zombie banks”. These are any banks that have a 0% profit but
continue to operate because their ability to pay off debt is shored up by financial
regulatory agencies. Yet, many industries, such as the automobile
and electronic industries, were gutted; losing hundreds of thousands of jobs and
replacing many of their salaried employees with temporary workers, without
benefits[9]while the workers that
still had a job saw their overall wages decrease by 13%. Because this was all happening while Miyazaki
was attempting to write, draw and structure Spirited Away, and simultaneously
attempting to placate the Mickey Mouse monopoly monolith; he organized and
infused the film with a strong, layered anti-capitalist critique.
SOCIAL CONTEXT
In
many of the lauded reviews of Spirited Away, many journalists and
reviewers pointed to the blatant themes of the film, those of spirituality,
environmentalism and as a coming of age story.
While this film is all of those things, it is more deeply a standing
critique of the entire process of capitalism, and how it infects other aspects
of our social world.
Capitalism: The Basics
·Individuals own the means of
production either through corporations or by the individuals themselves
· Most goods and services are sold at “market”
prices which are determined by competition. This competition is fueled by the
profit motive.
·Most people who work for pay, work
for other people who own the means of production. Therefore, the majority of
individuals are “Wage Laborers”
Capitalism is a wide-reaching economic system; and
several nation states have developed a version of capitalism that suits their
needs. It is a common way to organize economic structures, but that does not
mean that it is the only economic system. As capitalism grows, it can transform
into a political and social philosophy that encourages the development of, and
barriers to public policy. This means that within certain capitalist systems (such
as in the US) many of the social institutions, created to satisfy basic needs, are
redesigned to fit within capitalism’s for-profit market economy. This results
in many of these institutions, becoming privatized and reorganized to maximize profit.
This is a process that intensifies through political deregulation on industry,
which transmutes capitalism into what Emile Durkheim called “a social fact.” Social facts, which are ways of thinking,
values, cultural norms and attitudes that transcend any one person, that
existed before anyone individual and will continue to exist for generations
after. These social facts have a subconscious effect on an individual, who will
not realize the influence being exerted by such social facts, unless they
attempt to resist.
Capitalism is an example
of a social fact because we are socialized to the understanding of capitalism
and our participation in it (Profit motive, working for wages etc.). People are
often born into a capitalist system; thus, capitalism exerts a coercive power and control over them to
participate in it as (the only) mechanism to achieve wealth and prosperity. We
often do not support an individual that desires a modest income with no
ambition to increase their social standing. To do so is seen as abnormal, immature,
or reckless. These ideas become cross cultural, existing around the world at
the same time regardless of values, norms, or customs. It creates a global
capitalist economy that is near impossible to hide, ignore or circumvent.
Capitalism’s
Critique (Basic)
Capitalism assumes that free markets create equal
autonomy for workers. Under this assumption, free market workers, if they are
feeling exploited, can quit and/or work for themselves. The reality is that
most people work within capitalist organizations, businesses, and structures.
Therefore, the work for a particular employer is voluntary, but a person cannot
nix out of the entire system; they still must pay bills, and use financial capital
to purchase life sustaining products (like food). They are trapped.
Additionally:
1.Unregulated capitalism allows both
organizations and individuals to generate mass inequalities of wealth, allowing
real freedom to be limited for many people within this system of capitalism.
2.A system built on the drive for capital (what
is often referred to as the profit motive) incentivizes individuals and
businesses to hide problems (especially involving consumer safety) to maintain
high profits. This can lead to objectification of human beings, exploitation of
labor, dehumanization and decision-making practices that are focused on short
term gains, rather than long term solutions
3.In operation, capitalism does not recognize
the necessity of the public good.
5.This privatization encourages behavior to
deal with problems based upon turn over (quitting or getting another job),
rather than on compromise. There is then a greater incentive for people to
quit/ or be fired, rather than try and improve working conditions in the jobs
and businesses that they have. This is what has led to the maintenance of
various forms of discrimination and inequality in the workplace, because rather
than change normalized discriminatory practices, many people who are a part of
historically marginalized groups just decide to quit.
