can't win for losing: love fight
17 Mar 2011 02:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouPlenty of spoilers in this one, so if you haven't seen Love Fight and plan to, or just prefer to avoid spoilers just in case, then skip. Otherwise, read on.
While the dynamic in general between Minoru and Aki seems to be a complete gender-flip -- she defends/protects, he cowers in fear -- and that had me a little leery at first (are we going to end up with reinforced gender roles?), it's seasoned with a heavy dose of reality of how these things work between friends. Where Love Fight goes that most protector-stories don't go is into the aftermath (but I have my suspicions of why, and will get to that in a bit).
In the opening scene (when they're kindergartners), Minoru thanks Aki; he doesn't in any scene when they've reached adolescence. But he continues to cry, and that overshadows his thanks, until Aki gets frustrated. His continued fear is partly of her and her violence, after all, and that means she hasn't actually resolved anything for him. It doesn't need to be spelled out or considered deeply; I think we instinctively know when we've become the cause of someone's distress. That frustration turns to anger, because she can't seem to stop his distress. She turns her violence on him, instead (the roundhouse kick), which of course just compounds the issue.
He ends up resenting being rescued -- because her frustration pressures him to do something (violence) that he doesn't want to do -- and she ends up resenting him for putting that pressure (rescue me) on her, and resenting their friendship for making her protection almost an obligation, and maybe a bit angry at herself for falling into those obligations. At the same time, it's clear that their friendship is almost entirely predicated on his need for her protection, so she cheerfully throws herself into protecting him, on the perhaps unexamined belief that this is the only way they're connected. In other words: if he no longer needs her protection, then there's no longer any ties of friendship. At least, that seems to be how they're both approaching it, even as they both rankle under the obligations created by this screwy dynamic.
It's not just the social pressures about girls being feminine and pretty and helpless (per what fools the goon she takes down). It's also Minoru's disapproval, even as he undeniably benefits from her defense. It really does put her in a box. She can't admit she enjoys or values her fighting skills, and she can only use those skills so long as it's ostensibly in defense of (with sub-section of against) Minoru. His reluctance -- or at least refusal to even appear thankful for her protection -- exacerbates, or even subtly created, her subterfuge.
Why don't stories with damsels ever draw out the obligations created when you lean too hard on one person's protection, and the resentments caused by those obligations? Why must we always get stories in which a man needing a woman's (lesser) power for his protection is against the grain, and therefore to be examined, but a (powerless) woman is considered by default to need a (powerful) man's protection? Minoru's ambivalence about being protected is clearly because he's expected to be (via gender/sex) the powerful half, but playing that game leaves Aki with a losing hand.
To have a female character unwilling to play the protector/protectee game may be another signal of the damsel in transition, because her frustration is due to dissatisfaction with this imbalance. That, in a way, she's reaching for the (traditionally male) powerfulness, and seeing protection as only for the powerless. While (obviously) the transitional damsel falls short of being a true powerful (action or not) female character, it's still opening the door to examining that assumption that male=powerful and female=powerless and powerful protects powerless, ergo male protects female and never the opposite.
Getting back to Aki, she's showing something I haven't yet seen in the usual protector/protectee bit. That's for a guy to snap at a girl: hey, why don't you defend yourself? The other main role of the transitional damsel is to deliver this kind of a message... and in doing so, she's acting as the (eventually revealed to be) powerless educating the (supposed-to-be via gender/sex) powerful that he should get off his ass and do it himself. (Think about what it does to the gender dynamics if we flip that one -- the only instances I can think of are where a male character mansplains femininity to a female character, and if I never see that plotline again it'd be too soon.)
The woman's sacrifice -- implied if not stated as being a bigger sacrifice because, y'know, girls and fighting, so not natural to be non-feminine like that! -- spurs him onto the hero's path or inspires his second wind to win the day. The girl is only allowed to be a capable fighter (powerful) insofar as needed to inspire the hero; once he's raring to go, she can step down. The movie's premise could've easily segued into using Aki for this kind of argument.
That, honestly, was my biggest fear for this movie. I expected angst on someone's part, when Aki finally discovers Minoru's been learning boxing. The path of least angst (usually played more as relief) is to reinforce heteronormative roles: Aki would retreat/deflate into the usual transitional damsel role by the end. I've actually read arguments that go something like this: "men being masculine allows women to be feminine," as though we have quantifiable amounts of each in the world, and a man being sensitive means that somewhere out there is a ballbuster hellion. And since obviously we don't want women running around unexpectedly lambasting random men, of course men should be more masculine! That way all women will stay pretty and delicate! At least, that seems to be the (non)logic.
If the movie chose to play up the angst and exceed my expectations a little, then Aki wouldn't be glad to lose her role (as necessary/needed person in Minoru's life), but would be upset in some way. She might take his training as a sign that he didn't need her (their friendship) any more. We might get a sense of them being equals now, with second-best option being that she'd end up hurt by going too far (in a fight, to prove her usefulness). He'd step up and... well, that one, I've seen in plenty of other dramas/animanga/fiction, too, but then we're back to "the woman wouldn't have to be so non-feminine if the man were more masculine", but in those cases the story's using "woman going overboard to be extra-non-feminine is because she doesn't know any better, and she needs a man to step in with his masculinity and help her remember her place".
But regardless: something would ruin it, right?
Nothing ruins it.
The scene where everyone discovers Aki at the boxing gym, pounding (and kicking) the living crap out of a punching bag, there's no angst or anger. Aki's displaying nothing but sheer unadulterated joy. It's awesome. She's whaling on that bag, and having the time of her life... and I think it's because the discovery that Minoru is learning boxing creates freedom for Aki -- but not the usual "now she can be girly without having to worry about fighting/defending her friend". That's bolstered by the fact that she announces she's quitting ballet, and taking up boxing.
