You’re damn right this page has issues. [Image: screencap of the Wikipedia page for When Marnie Was There with the statement “this page has some issues” at the top
To be clear: I have not read the book, and I assume the movie is faithful to the original plot points.
Review contains so many gifs and some spoilers–the plot twist is embedded in a link, but there are a lot of pictures.
Miyazaki protégé Yonebayashi adds Studio Ghibli magic to Joan G. Robinson’s classic ghost story of a shy teenage tomboy who befriends a young blonde girl who may not be of this world. Subtitled, Ages 8+.
Here was my thought process throughout the movie:
HOORAY A NEW GHIBLI FILM
oh my GOD ARE THEY TINY QUEER BABIES
I’VE WAITED SO LONG
source [gif: Marnie helping Anna out of the boat onto the dock]
WHY DIDN’T I HAVE THIS AS A TEEN
SHE’S BLUSHING AWWWW
[Gif: Marnie with her arms around Anna, who looking up at Marnie and blushing]
Source: Oh Totoro. [Gif: Marnie and Anna waltzing]
Source: Oh Totoro [gif: Anna blushing as Marnie waltzes with her]
ANNA GETTING JEALOUS ABOUT MARNIE DANCING WITH KAZUHIKO HALP
[image: Kazuhiko kissing Marnie’s hand at a fancy party]
TOUCHY FEELY BOATING LESSONS
BLUSHING
[image: Anna rowing a boat with Marnie sitting behind her]
[image: Marnie helps Anna row the boat]
Source [Image of Marnie embracing Anna] “I love you more than any girl I’ve ever known.”
——-[spoilers ensue]———
WAIT WHAT
WHAT IN THE HELL
NO
THIS IS NOT OKAY
MY QUEER BABIES NO
GPOY. Source [gif: Marnie running over to Anna, who is crying, and comforting her]
With the huge exception of the last 15 minutes and that plot twist, this was the film I needed as a proto-queer kid. I needed someone to show me it was okay to have a crush on or fall in love with your best friend. I needed a film about an awkward “tomboy” and a spirited femme-leaning girl being athletic and cool and empathetic together. I needed teen girlfriends being supportive and brave together. I need(ed) a queer ghost story, not this Back to the Future bullshit.
I’ve seen some criticism that “people are perverts for shipping teens” and “don’t understand female friendships,” but Anna’s and Marnie’s relationship was so true to my own experiences that it hurt to have the reason for their affinity and their queerness explained away in a poof of Moffat-era Whovian plot twist. As a bisexual lady-type, I have platonic friendships with amazing women to whom I am not attracted, and I also have a subset of women to whom I am very attracted. (And the same for men and non-binary folks.) Every time someone trots out “research” about how “men and women can’t be friends without being sexually attracted to each other” or how monosexual folks treat each other (as friends for straight women and lovers for lesbians), I find it offensive. Bi/pansexuals and non-monosexual queer people could be the key to understanding attraction and friendship, but we’re “outliers”? Please.
So I’ll end this here and go cry into a Sarah Waters novel:
….COULD MARNIE AND HISAKO BE A THING
DID MARNIE INTRODUCE ANNA TO SAYAKA SO THEY CAN BE MYSTERY-SOLVING GIRLFRIENDS
WHYYYYYYY
![[image: Marnie with her arms around Anna as they hide in the bushes]](https://odorunara.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/marnie-01.jpg){kind=link}
Ok! I’m debating a super long response vs. a flail response. Mostly I’m just so glad to FINALLY have someone to talk about this with! First off, I read the book in English first, which really colored my experience of the movie differently. The bones of the story are the same, but there’s enough big details that are different to make a difference. For example, there’s a pretty big difference between vaguely Modern Day Japan and England in the vaguely 60’s. Also, I think in the book it was much more clear that Anna is an unreliable narrator. She is dealing with some pretty heavy stuff, there’s illness involved, it’s much more hazy and dreamlike in a lot of places.