It
is important to understand the basic functions and critiques of capitalism from
a sociological perspective, before diving into the specific criticisms Miyazaki
levees against it; deeper cuts of Sociological anti- capitalist theory
involving Veblen, Bauman, and Marx.
Capitalism’s
Critique (Miyazaki’s Characters)
Miyazaki
opens Spirited Away with Chihiro and her parents walking through the
ruins of a Japanese theme park[10]. As they continue to
explore, Chihiro’s father remarks that before the crisis, there were a lot of
these theme parks around. This is his reference to the economic depression that
was going on during Japan’s “Lost Decade”. Here, Miyazaki set the stage for his
anti- capitalist critique, using both the overall story, characters,and
their narrative journeys to achieve this.
Chihiro’s Parents
Almost immediately
after arriving in town, Chihiro’s parents are lured by their noses to what
looks like a banquet. Regardless of the warning signs of the emptiness of the
town, with no staff or chefs present, Chihiro’s parents sit down and almost
compulsively begin to consume as much food as they can; encouraging their
daughter to do the same. After exploring
the town and getting scared that they are the only ones there, Chihiro returns
to her parents and is horrified to discover that they have turned into
pigs.
A shallow anti-capitalist interpretation
of this scene is that it is a representation of greed. Chihiro’s parents embody the excessive
gluttonous consumption of consumers (by being literally turned into pigs), a
mindset that Miyazaki believes contributed to “The Lost Decade”, resulting in the
ruin of the Japanese economy. While this is an apt comparison, this only
scratches the surface. If you look closer
to how the family is dressed, and the products they have around them, they identify
with what Marx calls Commodity fetishism. This is the idea that much of our
identity gets wrapped up and represented by the products we purchase and
use. The parents, even before entering
the town, engage in what Sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1994) calls conspicuous
consumption. Conspicuous consumption
is the practices of purchasing products for the alure of status those products provide
in the eyes of the public. Thus, in a
very Goffmanian way, individuals are trying to control how other people
perceive them; by hoping that from the consumption of a product, one can glean
the product’s status from it.
Chihiro’s parents are driving an
Audi, moving to a new town, can hire movers, and begin to eat at a buffet
without looking at prices, or seeing if the food is for anyone else but
themselves. This frivolous use of wealth,
and sense of entitlement points to a sense of financial security (they will be
able to purchase all of the food they eat) that is more than just comfortable;
its excessive. Their ability to take vacations (leisure as Veblen puts it) is a
clear act of conspicuous consumption continued as they walk through the
“abandoned town” as tourists. In this way the transformation of her parents
into pigs is about more than just greed. It is a representation of their status
and self-worth.
Another example of this is commonly seen through the
tourist renting of homes and apartments in particular neighborhoods. Through this consumption, individuals attempt
to have “authentic” experiences; ones that can raise their status. Typically,
this gets quite problematic if it is used to create/achieve performative
wokeness. Performative wokeness is the conspicuous consumptive practice of using
social justice rhetoric, principles, or behaviors as only a means of
self-promotion. Usually, this is the actions of drawing attention to oneself
through the mechanism of social justice to enrich oneself. Examples include sports teams taking knees
during the national anthem or wearing BLM gear, without socially contributing
in more substantive ways such as through marching, donations, and education. Andi
Zeisler (2016) explains a specific type of performative wokeness she calls
“Marketplace Feminism”, which is the commodification and fetishizing of feminism
through backpacks, stickers, t-shirts, water bottles etc. without a more
substantive component not rooted in status achievement.