With Minoru now open to the idea of fighting skills, Aki takes it as a possibility that he might therefore also approve of her fighting skills. Later, Aki does reveal to Coach Joe that the entire reason she learned to fight so well is because Minoru wouldn't defend himself. In defending him, she lost plenty of fights, but picked herself up each time and learned to get better, until she could be undefeated. What goes unsaid (but I think is in there) is that as long as Minoru protested/disapproved of fighting, she couldn't come right out and admit (to him, to herself) that hey, she just might enjoy this. That, hey, she's actually gotten pretty good at this -- and that being good at it is something worthy of pride.
The look on her face when she first introduces herself to Joe et al, and announces she's taking up boxing, is not the look of the usual transitional damsel gearing up for a sacrificial throw overboard. Aki shows no signs of needing to prove anything, and I'd even say that when Minoru shoulders the need to prove something to himself, it releases Aki from having to prove herself as what she's not (a delicate, feminine ballet dancer who wouldn't hurt a fly). It frees her from that box.
Here's where the movie gets it really, really right: Aki's relationship with Coach Joe.
I don't mean just in the one-on-one sense, I mean in the way it mirrors -- in a far less distorted fashion -- the relationship Aki has with Minoru. Unlike Minoru, obviously, Joe is perfectly capable defending himself. By any general measure, Joe is definitely a masculine guy (yet is also as soft-spoken and affable as Minoru) -- but he doesn't treat Aki as though his own masculinity requires that she only express the feminine sides. He is a little perplexed by her, at first. The only other female character we've seen yet around the boxing gym is Kyoko, the romantic supportive-girlfriend who talks about boxing but doesn't dream of actually stealing Minoru's thunder by competing with him, but given Joe's familiarity with the boxing world (and his friendship with another coach who also coaches women boxers), it seemed to me that Joe isn't confused by Aki, just... surprised to have this girl seemingly come out of nowhere.
But he's also clearly intrigued, and at times the camera catches this little smirk on his face at Aki's excitement -- like he's just a little bit delighted by her enthusiasm, even if he's too cool to make it obvious. What's most important is that he's undoubtedly powerful (in terms of fighting) and yet... he's not threatened at all by Aki's own power.
What we see is him coaching her: correcting her when she screws up, encouraging her when she's been corrected, and reflecting her own excitement back onto her. A good coach is all those things: teacher, confidante, role model, cheerleader -- but most importantly, a good coach wants the student to surpass the teacher. The fact that Joe is (traditionally powerful) male and Aki is (traditionally powerless) female does not seem to enter the equation. He may smooth healing balm on Aki's bruises, but that's part of a coach's job to do such aftercare; he doesn't make a single comment about how she'll need to cover it with makeup or whether others will think she's less feminine or how she won't look good in a prom dress or some other sexist crap masquerading as affectionate teasing.
Minoru is very much at the boxing studio to overcome his own demons, and his interactions with Joe (and later Junko) reflect this: his path is mostly internal. Aki's path is more external, more active. She's found something that actually validates what she's been doing all along -- she's found someone who validates her -- and she's going after it with no holds barred.
What really warmed me was the scene where Joe takes Aki to a boxing studio where another girl her age/build is training. He's not putting her in the corner to jump rope (as Kyoko seems to have preferred). He's sure as hell not letting her get away with less effort because she's just a girl. He's pushing her to put in more effort, and it demonstrates how much potential he sees in her, and I think Aki picks up on that, and pushes herself even harder in return.
Even when he corrects her, or tells her to take a break, he softens it with a grin or a scrub of her head. I don't think that's patronizing; I think that's an adult/experienced coach recognizing that he's possibly the first person ever to even notice -- let alone appreciate -- the skills she's cultivated entirely on her own. Coming down harshly on her is really just what Minoru has always done: complained about her actions, ignoring that they sprang from a place of wanting to protect/defend a friend.
But Joe also seems aware that he's a step away from a pedestal in Aki's eyes, so he's not entirely solicitous. He corrects her, and lays her out, knocks her down a few times when they spar. He knows that hitting the floor might get the think-first news through her head faster than reasoned conversation. What is remarkable about the two actors is that both display some intense focus. Aki's is more wide-eyed, as befits a student, focused on her coach/mentor and in a way, looking like she's soaking it all up the way a soul in the desert might drink from an oasis.
Joe's focused on being ready for Aki's unpredictability, but his gaze is constantly moving; he's assessing her, keeping an eye on the little tells, and reacts with near-instantaneous speed to exploit any opening and keep her on her toes. It's one of the first times I've seen a training boxing segment (not that I watch a lot of them, but I could even compare martial arts sparring here) where it feels like the two in the ring have truly forgotten any audience. She's too busy trying to get past his guard, and he's too busy watching her, encouraging her, correcting her, reacting to her.
Or maybe I should say: if Minoru had definite elements of liking Aki but also not-liking a lot of Aki and not wanting to see/acknowledge parts of Aki... Joe sees Aki in her entirety. And I think that's a pretty heady experience for someone like Aki, who's gone with one face for most of the world, and is redressed for her interior face (skill) by her best friend. Joe doesn't fall for the exterior but doesn't turn away from the interior. The validation may be mostly unstated, but it's there. And it's pretty powerful stuff.
The ostensible pinnacle of the story -- or at least Aki's part of it -- is in great part Joe's path in the story. That might sound kind of strange, or like a way to argue that a female character's path is predicated upon a male character's path (and we've all seen that story a bazillion times), so let me explain.
Joe's boxing studio is struggling; when we first meet him, he's this close to shutting it down, despite his assistant/sole protege arguing otherwise. Minoru's arrival, then Kyoko's arrival, herald a new range of students who are mostly older and looking just to get into shape, and Aki is really the only one with any real potential to take it further. But the gym's got too many bills after limping along, so under pressure from another coach (who is also the coach of the female boxer who spars with Aki), Joe agrees to a staged fight.