Major change example: Anna is not an artist in the book. I liked that change in the movie, because it would have been a lot harder to show the motivation of a character just lying around the dunes endlessly in her own head. Marnie functions in the book as a way of pulling her out of her head, as do the neighbors, who I think have a much better role in the book.
Another change: I think the movie heightens the hints of romance between the two characters. I’m not sure if I’m angry about this yet, but it is something that I’ve grappled with. I think in the book the relationship seems more platonic, and all of the examples you listed here are good examples of how similar things happening can have very different impact depending on how things are handled. For example, in the movie, Anna seems a bit jealous of Kazuhiko. In the book, she knows that Marnie’s love interest is kind of a bad guy, and therefore her dislike for him is perhaps more motivated as a protective instinct, regardless of romantic interest. I’m not saying that there isn’t necessarily such an interest in the book, just that it feels like the dial got turned up in the movie at the expense of the broader development of their relationship.
Also, I feel like the family stuff is a bit better handled in the book, and it feels more like “What a TWIST” in the movie. So if you’re hoping for a queer story and get a family story, it can feel really out of left field, whereas in the book it seemed to be set up better. Also the book is a bit spookier and hazier. I’m normally kind of irritated by “Oh the book is SO much better comments” so I don’t want this to come off as that, more like…they’re surprisingly different things, considering how much of the plot is the same.
I have other examples, but it’s been long enough since I read/watched to be able to write them out coherently. I will say, however, that this review very well encapsulates a lot of what I felt watching the movie, especially watching the preview before I read the book and knew what the deal was.
I want to hear your thoughts in comparison with the book, but at least when I got it, it was a big pain to get a hold of–I had to redownload my phone kindle app to set it to the Japan Amazon store to download it in English, ironically enough. It was cheap though, which was nice. I feel like your experience might be colored by the hints of romance in the book, however–now that you’ve seen Anna blush in the movie, it may be hard *not* to see her blush in the book, you know?
TLDR; I liked the book, I liked the movie, and like you, I felt a bit let down in my hopes for a queer movie, which this sort of tried to be but didn’t commit and thus failed.
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From what I can tell from reviews of the book, it’s a lot less shippy. There’s nothing inherently romantic about teaching someone to row a boat or dance, but the way it was drawn made it seem very obvious that Marnie and Anna liked each other romantically (in a teen way). It reminded me a lot of Japanese feminist and queer women’s fiction, like The Yellow Roses, where maybe they’d be told it was “just a phase” (but it IS NOT A PHASE AUGHHH).
I love the setting of contemporary Hokkaido so much, and I loved how the non-Japanese and multiracial characters were whole characters and not stereotypes. I’m having trouble imagining it in Britain!
Regarding Kazuhiko, I was convinced that someone had killed Marnie in the silo, and I thought it was either the maids or him. I’m glad it wasn’t him, I guess, but I wondered because of the prevalence of domestic violence…
And yeah, I’m worried I’ll see hints of romance in the boom where it wasn’t intended at all (vs, say, the original Sherlock Holmes being fairly shippy by 1890s standards). I think I want to read “When Marnie Was There by Sarah Waters” instead!
Thanks for the comment!!
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[…] should be good! Plus people are sending me their own queer pop culture posts, like this one and this one and this one, and that’s pretty much the best thing ever. Keep it […]
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I haven’t seen this yet, but that looks like it would be my thought process through the whole thing, too, haha. 😦
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So much queer energy wasted T_T
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Hi! i’m italian and i watched the movie yesterday. i agree completely with you, i really felt this queer romance being exposed (and my friends did too), i think that was intended to hint at their relationship in those terms… but then there was that plot twist that was disappointing to me, even if objectively interesting, but i truly wanted that pure love to remain romantically given. I still ship them, i have to say – weird? i keep waiting for a queer teen romance on the big screen, and in the meanwhile i’m reading Clamp comics (full of lgbt hints!)