According
to Zygmunt Bauman (2007), this type of consumption will ironically lead to a
lack of identity. We will continue to consume without the process really having
any value. Life becomes a shopping spree, where all aspects of life can be consumed and
interacted with, on a fundamentally basic level (Commodification). However, satisfaction
is the enemy, because it leads to the solidification of an identity, which is
not conducive to Capitalism nor product production. Instead, a consumer, in a consumer economy, solidifies their
identity only momentarily through the collection of experiences and desires. This process becomes addictive: as
represented by Chihiro’s parents’ inability to stop eating, and their
subsequent transformation into pigs.
Sen
To stay in the
spirit world and have a chance at saving her parents, Chihiro must find work. She
goes to the Sorcerer Yubaba and demands a job, for which she cannot be denied
as the bureaucratic system of the spirit world demands. She begins to work and
take up residence in a bathhouse that serves various gods. While one interpretation of this is in line
with understanding the mechanism of secondary socialization, and how it
prepares individuals for adulthood; teaching us the basics of the value of work,
in the process of becoming a law abiding productive member of society. This
perspective misses the overall exploitative nature of labor that is inherit in
that practice. The inequality is often masked under the guise of process,
organization, structure and precedence. A
closer look reveals, Miyazaki is presenting a critique of capitalism’s natural labor
exploitation.
According to Marx (1978),
once the process of industrialization lost sight of a product’s use value
(instead focusing on exchange value), the system of capitalism stopped valuing
the worker and their working experience. When that happens, it inevitably leads
to exploitation through such behaviors as long hours, low pay/slave wages, poor
working conditions, violence and increased automation (replacing workers). We see this in every industry that capitalism
touches, they either privatize or exploit labor. Corporations even use migrant
labor (workers not living in the country that the work is being done) to lower
costs. Factory work and farm work are the largest
exploited industries in the US, and rely on underpaid workers so much, that if
all of the migrant labor were to be banned, these industries would collapse. Additionally, there is deliberate distance
that is placed between the worker and consumer, so that prices of the product
remain high but the wages to the workers remain low; allowing the company to
exploit both the worker and the consumer simultaneously.
Like many migrant
workers living in the US, Chihiro in the Spirit world needs to find work. Yet, she does not have the background or
identity as a spirit in order to do that. Going to Yubaba for a job positions
Chihiro as an undocumented migrant laborer. She is then ensnared by Yubaba’s
spell which takes away her identity, transforming her into Sen. This can be analogous to the way migrant
workers are trapped without papers to only engage in physical labor, regardless
of their education, skills or experiences. Their legal papers are the Miyazaki equivalent
of Chihiro’s true name. If they do not have it, then they cannot get out. Once her name is stolen, and Chihiro becomes
Sen, she begins to experience the exploited labor of the bathhouse, in a lot of
the same levels of exploitation that Marx describes: Long hours, grueling work
of washing spirits, and cleaning tubs.
The fact that she is also a child does not seem to faze anyone; as it doesn’t several
US companies.
No-Face
In The Grundresse, Marx
discusses that Capitalism (driven by the
Profit motive) cannot abide a limit. It instead creates
a barrier that it must either circumvent or ascend. Thus, the success of
capitalism is based upon innovation. While this is not necessarily a problem
theoretically, in practice this creates behaviors that only see an expansion of
the system, resulting in exponential capital growth. This leads to capitalism taking on certain
conditions that make it near impossible for the process to stop, such as Commodification.
Commodification is the
process by which everything in human life, including human life, is bought,
sold, traded, or exchanged. From the very real social problems of human
trafficking, to abstract ideas like the commodification of emotions, such as love
and fear (through diamonds, chocolates, flowers or security systems, weapons, and
locks, respectfully).The dangers of unregulated capitalism by this
adherence to the profit motive, is represented in Spirited
Away through the character of No-Face.
