The Inner Chambers of the Dog Shogun: Ôoku, Volumes 4-6, Part 3

New to Ôoku? Start here. Introduction to this arc here.

Major spoilers for the Iemitsu (vol 2-4) and Tsunayoshi arcs (vol. 4-6), including the drama and the Ôoku: Eien film. Warnings: the plot of this story arc contains sexual assault and abuse, dubious consent, murder, the death of a child, and back-stabbing, and is generally NSFW.

Tsunayoshi plays a game with her daughter Matsu-hime. Vol. 5, p. 16.

Hideous Beauty

One aspect of Tsunayoshi’s character that I found fascinating was her relationship to beauty ideals.

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Reblog: “Eat. Prey. Love?: NBC’s Hannibal” | Comparative Geeks

Speaking of geekery and gender, I’ve got a guest post over on Comparative Geeks about the feminist aspects of NBC’s Hannibal.

Hannibal cast via The Huffington Post.

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Inside the Inner Chambers of the Dog Shogun: Ôoku, Volumes 4-6, Part 2

Introduction here. Spoilers for the Iemitsu (vol 2-4) and Tsunayoshi arcs (vol. 4-6), including the drama and the Ôoku: Eien film. Warnings: the plot of this story arc contains sexual assault and abuse, dubious consent, suicide, murder, and all the back-stabbing. I’ve kept the mostly images PG-13 (there’s a little gore in one) but the content is not safe for work.

“I’m not like the former Shogun, who agreed to anything.” Vol. 183.

Brought to you by the Bechdel test

Let’s start with the most obvious point: Tsunayoshi can be a morally reprehensible woman precisely because the Ôoku has equal gender representation, both in her story arc and the work at large.

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Why I’m in Favor of Bechdel Ratings for Film

Last month, four Swedish cinemas decided to start adding Bechdel-test ratings for movies in order to address gender parity in the film industry.*

Enjoy this screenshot from my senior thesis! Bechdel-test champion Miyazaki consistently has female representation in films, and not just in the form of antagonists like San and Eboshi from Mononoke-hime, but real female friends (not frenemies), allies, coworkers, and sisters. Why, it’s almost as if female characters were capable of having as many different types of relationships as male ones…

The Bechdel Test, as we know, is simply a way to evaluate female representation in a film. It is not a test of quality or of feminist themes, only of female representation (or racial representation for Racial Bechdel).

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Geek Gender Reader: August 2013

Aaand we’re a day or two late. ぎりぎりセーフ。。。じゃない。

I collected a lot of articles on geeks and gender this summer and wanted to share them here on the blog. Japan Gender Reader will be back soon!

Image via Northwest Press.

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