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Thank you! the last minutes of the movie were a kick to the balls I don’t have, I didn’t expect neither the movie or the director outside confirming or denying it was romantic, I was hoping it’d be left like that, and one half of the audience would say it’s frienship and another romance, but this was all ruined with the “guess what, she is the grandma, now you get why she loves her so much? it wasn’t what you thought it was, it’s grandma love” explanation right at the very end, ok I know they didn’t say that but that’s how it felt for me…from Marnie’s side, Anna’s many many blushing moments and her jelously are still there, so it’s not that I can’t see it this way if I want, not that I like shiping them knowing they are related this way…
Anyway, the point is this I think this was a lost chance, I tend to hear not everything has to be gay complains, like if 99% of every bond between two same sex individuals in fiction was indeed gay instead of the very opposite? (frienship or family love) so the question should actually be why does everything have to be heterosexual?
And the book is like this is no justification since the source material does not necesarilly have to be followed, in fact I know few examples where they do.
all this to say… you are not the only one who feels this way.
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[…] book is basically the anti-Marnie. Whereas Marnie sets you up for ghostly queer feels and yanks the carpet from beneath your dainty […]
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I really don’t think that the ending/plot twist negates the fact that marine and Anna may have actually shared some romantic feelings for each other. At first I was just as shocked by the plot twist, especially since I too was hoping for the (finally) same-sex/non heterosexual kids movie that I needed so badly my whole life. But I think that the fact that marine turns out to be Anna’s grandmother only adds another layer of depth to the story. In one of the final scenes where Anna is waving goodbye to Sayaka and Taichi and thinks she sees Marnie waving out the marsh house window, I think it is showing that Anna still has romantic feelings for Marnie and it’s okay. The realization that marine is a relative, like I said before, doesn’t negate the fact that they shared a romantic intimacy together. And to be fair, the relationship was a figment of Anna’s imagination or at least a way for her to cope with the devastation of her family situation and put together the missing pieces of her past. Anna becomes excited and hopeful when she thinks she sees Marnie out the window, and then realizes that it’s just the wind blowing a curtain, while simultaneously coming to terms with reality. Although it wasn’t truly a GLBT/Q film, I wouldn’t completely take it out of the category.
Also, this isn’t the first time that Ghibli has dabbled with love forming between related individuals. In Poppy Hill, the characters from an intimate relationship only to find out they share the same father. Again, this doesn’t negate the fact that they shared intimate feelings, but only changes the possibility of a continuation of the relationship.
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Thanks for the great comment! I certainly don’t think that the final revelation negated the real feelings Anna and Marnie had, but it comes off as straight-washing to me. “Ohhhh, you had special feelings for your special friend because she’s your grandmother! The power of grandma love compels you!” Reminded me, as an American, too much of the original English dub of Sailor Moon. Haruka and Michiru are just so close! So close! Because they’re, uh…cousins!
I like your take that Marnie is a figment of Anna’s imagination, like an avatar in the shape of her grandmother, who comes to help Marnie figure out the mystery of her birth family (and also her queerness). 🙂
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I watched the movie again and came up with an alternative explanation that doesn’t exactly involve the straight washing that may have been indicated. I think the appearance of Marnie can be looked at as the embodiment of Anna’s sexuality or exploration of. Some might think this is just about friendship, but after watching again I found a few key points besides the obvious “precious secret,” and “I love you,” and “more than any other girl,” moments that might suggest this.
One scene that made me think this was the way Marnie began to call Anna “Kazuhiko,” who was the name of her husband. When Anna brings Marnie up to the grain silo, Marnie disappears after calling her Kazuhiko the first time. Anna climbs the tower and finds Marnie, thinking she went on ahead without her. Marnie is wrapped in Kazuhiko’s coat and calls Anna Kazuhiko again. When Anna reminds Marnie that her name is Anna, Marnie yells, “Anna!” in relief and flings her arms around Anna. In this instance, Kazuhiko and Anna are seen as interchangeable to Marnie. This could be seen as a reflection moment like in The Legend of Korra’s final episode where Korra and Asami hold hands in the same way, mirroring Aand and Katara’s romantic scene did in the finale of Avatar the Last Airbender, and Zhu-Li and Varrick’s during their nuptials.