It's tied in with Junko, Joe's ex, and the movie production she's on. Like Joe, she's dangerously close to being a has-been, but this movie might be her re-entrance to the film world. (Undone by the director's manipulative ways, when he tries to play Joe and Junko; he's clearly scum, including rubbing it casually in Joe's face that Junko effectively prostituted herself to get the role.) The movie is about a young boxer -- played by some kid who pulls off the spoiled, self-centered, preening idol in a rangy, not-quite-man, way -- and the staged fight is meant to be the centerpiece of a making-of mockumentary. Joe is far from enthused about the details, like the lack of safety gear ("we need to be able to see [the idol's] face," the director explains), or the fact that as a former Japanese national champion, he's expected to lose to some actor.
What Joe does not do is tell his cheerleading crew, and I suspect that's partially because he's ashamed of his agreement. It's also, I think, why he shows no animosity towards Junko upon finding out she's slept with the crass director to get the role; Joe has effectively done the same thing, in selling out for money. (And you could even see it as a literal body-selling in Joe's case to mirror Junko's, seeing how getting the money means allowing someone to beat the crap out of him, physically.)
The fight is beautifully staged, and if the rest of the movie hasn't been all that much about the grit and wear of actual training, it has at least given this viewer enough coaching information to be able to recognize everything Joe's doing... that means he's not truly fighting. (In case you don't clue in, though, at one point Aki or the assistant yells, "you're fighting like Minoru!") Joe's deflecting some punches, and aiming only at the idol's gloves, not the idol's face -- and he's leaving himself wide open way too much. The music matches it perfectly, a regretful piano piece with a slow tempo, as Joe struggles with his long-trained instincts and pride, to let himself be taken down.
His students, understandably, are angry, upset, and in Minoru's case, maybe even a bit crushed. That's their hero up there, and he's getting beaten and not even trying to fight back. When Junko arrives and realizes that Joe's losing -- an incomprehensible notion to her, clearly -- the director tries to manipulate her once again, implying that Joe did all this for cash. (In other words, he's as dirty as she is, and the director smugly sits above them both, as savior and condemner.) The other coach contradicts the director, though, a bit of line that was much-needed to have someone with principles in the scene, speaking up in Joe's defense.
But none of this is heard/known by the three at ringside, who are yelling for Joe to fight back. It finally is too much, one punch to the (unprotected) head too many, and Joe goes down. He's conscious, but before he can get up again, the kids are in the ring. Minoru and the assistant are supporting Joe, while Aki stands over them.
Another nice change -- that it's not the girl who leaps in there to be the healer-type; that's Minoru's role in this story. Aki remains Aki, and the fury she once turned on those who bullied Minoru, she now turns on the smirking idol.
Here's where the story came through for me, in every possible way. Aki raises her bare fists, ready to take on the idol and take him down.
While the idol -- noticeably very unbruised about the face, compared to Joe -- looks a little baffled at the idea of fighting a girl, or maybe he's just unable to improv at the sudden change in opponent.
But as she advances, Joe catches at her ankle. Weary and bloody, he stops her.
You knew this was coming. You knew it had to be coming, at some point, that with everything the script's shown, the opening segments where Aki shows awesomesauce couldn't be the only scenes she'd get. Joe's remonstrations in the ring about the rules of boxing have to mean something, as do her own instincts and self-trained style.
But what makes it come together for me is that it's a double meaning. Joe means that some people -- like the sneering actor -- aren't worth lowering oneself to fight. In a way, it's the same message that Minoru tried to give her, earlier in the story: that sometimes, people aren't worth that much effort. Aki, though, remains Aki. She doesn't step down because someone -- her friend or her mentor -- tells her that she doesn't have to fight. She remains angry, and she remains avenging.
So she takes his single meaning and makes it double. In a gorgeously slow-motion advance, she takes a few steps, picks up speed, and as the piano music comes to an end, she drops the actor with a single incredible high kick.
As he lies there, she delivers her classic line -- but this time, it's in defense of someone who for all intents is more powerful and capable as a fighter than she. It doesn't matter, because Aki's willingness to protect and defend isn't based on who's more powerful, who's powerless, unlike Minoru has apparently feared. Her willingness is based on what she believes is right.
And unlike the times we've seen her defend Minoru, this time she gets a response that truly vindicates her. The assistant coach yells out to her, cheering her on.
The only reaction is Aki's smile, but I think that says enough.
If the original dynamic was that she defended Minoru, who protested the too-violent response, but refused to defend himself, in turn infuriating her for getting such disapproval despite good intentions... Here, she's defended someone and been rewarded for the purity of her actions. No one says anything about how having a student fight on the teacher's behalf lessens the teacher.
In fact, even Minoru looks impressed rather than his usual upset/worried.
What I also like is that the friendship's dynamic isn't wiped in one go, at least not yet. Aki kneels before the coach, and now that she hasn't gotten the usual disapproval, she's getting worried on her own. It's not just going against the coach's words; it's also, I think, that the usual dynamic has shifted completely. Her coach is nothing like Minoru in many ways, but she reacted as though he were, and that might be too presumptuous. She took on a role that she had over Minoru, but the balance of her relationship with Joe is different.
But after a slight pause, Joe relaxes, and the approval solidifies into Joe's weary approving smile.
The story takes a turn or two, but the real agent of the rest of the story is Aki, not Minoru. She's been released from her half of the screwy dynamic by Joe's acknowledgment (and acceptance) of her, and now she wants the same from Minoru. It's not really that Joe sees her as an equal in the exact sense of the word; maybe it's simply that his reaction proves he respects her, understands how she reacts, and accepts that Aki is Aki -- and doesn't see any power she has as a sign that he has less power. He's not diminished by her, and that's a lesson Minoru has to learn as well, if the friendship is ever to find a healthy footing.
I have some minor issues with the translation -- the word 'protect' might be literally accurate, but when Aki admits she wanted Minoru to 'protect' her in return (by asserting himself as having a right in who she likes/wants), I think a more appropriate English translation might be 'stand by' her. The long-term dynamic has been, after all, one of true protection, where Aki stands in front of Minoru and defends him from the world/bullies. She didn't do that for Joe; she only got in the ring after Joe went down. She's learned to hold back and believe in someone else's ability, and only step in when needed. Not to protect (block), but to fight alongside.
