Drawing Dangerous Women: The Monstrous-Feminine, Taboo and Japanese Feminist Perspectives on the Female Form

Sara Sylvester

doi:10.20897/femenc/7909

Abstract

During the twenty-first century, global developments with graphic texts have seen positive changes in the representation of characters and storylines representing female-led narratives and perspectives. Recent Japanese graphic texts offer an instructive window into concerns about feminist comics and graphic novels which not only represent a vital intervention in terms of contemporary Japanese feminist politics but also reinforce their relevance as feminist art activism within a global frame. Taking into account the popularity of manga worldwide this article argues that the growing range of Japanese texts with clear feminist messages marks an intervention on behalf of female creators in keeping with the theory and practice of contemporary feminist discourse. Additionally, this Japanese evolution illustrates the ways in which second wave feminism, particularly feminist art, has impacted women on a global scale. Consequently, the article explores the important role of intersectionality alongside themes relating to the body and sexuality, subversion of the monstrous feminine, feminist activism by considering the narrative of Rokudenashiko’s graphic memoir What is Obscenity?: The story of a good for nothing artist and her pussy (2016).

Highlights

During the twenty-first century, developments in graphic texts have seen positive changes internationally in the representation of characters and storylines representing female-led narratives and perspectives
Recent Japanese graphic texts offer an instructive window into concerns about feminist comics and graphic novels which represent a vital intervention in terms of contemporary Japanese feminist politics and reinforce their relevance as feminist art activism within a global frame
The findings suggest that secondwave feminist ideologies prevail in this manga memoir

Summary

INTRODUCTION

During the twenty-first century, developments in graphic texts have seen positive changes internationally in the representation of characters and storylines representing female-led narratives and perspectives. Comparisons can be drawn between the approaches both Wilke and Rokudenashiko adopt through their ‘performalist’ self-portraits, when considering the ways in which both artists through their work reclaim the female form, whilst satirising patriarchal taboos surrounding female genitalia This provides a starting point in order to explore the influence of Wilke’s work on a global scale, second-wave feminism’s continued influence on comics, and the importance of graphic memoir in relation to the idea of ‘I become my art, my art becomes me’ (Wilke, 1975). Rokudenashiko’s text is an exemplary appropriation of manga which extends the narrative representation of feminist activism, but, through the depiction of the kawaii mascot, the character of Ms Manko subverts the ‘monstrous-feminine’ (see Figures 1, 3 and 6) The artist, through her graphic novel, disrupts patriarchal mythologies of cultural misogyny in order to highlight Japan’s hypocritical views of male and female genitalia. I will suggest that Rokudenashiko’s manga memoir signifies important implications for researching the relationship between graphic texts produced by female creators in Japan, and the global influence of feminist visual representations of women; I explore how these are located within the context of Japanese culture, and the history of graphic narrative texts

HISTORY OF JAPANESE GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMICS

CHARACTERISATION OF ROKUDENASHIKO AND MS MANKO

SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS AND PRACTICES

CONCLUSION