Another scene where this was evident was when Anna learns about Marnie (her grandmother) in her life married to Kazuhiko. In the narration, there is nothing that is ever said about Marnie feeling love for Kazuhiko, but more that she was searching for belonging, family, and attention from someone since she never got it from her parents. It almost seems as though Marnie just did what she thought adult women were supposed to do–marry men and have babies. Marnie appears depressed with the way her life was. Earlier narration speaks about Marnie’s (girl)friend as a child whom she did love and was greatly attached to. Perhaps this suggests that Marnie never loved Kazuhiko or maybe was never even interested in men at all. She had very strict parents, guardians, and servants, and high expectations about the little lady she was supposed to be so maybe was not allowed to engage in an “illicit” relationship with a girl.
Finally, the explanation for the appearances of Marnie to Anna in the first place. I think that Marnie appears to Anna to help her discover her sexuality by engaging in a relationship with her, and by introducing her to Sayaka as a friend and potentially something more. More importantly, Marnie teaches Anna the importance of happiness that comes from being true and honest to yourself, showing her that loneliness resulted from the mistake she made by marrying Kazuhiko. Perhaps she appears to Anna in order to save her from repeating the same mistakes.
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YOU NEED TO REMEMBER…
WESTERN AND EAST CULTURE ARE REALLY DIFFERENTS!
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Why, hello there, gentle reader! You’re right, British (the novel) and Japanese (the film) culture, as well as American (me) culture, are quite different. Queer identities occur all over the word in every culture, but each culture considers them differently.
Since this post is about queer women, let’s dive right in to some good resources about queer issues that focus on or feature women!
To get an idea of queer culture in contemporary Japan, I would recommend checking out Leslie Kee’s Out in Japan (http://outinjapan.com/) and Rainbow Japan (https://www.rainbow.co.jp/) for more on activism in Japan.
If you want to know more about the equal marriage movement in Japan, Google Koyuki Higashi (http://koyuki-higashi.tumblr.com/) and her partner Hiroko Masuhara, the first couple to get a civil union in Setagaya Ward in Tokyo and two people at the forefront of the marriage equality movement in Japan.
Erica Friedman reviews all sorts of yuri manga (the good, the bad, and the problematic) here, if you’d like to know how relationships between women are depicted in graphica: http://okazu.yuricon.com/
If you’d like to read more manga about queer identities, I really love Yoshinaga Fumi’s historical fiction Ooku (大奥) and slice-of-life What Did You Eat Yesterday? (きのうなに 食べた？). And, of course, Honey & Honey is also a great autobiographical manga by a lesbian manga artist; I wrote about that here.
For historical ideas about queer identities, let me point you to the essay my co-panelist, the great Dr. Hemmann, wrote here about the usage of katakana terms to describe (and medicalize) queer identities in Japan. She also wrote a great piece on Yellow Rose, which is a story by lesbian author Yoshiya Nobuko, originally published in 1923.
Happy reading!
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I know this was written a long while ago, but I rewatched the movie recently and I have been itching to talk to someone about it. (Even if you don’t reply, just if my idea is out there I’ll feel better about it.)
Honestly, everything you listed about having needed this movie as a teen/etc. I totally identify with. I watched this with a friend for the first time a bit over a year ago, and felt the exact same way. I was almost moved to joyous tears, I finally had representation that was pure and tender hearted that took away my shame, etc. — Only for it all to be pulled out from under me.
Obviously, I was horribly hurt and upset, as one would be (especially since I’m only 16 at the moment), but when I rewatched it I came up with a theory, however farfetched or unbelievable, that I stand by because I needed help to #cope after that second round of rejection.