So when she tells Minoru that she's angry/upset that he didn't 'protect' her in return, I think the translation is awkward because the nuance in English isn't the same as what fits the context. I think it works better if you watch the scene, post-fight, and see Aki's demand as being for Minoru to stand with her, not in place of her.
Minoru, though, remains fixated on the idea (as he has for most of the movie) that the only way he can move forward is if he's able to fight, and beat, Aki. He's still thinking in the power-up, power-down kind of situation, where someone has to lose for another to win. He doesn't really learn -- not on a gut-level -- from the ending of that staged fight, but Aki does, and the story moves to its final showdown because of Aki's insistence, not Minoru's. If anyone has agency by this point, it's almost entirely in Aki's hands.
I will admit that I was leery of the stated premise, early on, that Minoru could only win if he could beat Aki so she loses. It places a lot of the burden on their screwy dynamics on her, when in my view, it's Minoru's own reluctance and wishy-washiness that created and exacerbated the situation. Focusing on Aki as the one to beat shifts the blame of the situation entirely off himself and onto her shoulders, and I don't think that's fair -- but I think that on some level, Aki pressures Minoru into a fight between them because she's aware of Minoru's motives and blame-shifting.
A big part of my leery response was also because I've become so inured to Hollywood/media/fiction assumptions about hitting girls. One way or another, most stories will either go overboard to justify when it happens -- like Buffy being superhuman strength, or vampires being evil regardless of sex/gender, etc -- or stories will do convoluted backflips to get around the oncoming punch. (Or they'll compromise by only having girls/women hit other girls/women.) Good guys, especially good main protagonists, aren't supposed to hit girls, etc.
I took a break from the movie at that point, to eat dinner, and gave it some thought. I've never held to that whole "don't hit girls" hogwash -- not, at least, when it's based on the idea of girls being powerless and therefore permanent non-combatants. Aki is definitely a full combatant in this movie, with all powers of agency. If I flip the genders, in this particular aspect, I think there could be an equally interesting story in there, with a young woman training to take down an overprotective friend to prove her ability to defend herself -- but I think the aftermath of such a fight might be very different.
Perhaps it's true that the final blows of the Aki/Minoru fight (staged, appropriately enough, in their old kindergarten schoolyard) are a bit of a cop-out, because although Aki tells Minoru he won, it sure looked like a draw to me. Maybe in a way, she's extending to him what Joe's approval gave her: a willingness to recognize the other person's power, secure in the knowledge that doing so doesn't reduce her own power.
On one level, I can see the argument being made that she "lets" Minoru win, and in doing so, is stepping into the (feminine, powerless) background so he can take over the "masculine" half. Except I think there's another reason the major, plot-turning point of the movie is Joe's staged fight, and the continuing thread about what Junko's had to do to get and keep her comeback movie role -- both of those are self-sacrifices. But we're not meant to see Joe, or Junko, as being less because of the choices they've made, and in the same vein, I don't think we're meant to see Aki as less because she effectively, if subtly, throws the fight with Minoru. She's willing to lose today if she wins tomorrow.
What intrigues me, ultimately, is that the story proposes to be about a bullied, somewhat cowardly young man's path to self-confidence and self-assertion via boxing. It's that, but that's really only a sub-plot, and in some ways just a major setup for the story's main plotline: Aki's movement from playing a role of pretty girl to fully accepting and embracing her own power. Enough that in the end, she has plenty to spare for a friend who needs it -- but not in a way that reduces him, but builds him up.
There's one other thing about this film that's a little... peculiar, and that's Kyoko. I really don't know what was going on with her, by her last appearance. She starts out starry-eyed romance over Minoru, affirming him in all the 'proper' ways a girl's femininity is supposed to affirm a boy's masculinity. Not quite batting eyelashes, but definitely a whole lot of cheering from the sidelines (and we're back to that "men being masculine allows women to be feminine").
When Aki appears (and then Junko), Kyoko's reaction turns distinctly petulant, then outright surly, and then descends into melodrama. She's playing the helpless damsel to the absolute hilt, and her final appearance in a getup somewhere between Scarlett O'Hara and a bad cosplaying accident is both surreal and somewhat disturbing. I think the logic goes like this, at least the script's logic for Kyoko's motivation: as long as Minoru is focused on Aki, he's drained of masculinity due to Aki refusing to play the pretty girl. So Kyoko has to play the damsel to the fifth power, and effectively 'steal' all helplessness, leaving Minoru no choice but to take the remaining (which would be the strong/masculine half of the equation).
[It's especially amusing to me because Scarlett O'Hara, as a character, may've played the simpering fool for the benefit of stupid men, but she was about as far from a helpless damsel-character as you can get. She's pretty much the antithesis of the helpless damsel, in some ways. But I think it's the corsets and the dresses that leave the impression that she's adaptable as Distressed Damsel.]
Kyoko's treatment in the script is ham-handed and a little overdone, compared to the gentle touches, and I wonder if maybe the original story (and the director) were more comfortable with Aki's part of the story. The excessive, overblown, melodramatic romanticism in Kyoko's character are a bit hard to stomach, and hard to play seriously without descending into just looking like a lot of cosplay crazy. Unfortunately, that's where the story goes with Kyoko. It means she works less as a contrast of ultra-feminine to Aki's inner tomboy, and more like the tearful self-absorbed crazy to Aki's level-headed forthrightness.
If you can overlook that, or just roll your eyes and carry on once Kyoko's theatrics are past, the rest of the story is strongly Aki's... and it's a good story. Best of all, she may make concessions to help a friend, but only once she's begun growing into comfort with her own power and learns she has plenty to spare.