The spirit known only as “No-Face”,
is first seen on the bridge at the beginning of the film. At first, the spirit seems harmless, fluid,
and ethereal, passively existing without malice. It seems to only want
adulation and attention from other spirits, while they in turn seem to treat
him with a mild neglect. Unfortunately, he is let into the bathhouse by Sen (thereby
removing the barrier), and, once inside, unregulated, it begins to display some
of the dangerous practices of capitalism. He first consumes a frog, that
Miyazaki has identified as a symbol of greed. The implication here being that when
capitalism is unrestricted; it can catch greed. Once this profit motive gets
greedy, there is no stopping it. It
begins to consume everything; product and person alike, without remorse or
respect, leaving infinite amounts of gold in its wake. Eventually, the No Face
spirit becomes a large gelatinous monster that continues to consume with complete
disregard for anything else. It is only
stopped by Sen, who rejects capitalism (by rejecting the gold “No Face” wants
to give her) and can use the results of her hard work and compassion to quell
the beast.
Environmentalism
“There is an irreparable rift between Capitalism and the Natural Laws
of Life itself.”- Marx
Since we as a culture have gained
the ability to measure atmospheric CO2 in the 1980’s, the preservation,
protection and prosperity of the environment has been of growing
importance. Initially under the moniker
“Global warming”, as our understanding of the human impact on the environment was
better understood, the term has since evolved to “Climate Change”. Besides this
progression to a greater social understanding of the environment, and in the
face of mountains of scientific evidence, the United States is still one of the
few Industrialized Nations that still has a debate over the validity of human
impacted climate change. One of the main reasons for this is our abusive love
affair with capitalism.
The periods of industrial revolution that saw
the rise of capitalism (based in factory production) established the foundation
of our understanding of capital, without the scientific ability to understand our
overall impact/effect on the environment.
Before we gained this ability, we were using a more religious
explanation/rationalization for our actions. Akin to the ancient belief system
of Naturalism, many people believed that the earth was too vast, and humans
were so insignificant, that it would not be possible for humans to affect the
environment. By the time we gained the
ability to measure (a fraction) of our overall impact on the environment, a
scant 200 years later; not only has a lot of damage already been done, but forms of Cultural
capital, set by the industrial revolution, are continually passed on from
one generation to another; thereby maintaining this disastrous effect on our
environment as a cultural norm, which results in the collective Human
Capital of a population creating a systematic maintenance (and increase) of
environmental destruction.In short: Industrialization and Free Market
Capitalism has created value in cultural ideas, skills, and behaviors, that
result in environmental destruction.
Maslin (2014) puts it brilliantly:
So
fundamentally, Climate change challenges the very economic theories that have
dominated global economics for the last 35 years. Hence is it any wonder that
many people prefer climate change denial to having to face the prospect of
building a new [economic and] political system that will allow collective
action and more equal distribution of wealth, resources and opportunities. Pp171-172
Haku
The
character in Miyazaki’s Spirited
Away that represents this intersection of capitalism
and environmentalism is Haku, the shapeshifting river spirit. At the beginning of the film, it is casually
mentioned by Chihiro’s father that in order to build the amusement park, they
had to pave over a river. This is before the audience realizes that this is
Haku, and that action is what caused his spirit to be diminished enough to be captured
and exploited by Yubaba. Like many other
CEOs that exploit public resources for profit , Yubaba
steals Haku’s full name and then uses him as a resource for her own purposes
(Stealing a cursed object from Zaniba). Chihiro giving Haku herbal medicine, and
by giving him back his true name, breaks the dam on his spirit and he is set free. Here, Miyazaki is promoting eliminating the
practice of diversion and/or obstruction of natural resources. While this environmental message seems to
have caught on in other parts of the world, because the United States can’t
quit capitalism; we have deluded ourselves into thinking we can be environmentalists
and capitalists congruently.
Green Capitalism
According to Scales (2017),
Green Capitalism is a form of
environmentalism that emphasizes the economic value of ecosystems and
biological diversity, and attempts to reduce human environmental impacts by
ensuring that the importance of environmental services is reflected in the way
that markets operate. This perspective sees that competition can
lead to a more environmental and equitable future as long as we change our
business mindset to be more ecofriendly.
