#its sooooo….. gahhh. ep 33. head in hands

[aroanthy]

the symbolism of revolutionary girl utena is key to understanding what it’s even trying to say narratively and thematically. if you remove the symbolism, if you remove the ways in which the narrative obfuscates itself and abstracts what it’s saying, then what it is saying changes dramatically. if rgu was like ‘yeah lol and did you guys know that incest is bad’ or ‘maybe gay people are good’ or ‘hey did you know that csa victims are Real and Alive and Have Interiority’— like those are all paraphrases of things that it says, but the way that it chooses to say them is so powerful and conveys so much nuance and complexity that those simplistic statements don’t. it provides an incredibly meaningful commentary on the way that systemic violence and abuse are covered up, codified, made part of our culture that supposedly resents those things. it’s examination of incest, the incest taboo and how that impacts incest victims— it’s all so incredibly considered and layered because the show chooses to convey what it’s saying through symbolism, through its metatheatrical framing, through allegory. it retains the reality of these issues; it shows them to us only when we’ve already bought into the system’s lies to make a point about how that operates, how that works to make us all complicit in that violence. nanami. nanami.

dont even get me started on how the movie uses its symbolism to demonstrate how the abuse anthy and touga experienced is simultaneously built into the world and culture they exist in, and always obfuscated and abstracted for the sake of their abusers (also specifically the way that it engenders shame and prevents people from seeking help. rgu is so damn good at understanding how and why people don’t ‘do what they should’ in abusive situations: the systems in place don’t fucking work bc they are an extension of the system built upon that abuse). anthy is the model in all the paintings, the symbol of so many undesirable things, the canvas on which they are painted. her likeness is used as an approximation for all of these awful things, many of which are a part of her in a way, but such that her interiority, her feelings, are never regarded, never seen, never understood. she’s the model. akio is never explicitly named as her painter.

#messy post once again just dumping thoughts #obfuscation abventures #< literally my thesis on the show. it would be peanuts to me without its layers of visual complexity its symbolism and allegory #its bonkers filmmaking. i mean my god editing rgu amvs gives you a greater appreciation for how they edited that show and MAN #the transfeminism hole video essay haunts me always. aou is anthy’s body!!!!!!!!!! the use of the static…. #the way that rgu uses looping and repeating shots and abrupt cuts (same w music) the pace it continually disrupts with its editing #its sooooo….. gahhh. ep 33. head in hands #rgu i love you rgu im sorry people would suggest you’d be better if you were more normal and conventional #this is why utena is a freaks only show. you have to go apeshit about the implications of shadow girl relationships to get it #didn’t even mention c-ko on this post like that SAYS something #dais.txt