While the dynamic in general between Minoru and Aki seems to be a complete gender-flip -- she defends/protects, he cowers in fear -- and that had me a little leery at first (are we going to end up with reinforced gender roles?), it's seasoned with a heavy dose of reality of how these things work between friends. Where Love Fight goes that most protector-stories don't go is into the aftermath (but I have my suspicions of why, and will get to that in a bit).
In the opening scene (when they're kindergartners), Minoru thanks Aki; he doesn't in any scene when they've reached adolescence. But he continues to cry, and that overshadows his thanks, until Aki gets frustrated. His continued fear is partly of her and her violence, after all, and that means she hasn't actually resolved anything for him. It doesn't need to be spelled out or considered deeply; I think we instinctively know when we've become the cause of someone's distress. That frustration turns to anger, because she can't seem to stop his distress. She turns her violence on him, instead (the roundhouse kick), which of course just compounds the issue.
He ends up resenting being rescued -- because her frustration pressures him to do something (violence) that he doesn't want to do -- and she ends up resenting him for putting that pressure (rescue me) on her, and resenting their friendship for making her protection almost an obligation, and maybe a bit angry at herself for falling into those obligations. At the same time, it's clear that their friendship is almost entirely predicated on his need for her protection, so she cheerfully throws herself into protecting him, on the perhaps unexamined belief that this is the only way they're connected. In other words: if he no longer needs her protection, then there's no longer any ties of friendship. At least, that seems to be how they're both approaching it, even as they both rankle under the obligations created by this screwy dynamic.
It's not just the social pressures about girls being feminine and pretty and helpless (per what fools the goon she takes down). It's also Minoru's disapproval, even as he undeniably benefits from her defense. It really does put her in a box. She can't admit she enjoys or values her fighting skills, and she can only use those skills so long as it's ostensibly in defense of (with sub-section of against) Minoru. His reluctance -- or at least refusal to even appear thankful for her protection -- exacerbates, or even subtly created, her subterfuge.
Why don't stories with damsels ever draw out the obligations created when you lean too hard on one person's protection, and the resentments caused by those obligations? Why must we always get stories in which a man needing a woman's (lesser) power for his protection is against the grain, and therefore to be examined, but a (powerless) woman is considered by default to need a (powerful) man's protection? Minoru's ambivalence about being protected is clearly because he's expected to be (via gender/sex) the powerful half, but playing that game leaves Aki with a losing hand.
To have a female character unwilling to play the protector/protectee game may be another signal of the damsel in transition, because her frustration is due to dissatisfaction with this imbalance. That, in a way, she's reaching for the (traditionally male) powerfulness, and seeing protection as only for the powerless. While (obviously) the transitional damsel falls short of being a true powerful (action or not) female character, it's still opening the door to examining that assumption that male=powerful and female=powerless and powerful protects powerless, ergo male protects female and never the opposite.
Getting back to Aki, she's showing something I haven't yet seen in the usual protector/protectee bit. That's for a guy to snap at a girl: hey, why don't you defend yourself? The other main role of the transitional damsel is to deliver this kind of a message... and in doing so, she's acting as the (eventually revealed to be) powerless educating the (supposed-to-be via gender/sex) powerful that he should get off his ass and do it himself. (Think about what it does to the gender dynamics if we flip that one -- the only instances I can think of are where a male character mansplains femininity to a female character, and if I never see that plotline again it'd be too soon.)
The woman's sacrifice -- implied if not stated as being a bigger sacrifice because, y'know, girls and fighting, so not natural to be non-feminine like that! -- spurs him onto the hero's path or inspires his second wind to win the day. The girl is only allowed to be a capable fighter (powerful) insofar as needed to inspire the hero; once he's raring to go, she can step down. The movie's premise could've easily segued into using Aki for this kind of argument.
That, honestly, was my biggest fear for this movie. I expected angst on someone's part, when Aki finally discovers Minoru's been learning boxing. The path of least angst (usually played more as relief) is to reinforce heteronormative roles: Aki would retreat/deflate into the usual transitional damsel role by the end. I've actually read arguments that go something like this: "men being masculine allows women to be feminine," as though we have quantifiable amounts of each in the world, and a man being sensitive means that somewhere out there is a ballbuster hellion. And since obviously we don't want women running around unexpectedly lambasting random men, of course men should be more masculine! That way all women will stay pretty and delicate! At least, that seems to be the (non)logic.
If the movie chose to play up the angst and exceed my expectations a little, then Aki wouldn't be glad to lose her role (as necessary/needed person in Minoru's life), but would be upset in some way. She might take his training as a sign that he didn't need her (their friendship) any more. We might get a sense of them being equals now, with second-best option being that she'd end up hurt by going too far (in a fight, to prove her usefulness). He'd step up and... well, that one, I've seen in plenty of other dramas/animanga/fiction, too, but then we're back to "the woman wouldn't have to be so non-feminine if the man were more masculine", but in those cases the story's using "woman going overboard to be extra-non-feminine is because she doesn't know any better, and she needs a man to step in with his masculinity and help her remember her place".
But regardless: something would ruin it, right?
Nothing ruins it.
The scene where everyone discovers Aki at the boxing gym, pounding (and kicking) the living crap out of a punching bag, there's no angst or anger. Aki's displaying nothing but sheer unadulterated joy. It's awesome. She's whaling on that bag, and having the time of her life... and I think it's because the discovery that Minoru is learning boxing creates freedom for Aki -- but not the usual "now she can be girly without having to worry about fighting/defending her friend". That's bolstered by the fact that she announces she's quitting ballet, and taking up boxing.
With Minoru now open to the idea of fighting skills, Aki takes it as a possibility that he might therefore also approve of her fighting skills. Later, Aki does reveal to Coach Joe that the entire reason she learned to fight so well is because Minoru wouldn't defend himself. In defending him, she lost plenty of fights, but picked herself up each time and learned to get better, until she could be undefeated. What goes unsaid (but I think is in there) is that as long as Minoru protested/disapproved of fighting, she couldn't come right out and admit (to him, to herself) that hey, she just might enjoy this. That, hey, she's actually gotten pretty good at this -- and that being good at it is something worthy of pride.