There are several examples of this Ecological
Modernization: Tax incentives to reduce the ecological
impact ex: Rebate Systems (ex: Cash for Clunkers) Fear (carmageddon 405
construction in LA area), and renewal programs (paper companies planting trees
to replace the ones they knock down).
One
could look at Spirited Away’s Bathhouse and the “stink spirit” sequence
as an example of green capitalism. By allowing the “stink spirit” into the
bathhouse, and agreeing to cleanse it, Yubaba engages in green capitalism. As
the sequence continues, it is revealed that the “stink spirit” is actually a
polluted river. Miyazaki makes sure to show through Sen’s efforts, just how labor
intensive it is to completely clean up a river. Once the River spirit is revealed
to be such, Sen is gifted with an ecological resource that aids her throughout
the entire film. The shallow metaphor
being that there is “profit” and value in working with nature, rather than
disregarding it, or trying to control it.
Unfortunately, this process of Green
Capitalism can lend itself to “Greenwashing”, in which the company only changes
its public perception to seem more eco-friendly, without making ideological or
substantive changes. This is done through repackaging or relabeling of
products, or emphasizing ecofriendly practices that a company already engages in.
Additionally, through this
pro-capitalist solution, the underline assumption/problem is that it does not
challenge the fundamental anti environmentalism ideology that has been embedded
in our Industrialized Capitalism. Therefore, we can not be as environmentally
conscious as we could be; perhaps even not enough to save humanity. Because at this point, it does look like we must
be willing to sacrifice something for the planet, whether that be eating meat,
fewer kids, or the phasing out of automobiles.
CONCLUSION
Spirited
Away is a masterpiece. It is also a referendum on how we have
ignored the problematic intersections of capitalism and the environment. Yet,
Miyazaki, through the journey of Chihiro, points to hope in the teaching of the
next generation to be the leaders for this change. From recent data, Miyazaki
seems to be right. A majority of young people fundamentally reject the tenets of Capitalism and
at the same time support an environmental agenda. We, the
adults of today, need to foster these ideals and make sure when these children
become of age, they don’t inherit a hellscape of epic proportions.
REFERERNCES
Bauman, Zygmunt 2007. Consuming Life. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Marx, Karl 1978. “Crisis Theory” in The Marx-Engles Reader 2nd
edition edited by Robert C. Tucker.London: W.W. Norton and Company Pp 443-465
Marx, Karl 1993 The
Grundrisse London: Penguin
Books.
Maslin, Mark 2014. Climate Change: A
Very Short Introduction 3rd edition Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scales, John 2017. “Green Capitalism” in The International
Encyclopedia of Geography.Editedby Douglas Richardson, Noel Castree,
Michael F. Goodchild, Audrey Kobayashi, Weidong Liu, and Richard A. Marston. Pp
1-8
Veblen, Thorsten 1994.
The Theory of the Leisure Class. London: Penguin Books.
Zeisler, Andi 2016.
We Were Feminist Once: From Riot Grrl to CoverGirl the Buying and Selling of
a Political Movement. New York: PublicAffairs.
[2] Sociologically speaking, the
change is name can be viewed as the part of the degradation ceremonyat the beginning of the resocialization process the
majority of people go through as they transition from a Primary (childhood)
socialization to Secondary (Adult) Socialization.
[4] To
achieve a suitable running time Miyazaki reportedly cut out all of the
sequences that he considered “Eye Candy”.
With the theatrical film already being a feast for the eyes, one’s mind
reels at the possibility of a film even more spectacular in scope.
[5]
Because as a sexual assaulter, he doesn’t know the meaning of the words “No.”
or “Stop”
[8] Kunio
Okina, Masaaki Shirakawa, and Shigenori Shiratsuka (February 2001): The Asset
Price Bubble and Monetary Policy: Japan's Experience in the Late 1980s and the
Lessons
[9]
Even after the economy stabilized, the Japanese workforce is still 1/3
temporary unprotected disposable labor
[10]
The Imagery here is a lot like Lapita from Castle in the Sky when the
city was reclaimed by nature.