(This is for the universe of the movie, and is not affiliated with the book because I haven’t read and thus don’t have a perspective on it.)
What if Anna was re-living/re-experiencing Hisako’s childhood memories with Marnie? Hisako, as shown in the movie in the time of Anna being there, would have been close in age to Marnie were she alive, and recounts tales about Marnie/implies she knew her. I know her point as a character is to help Anna realize her familial relations with Marnie, but either way the possibility still exists that Anna was either reliving some of her childhood memories, and that Hisako and Marnie were friends as children.
Technically speaking, any romantic love that occurred between Anna and Marnie would still be considered valid due to the fact that neither were aware of the familial level of their relationship during the time they actually spent together. Obviously I don’t condone or support incest, but the love was still true nonetheless, which is comforting.
Anyway, back to my silly half-strung theory, assuming Hisako and Marnie were as close as children/young teens as Anna and Marnie were portrayed, its a totally valid idea that they could have developed a romantic relationship together as teenagers/etc..
I know its silly, and is kind of wild and so obviously made to console my hurt feelings about the film and stuff, but its still a possibility. I guess I just wanted to share this.
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I love all the fan theories I’m getting here! There’s that part at the end when Marnie calls Anna “Kazuhiko” because she’s remembering being locked in the silo, so that wouldn’t be so odd if ghost-Marnie thought that Anna was Hisako (and perhaps this foreshadowed Sayaka/Anna?)
Thanks for the comment 🙂
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Odd. I didn’t find anything in this movie as being Yuri-themed. How do I know?
I come from a generation where girls generally thought of boys as being “gross”, “rude” or just plain stupid. Girls didn’t think anything of dancing together doing an impromptu sock-hop next to the local A&W coin-operated juke-box. And yes, girls didn’t think anything of acting like a giggly touchy-feely ditz. Yes! Girls were actually like that once way back when! Likewise, the boys of my generation found girls as being “gross”, “bossy” or just plain whiny: All. The. Time. Dancing was “stoopid”. The only time boys touched each other was with bare fists or a bone-breaking football tackle. The combined testosterone of John Wayne and Marlon Brando had nothing on them.
When Marnie Was There is based on Joan G. Robinson’s 1967 novel of the same name. Bearing that in mind, it is unfortunate that you seem to forget the context of the age the story was written in and that kids of the 1960s generation were genuinely innocent before all of the oversexed, overly stoned and outright brain-dead propaganda of the Hippie era poisoned their lives.
Sometimes a story of childlike innocence is genuine innocence notwithstanding.
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1. Queer folks have been around forever, even before the Sexual Revolution. One great place to learn more about LGBTQ+ history is Notches. http://notchesblog.com/
2. Gender roles associated with the 1950s are not set in stone. Not everyone behaved like that, and there is no such thing as gender roles “since time immemorial.” Louis XIV’s shapely calves, high heels, and flowing locks were the height of masculinity for his time. Gender and sexuality vary between time and space.
3. The book and the movie are not the same. I get the sense that the book doesn’t really have this queer subtext, but the movie is very queer coded. If you’re queer or trans, you learn to read between the lines. Straight and cisgender folks love to say we’re just making it up, but if you’ve never been in the closet looking for scraps of representation, you can’t understand this. You can read more about queer baiting here: https://www.themarysue.com/queerbaiting-and-heteronormativity-on-tv/
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/queerbaiting-the-misrepresentation-of-the-queer-community
https://www.autostraddle.com/how-do-we-solve-a-problem-like-queerbaiting-on-tvs-not-so-subtle-gay-subtext-182718/
4. Plenty of children’s media features straight (or straight-appearing) crushes between teens (every Disney movie ever). Why is queerness sexualized and not “innocent” when hetero romance is supposedly innocent?
Good luck on your journey to ending the cisheteropatriarchy!
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