The look on her face when she first introduces herself to Joe et al, and announces she's taking up boxing, is not the look of the usual transitional damsel gearing up for a sacrificial throw overboard. Aki shows no signs of needing to prove anything, and I'd even say that when Minoru shoulders the need to prove something to himself, it releases Aki from having to prove herself as what she's not (a delicate, feminine ballet dancer who wouldn't hurt a fly). It frees her from that box.
Here's where the movie gets it really, really right: Aki's relationship with Coach Joe.
I don't mean just in the one-on-one sense, I mean in the way it mirrors -- in a far less distorted fashion -- the relationship Aki has with Minoru. Unlike Minoru, obviously, Joe is perfectly capable defending himself. By any general measure, Joe is definitely a masculine guy (yet is also as soft-spoken and affable as Minoru) -- but he doesn't treat Aki as though his own masculinity requires that she only express the feminine sides. He is a little perplexed by her, at first. The only other female character we've seen yet around the boxing gym is Kyoko, the romantic supportive-girlfriend who talks about boxing but doesn't dream of actually stealing Minoru's thunder by competing with him, but given Joe's familiarity with the boxing world (and his friendship with another coach who also coaches women boxers), it seemed to me that Joe isn't confused by Aki, just... surprised to have this girl seemingly come out of nowhere.
But he's also clearly intrigued, and at times the camera catches this little smirk on his face at Aki's excitement -- like he's just a little bit delighted by her enthusiasm, even if he's too cool to make it obvious. What's most important is that he's undoubtedly powerful (in terms of fighting) and yet... he's not threatened at all by Aki's own power.
What we see is him coaching her: correcting her when she screws up, encouraging her when she's been corrected, and reflecting her own excitement back onto her. A good coach is all those things: teacher, confidante, role model, cheerleader -- but most importantly, a good coach wants the student to surpass the teacher. The fact that Joe is (traditionally powerful) male and Aki is (traditionally powerless) female does not seem to enter the equation. He may smooth healing balm on Aki's bruises, but that's part of a coach's job to do such aftercare; he doesn't make a single comment about how she'll need to cover it with makeup or whether others will think she's less feminine or how she won't look good in a prom dress or some other sexist crap masquerading as affectionate teasing.
Minoru is very much at the boxing studio to overcome his own demons, and his interactions with Joe (and later Junko) reflect this: his path is mostly internal. Aki's path is more external, more active. She's found something that actually validates what she's been doing all along -- she's found someone who validates her -- and she's going after it with no holds barred.
What really warmed me was the scene where Joe takes Aki to a boxing studio where another girl her age/build is training. He's not putting her in the corner to jump rope (as Kyoko seems to have preferred). He's sure as hell not letting her get away with less effort because she's just a girl. He's pushing her to put in more effort, and it demonstrates how much potential he sees in her, and I think Aki picks up on that, and pushes herself even harder in return.
Even when he corrects her, or tells her to take a break, he softens it with a grin or a scrub of her head. I don't think that's patronizing; I think that's an adult/experienced coach recognizing that he's possibly the first person ever to even notice -- let alone appreciate -- the skills she's cultivated entirely on her own. Coming down harshly on her is really just what Minoru has always done: complained about her actions, ignoring that they sprang from a place of wanting to protect/defend a friend.
But Joe also seems aware that he's a step away from a pedestal in Aki's eyes, so he's not entirely solicitous. He corrects her, and lays her out, knocks her down a few times when they spar. He knows that hitting the floor might get the think-first news through her head faster than reasoned conversation. What is remarkable about the two actors is that both display some intense focus. Aki's is more wide-eyed, as befits a student, focused on her coach/mentor and in a way, looking like she's soaking it all up the way a soul in the desert might drink from an oasis.
Joe's focused on being ready for Aki's unpredictability, but his gaze is constantly moving; he's assessing her, keeping an eye on the little tells, and reacts with near-instantaneous speed to exploit any opening and keep her on her toes. It's one of the first times I've seen a training boxing segment (not that I watch a lot of them, but I could even compare martial arts sparring here) where it feels like the two in the ring have truly forgotten any audience. She's too busy trying to get past his guard, and he's too busy watching her, encouraging her, correcting her, reacting to her.
Or maybe I should say: if Minoru had definite elements of liking Aki but also not-liking a lot of Aki and not wanting to see/acknowledge parts of Aki... Joe sees Aki in her entirety. And I think that's a pretty heady experience for someone like Aki, who's gone with one face for most of the world, and is redressed for her interior face (skill) by her best friend. Joe doesn't fall for the exterior but doesn't turn away from the interior. The validation may be mostly unstated, but it's there. And it's pretty powerful stuff.
The ostensible pinnacle of the story -- or at least Aki's part of it -- is in great part Joe's path in the story. That might sound kind of strange, or like a way to argue that a female character's path is predicated upon a male character's path (and we've all seen that story a bazillion times), so let me explain.
Joe's boxing studio is struggling; when we first meet him, he's this close to shutting it down, despite his assistant/sole protege arguing otherwise. Minoru's arrival, then Kyoko's arrival, herald a new range of students who are mostly older and looking just to get into shape, and Aki is really the only one with any real potential to take it further. But the gym's got too many bills after limping along, so under pressure from another coach (who is also the coach of the female boxer who spars with Aki), Joe agrees to a staged fight.
It's tied in with Junko, Joe's ex, and the movie production she's on. Like Joe, she's dangerously close to being a has-been, but this movie might be her re-entrance to the film world. (Undone by the director's manipulative ways, when he tries to play Joe and Junko; he's clearly scum, including rubbing it casually in Joe's face that Junko effectively prostituted herself to get the role.) The movie is about a young boxer -- played by some kid who pulls off the spoiled, self-centered, preening idol in a rangy, not-quite-man, way -- and the staged fight is meant to be the centerpiece of a making-of mockumentary. Joe is far from enthused about the details, like the lack of safety gear ("we need to be able to see [the idol's] face," the director explains), or the fact that as a former Japanese national champion, he's expected to lose to some actor.
