In this gender reader: how to discuss nonbinary genders in Japanese, gross anime tropes, a shôjo manga release and a 20th anniversary, and more!

Image: Chihiro from Spirited Away runs through the town as the spirits come out to go to the bathhouse
Posted in Anime, Art, Culture, Geek Culture, Gender, Manga, Race, Visual Culture, tagged anime tropes, BL, Claudine, fan comics, Junichi Nakahara, Kayo Yoshida, LGBT, nonbinary, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Yuka Ogata on 2017/12/17| 3 Comments »
In this gender reader: how to discuss nonbinary genders in Japanese, gross anime tropes, a shôjo manga release and a 20th anniversary, and more!
Image: Chihiro from Spirited Away runs through the town as the spirits come out to go to the bathhouse
Posted in Art, Art, Japan in Seattle, Visual Culture, tagged Infinity Mirrors, Seattle Art Museum, Yayoi Kusama on 2017/11/18| Leave a Comment »
Over the summer, I had the chance to see Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors at the Seattle Art Museum. This was my first time seeing any of her work in person, and it was well worth getting a new membership for me and my partner.
These photos focus on the art that was not the Infinity Mirror Rooms, since you can’t really take a quick photo without getting yourself in it, too. Photos of the Infinity Mirror Rooms can be found on the SAM website, though.
Posted in Art, Gender, Media, tagged Anything That Loves, comparative geeks, freshly pressed, No Straight Lines, queer comics on 2013/10/20| 1 Comment »
My guest post on Comparative Geeks about queer comic anthologies is freshly pressed today!
Posted in Art, Art, Noto, Photography, Rural Life, Travel, tagged art, contemporary art, 能登島, 能登島ガラス美術館, glass, glass art, Ishikawa, modern art, Nanao, Notojima, Travel on 2013/07/28| 2 Comments »
Notojima‘s other main attraction is the glass art museum, which features international glass ranging from the practical to the abstract.
The design of the museum itself is sleek, playful, and modern.
Posted in Advertisements, Art, Gender, tagged Alice Ross, art, BBC, beauty pageant, bisexual, cattle, Downy, feminism, gay, Gender, Guy Ritchie, Irene Adler, Ishihara test, James Bond, laundry, lost in translation, Raoul Silva, sex, sexism, Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, Skyfall, Sophie McDougall, Tide commercial, villain on 2013/03/26| Leave a Comment »
In this reader: Bond gets hit on by a man, BBC Sherlock‘s Irene Adler is naked and that’s okay, a man does laundry, and women are not cattle. Don’t forget the “You’re Doing It Right” section at the end for some good news.
Posted in Art, Culture, Gender, Visual Culture, tagged agency, art, Asian art, C.B. Liddell, discrimination, female artists, female representation in art, feminism, japan, male gaze, minority art, representation, sexism, The diverse works of Asian women artists, The Japan Times, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, women, women artists, women in art, Women In-Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012, women's bodies on 2013/03/14| 6 Comments »
This piece also appeared in Feministe on 1 April 2013.
One of the most striking scenes in the 2012 miniseries version of Ford Maddox Ford’s Parade’s End is one in which suffragette Valentine Wannop takes refuge in an art museum during a rally. While she is quietly admiring a painting of Venus, another woman enters and slashes the painting with a cleaver, shouting, “What are you all gawking at? Do you think that is all women are good for?”1
As someone with a deep love of art, I was alarmed as Valentine was. I do not believe in the destruction of art, but what the stand-in for Mary Richardson said stuck with me. Consider the status of women in the art world: often considered the “muse,” rarely the artist; lauded as the pinnacle of beauty but having no worth otherwise: the Venus forever looking in her mirror, the object of the (male) gaze, not the subject of her own agency. Should a gallery or museum try to strive for the inclusion of women artists (and artists of color, queer artists, and so on), there may be criticism of ignoring the masters, so-called “female privilege,” and the desire for a gender-blind meritocracy that simply does not exist at present. If you were wondering what such an article might look like, look no further than C.B. Liddell’s “The diverse works of Asian women artists,” a special to The Japan Times.
Posted in Art, Culture, Gender, Visual Culture, tagged art, body types, history, illustrations, Peter Paul Rubens, pride, Rennaissance Art, shapism, Tomas Kucerovsky, Wrong Century on 2012/07/07| 14 Comments »
Just like fashion trends, the “ideal body shape(s)” for both women and men changes through the years based on social and economic trends. Of course, socially preferred body shapes within the same population may vary based on ethnicity, socioeconomic class, national background, location, etc., but there are general, overarching trends. As someone who adores fashion history (it’s more tied to gender studies than you think!), visual culture, and mapping social trends, in high school and even now I was intrigued by the idea of ideal body types for each decade: Marilyn Monroe for the 50s, Twiggy for the late 60s, and so on.
Left: Twiggy; Right: Marilyn Monroe. Image from Italie Leanne. “Twiggy: I Wanted To Look Like Marilyn Monroe.” The Huffington Post. 29 Mar. 2010.
Realizing that even though your body type isn’t “in” now but was at some point in history or is somewhere else in the world can be incredibly gratifying. The first time I saw a Roman statue who actually looked exactly like my body type at age 18, I was so happy that there was once someone looked like me and whom an artist felt was beautiful enough to model for a mythological character. I love/d reading about the 1920s, because I would have considered pretty for a shape I was teased about in high school [ed. more about teasing vs. discrimination later]. I think a lot of people, especially women, have this idea that they were “born in the wrong decade/century/era” for their body type, and it can be empowering to see your shape as beautiful or sexy.
So when I saw the illustration “Wrong Century” by Tomas Kucerovsky I should have been happy, right?