What Joe does not do is tell his cheerleading crew, and I suspect that's partially because he's ashamed of his agreement. It's also, I think, why he shows no animosity towards Junko upon finding out she's slept with the crass director to get the role; Joe has effectively done the same thing, in selling out for money. (And you could even see it as a literal body-selling in Joe's case to mirror Junko's, seeing how getting the money means allowing someone to beat the crap out of him, physically.)
The fight is beautifully staged, and if the rest of the movie hasn't been all that much about the grit and wear of actual training, it has at least given this viewer enough coaching information to be able to recognize everything Joe's doing... that means he's not truly fighting. (In case you don't clue in, though, at one point Aki or the assistant yells, "you're fighting like Minoru!") Joe's deflecting some punches, and aiming only at the idol's gloves, not the idol's face -- and he's leaving himself wide open way too much. The music matches it perfectly, a regretful piano piece with a slow tempo, as Joe struggles with his long-trained instincts and pride, to let himself be taken down.
His students, understandably, are angry, upset, and in Minoru's case, maybe even a bit crushed. That's their hero up there, and he's getting beaten and not even trying to fight back. When Junko arrives and realizes that Joe's losing -- an incomprehensible notion to her, clearly -- the director tries to manipulate her once again, implying that Joe did all this for cash. (In other words, he's as dirty as she is, and the director smugly sits above them both, as savior and condemner.) The other coach contradicts the director, though, a bit of line that was much-needed to have someone with principles in the scene, speaking up in Joe's defense.
But none of this is heard/known by the three at ringside, who are yelling for Joe to fight back. It finally is too much, one punch to the (unprotected) head too many, and Joe goes down. He's conscious, but before he can get up again, the kids are in the ring. Minoru and the assistant are supporting Joe, while Aki stands over them.
Another nice change -- that it's not the girl who leaps in there to be the healer-type; that's Minoru's role in this story. Aki remains Aki, and the fury she once turned on those who bullied Minoru, she now turns on the smirking idol.
Here's where the story came through for me, in every possible way. Aki raises her bare fists, ready to take on the idol and take him down.
While the idol -- noticeably very unbruised about the face, compared to Joe -- looks a little baffled at the idea of fighting a girl, or maybe he's just unable to improv at the sudden change in opponent.
But as she advances, Joe catches at her ankle. Weary and bloody, he stops her.
You knew this was coming. You knew it had to be coming, at some point, that with everything the script's shown, the opening segments where Aki shows awesomesauce couldn't be the only scenes she'd get. Joe's remonstrations in the ring about the rules of boxing have to mean something, as do her own instincts and self-trained style.
But what makes it come together for me is that it's a double meaning. Joe means that some people -- like the sneering actor -- aren't worth lowering oneself to fight. In a way, it's the same message that Minoru tried to give her, earlier in the story: that sometimes, people aren't worth that much effort. Aki, though, remains Aki. She doesn't step down because someone -- her friend or her mentor -- tells her that she doesn't have to fight. She remains angry, and she remains avenging.
So she takes his single meaning and makes it double. In a gorgeously slow-motion advance, she takes a few steps, picks up speed, and as the piano music comes to an end, she drops the actor with a single incredible high kick.
As he lies there, she delivers her classic line -- but this time, it's in defense of someone who for all intents is more powerful and capable as a fighter than she. It doesn't matter, because Aki's willingness to protect and defend isn't based on who's more powerful, who's powerless, unlike Minoru has apparently feared. Her willingness is based on what she believes is right.
And unlike the times we've seen her defend Minoru, this time she gets a response that truly vindicates her. The assistant coach yells out to her, cheering her on.
The only reaction is Aki's smile, but I think that says enough.
If the original dynamic was that she defended Minoru, who protested the too-violent response, but refused to defend himself, in turn infuriating her for getting such disapproval despite good intentions... Here, she's defended someone and been rewarded for the purity of her actions. No one says anything about how having a student fight on the teacher's behalf lessens the teacher.
In fact, even Minoru looks impressed rather than his usual upset/worried.
What I also like is that the friendship's dynamic isn't wiped in one go, at least not yet. Aki kneels before the coach, and now that she hasn't gotten the usual disapproval, she's getting worried on her own. It's not just going against the coach's words; it's also, I think, that the usual dynamic has shifted completely. Her coach is nothing like Minoru in many ways, but she reacted as though he were, and that might be too presumptuous. She took on a role that she had over Minoru, but the balance of her relationship with Joe is different.
But after a slight pause, Joe relaxes, and the approval solidifies into Joe's weary approving smile.
The story takes a turn or two, but the real agent of the rest of the story is Aki, not Minoru. She's been released from her half of the screwy dynamic by Joe's acknowledgment (and acceptance) of her, and now she wants the same from Minoru. It's not really that Joe sees her as an equal in the exact sense of the word; maybe it's simply that his reaction proves he respects her, understands how she reacts, and accepts that Aki is Aki -- and doesn't see any power she has as a sign that he has less power. He's not diminished by her, and that's a lesson Minoru has to learn as well, if the friendship is ever to find a healthy footing.
I have some minor issues with the translation -- the word 'protect' might be literally accurate, but when Aki admits she wanted Minoru to 'protect' her in return (by asserting himself as having a right in who she likes/wants), I think a more appropriate English translation might be 'stand by' her. The long-term dynamic has been, after all, one of true protection, where Aki stands in front of Minoru and defends him from the world/bullies. She didn't do that for Joe; she only got in the ring after Joe went down. She's learned to hold back and believe in someone else's ability, and only step in when needed. Not to protect (block), but to fight alongside.
So when she tells Minoru that she's angry/upset that he didn't 'protect' her in return, I think the translation is awkward because the nuance in English isn't the same as what fits the context. I think it works better if you watch the scene, post-fight, and see Aki's demand as being for Minoru to stand with her, not in place of her.
Minoru, though, remains fixated on the idea (as he has for most of the movie) that the only way he can move forward is if he's able to fight, and beat, Aki. He's still thinking in the power-up, power-down kind of situation, where someone has to lose for another to win. He doesn't really learn -- not on a gut-level -- from the ending of that staged fight, but Aki does, and the story moves to its final showdown because of Aki's insistence, not Minoru's. If anyone has agency by this point, it's almost entirely in Aki's hands.
I will admit that I was leery of the stated premise, early on, that Minoru could only win if he could beat Aki so she loses. It places a lot of the burden on their screwy dynamics on her, when in my view, it's Minoru's own reluctance and wishy-washiness that created and exacerbated the situation. Focusing on Aki as the one to beat shifts the blame of the situation entirely off himself and onto her shoulders, and I don't think that's fair -- but I think that on some level, Aki pressures Minoru into a fight between them because she's aware of Minoru's motives and blame-shifting.
A big part of my leery response was also because I've become so inured to Hollywood/media/fiction assumptions about hitting girls. One way or another, most stories will either go overboard to justify when it happens -- like Buffy being superhuman strength, or vampires being evil regardless of sex/gender, etc -- or stories will do convoluted backflips to get around the oncoming punch. (Or they'll compromise by only having girls/women hit other girls/women.) Good guys, especially good main protagonists, aren't supposed to hit girls, etc.
I took a break from the movie at that point, to eat dinner, and gave it some thought. I've never held to that whole "don't hit girls" hogwash -- not, at least, when it's based on the idea of girls being powerless and therefore permanent non-combatants. Aki is definitely a full combatant in this movie, with all powers of agency. If I flip the genders, in this particular aspect, I think there could be an equally interesting story in there, with a young woman training to take down an overprotective friend to prove her ability to defend herself -- but I think the aftermath of such a fight might be very different.
Perhaps it's true that the final blows of the Aki/Minoru fight (staged, appropriately enough, in their old kindergarten schoolyard) are a bit of a cop-out, because although Aki tells Minoru he won, it sure looked like a draw to me. Maybe in a way, she's extending to him what Joe's approval gave her: a willingness to recognize the other person's power, secure in the knowledge that doing so doesn't reduce her own power.
On one level, I can see the argument being made that she "lets" Minoru win, and in doing so, is stepping into the (feminine, powerless) background so he can take over the "masculine" half. Except I think there's another reason the major, plot-turning point of the movie is Joe's staged fight, and the continuing thread about what Junko's had to do to get and keep her comeback movie role -- both of those are self-sacrifices. But we're not meant to see Joe, or Junko, as being less because of the choices they've made, and in the same vein, I don't think we're meant to see Aki as less because she effectively, if subtly, throws the fight with Minoru. She's willing to lose today if she wins tomorrow.
What intrigues me, ultimately, is that the story proposes to be about a bullied, somewhat cowardly young man's path to self-confidence and self-assertion via boxing. It's that, but that's really only a sub-plot, and in some ways just a major setup for the story's main plotline: Aki's movement from playing a role of pretty girl to fully accepting and embracing her own power. Enough that in the end, she has plenty to spare for a friend who needs it -- but not in a way that reduces him, but builds him up.
There's one other thing about this film that's a little... peculiar, and that's Kyoko. I really don't know what was going on with her, by her last appearance. She starts out starry-eyed romance over Minoru, affirming him in all the 'proper' ways a girl's femininity is supposed to affirm a boy's masculinity. Not quite batting eyelashes, but definitely a whole lot of cheering from the sidelines (and we're back to that "men being masculine allows women to be feminine").
When Aki appears (and then Junko), Kyoko's reaction turns distinctly petulant, then outright surly, and then descends into melodrama. She's playing the helpless damsel to the absolute hilt, and her final appearance in a getup somewhere between Scarlett O'Hara and a bad cosplaying accident is both surreal and somewhat disturbing. I think the logic goes like this, at least the script's logic for Kyoko's motivation: as long as Minoru is focused on Aki, he's drained of masculinity due to Aki refusing to play the pretty girl. So Kyoko has to play the damsel to the fifth power, and effectively 'steal' all helplessness, leaving Minoru no choice but to take the remaining (which would be the strong/masculine half of the equation).
[It's especially amusing to me because Scarlett O'Hara, as a character, may've played the simpering fool for the benefit of stupid men, but she was about as far from a helpless damsel-character as you can get. She's pretty much the antithesis of the helpless damsel, in some ways. But I think it's the corsets and the dresses that leave the impression that she's adaptable as Distressed Damsel.]
Kyoko's treatment in the script is ham-handed and a little overdone, compared to the gentle touches, and I wonder if maybe the original story (and the director) were more comfortable with Aki's part of the story. The excessive, overblown, melodramatic romanticism in Kyoko's character are a bit hard to stomach, and hard to play seriously without descending into just looking like a lot of cosplay crazy. Unfortunately, that's where the story goes with Kyoko. It means she works less as a contrast of ultra-feminine to Aki's inner tomboy, and more like the tearful self-absorbed crazy to Aki's level-headed forthrightness.
If you can overlook that, or just roll your eyes and carry on once Kyoko's theatrics are past, the rest of the story is strongly Aki's... and it's a good story. Best of all, she may make concessions to help a friend, but only once she's begun growing into comfort with her own power and learns she has plenty to spare.
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Date: 17 Mar 2011 08:09 am (UTC)/intelligent contribution
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Date: 17 Mar 2011 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Mar 2011 09:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Mar 2011 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Mar 2011 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Mar 2011 04:38 am (UTC)Besides, her roundhouse kicks are just flipping awesome.
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Date: 17 Mar 2011 05:11 pm (UTC)Definitely putting this film on the to-watch list. :D
*relurking*
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Date: 19 Mar 2011 04:40 am (UTC)