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wingblossomOr rather, the lack thereof.
And now that I've caught up with Durarara, I'd like to have a word with Narita Ryougo.
Like I mentioned in an earlier post, it's impossible to not pick up on Durarara's similarities to Baccano, visual and otherwise. They're abundant. There's the intertwining subplots, the sets of characters vying equally for screentime, and the cooler-than-thou style that sets up all aspects of its direction to entertain. Even the stylized credits are unique in their freeze-frame stiffness. However, I've noticed one parallel in regards to something I haven't seen mentioned yet -- namely, the problematic treatment of female characters and sociopathy.
If you haven't seen both shows, let me explain.
In Durarara, female protagonist Celty Sturluson is a Dullahan who lost her head a few hundred years ago, along with a significant chunk of her memories. Naturally, this is of some concern to her, so her main goal throughout the series is to get it back. Essentially voiceless, she wears a motorcycle helmet to conceal the fact that she has no head, and uses text messages on her cell phone to communicate with others. She also lives with Kishitani Shinra, an underground doctor who claims to be in love with her. I should mention that he met Celty as a child, saw his father vivisect her on an operating table, and was then given a scalpel to operate on her himself.
Disturbing enough yet? Just wait, it gets even better!
Shinra also thinks that Celty is totally hot without her head, and spends much of his screentime trying to convince Celty to forget about it. Celty does not like this. They argue. Celty usually storms off. And so the pattern goes, until Celty finds out that Shinra knew where her head was the whole time. FOR TWENTY YEARS. Celty is about to rip him a new one for this, but not only does he refuse to apologize, he says that he's afraid she'll disappear if she finds what she's looking for. And then goes on to suggest, "Hey, why don't you marry me instead?"
At this point, I had a nice scenario in mind that involved Celty decapitating Shinra with her scythe. I might have been satisfied if that had happened, but instead, Celty admits to Shinra that she's afraid of disappearing too, and they topple onto the couch together in a suggestive manner. In the meantime, I try not to let the computer monitor make contact with my fist.
In Baccano, female protagonist Chane Laforet is a mute knife-wielder. The daughter of a scientist named Huey Laforet, Chane devotes her life to him without realizing that he sees her as an experiment to manipulate as he pleases. As the story reveals, she is significantly voiceless in both the literal and the figurative: she has given up her ability to speak for her father, and unlike Celty, she's not interested in reversing this condition.
Throughout the narrative, Chane only acts on Huey's behalf. Nothing she does is for her own personal gain. Nor does she ever question her sympathy to her father, even though she ends up killing other people in order to fulfill his objectives. (You know, if I were going to attack a faction in The Name of Love, I would at least ask myself if I were doing the right thing, but Narita Ryougo seems to think that blind love is a substitute for a brain.)
Later on in the story, another character named Claire Stanfield -- aka the Rail Tracer, a guy who kills train passengers, bites off another character's fingers, and ends up being responsible for a good third of the violence in this show -- falls in love with her. He then asks if she's interested in becoming his girlfriend. Unlike Shinra, he doesn't push his feelings onto Chane, but does mention that her mute state is what he finds attractive.
Chane doesn't reject Claire's offer immediately, and somehow ends up falling in love with him. According to the novels, they get married and have children later on. Her devotion to Huey is forgotten, and her affections are redirected to Claire. The end.
Okay, what's wrong with this picture?
These situations may not be identical, but they parallel each other in noticeable ways. Both of the female characters here lack agency in some shape or form -- and in Celty's case, she is attempting to fix her situation. Shinra could help her, but doesn't. Instead, he actively interferes with something that should be her decision alone. That's not love, but in both Baccano and Durarara, this sort of sociopathy is normalized.
In Baccano, I let go of Chane's treatment in the storyline because the show had other well-written female characters, like Eve, Nice, and Rachel. But after watching Durarara, I found this situation impossible to ignore, because Durarara took the nagging sense I had that something was wrong and amplified it into a glaring flaw.
In Durarara, the line between portraying violence/craziness/etc and actually condoning it is very vague. This is true of Baccano as well, and both series seem to implicitly laud certain reprehensible actions because they're supposed to be fun to watch. When combined with how the female characters are treated in these two subplots, it becomes questionable at best.
This also bothers me because none of the events in Baccano or Durarara aim to have much, if any, significance. For the most part, they're supposed to be an amalgamation of elements that entertain, like a potboiler. Nothing less, nothing more. Baccano's title indicates this from the get-go -- it's just "noise," or as Narita puts it, "stupid commotion." Moreover, there are very few negative consequences for any of the psychopaths in the cast. Despite all of the gore, not a single major character that the audience cares about stays harmed; as a result, there are no repercussions. And although Durarara hasn't ended yet, my suspicion is that it's going to continue along the same lines.
All said, I may not like the plotline where "Female Character A loves Sociopathic Male Character A who manipulates her, only to fall in love with Sociopathic Male Character B and spend the rest of her character arc thinking about him," but "Female Character A tries to regain agency and is thwarted by Sociopathic Male Character A, who manipulates her but is excused by the narrative because of his supposed love for her" ranks much higher on my Personal Scale of Bad.
And now that I've caught up with Durarara, I'd like to have a word with Narita Ryougo.
Like I mentioned in an earlier post, it's impossible to not pick up on Durarara's similarities to Baccano, visual and otherwise. They're abundant. There's the intertwining subplots, the sets of characters vying equally for screentime, and the cooler-than-thou style that sets up all aspects of its direction to entertain. Even the stylized credits are unique in their freeze-frame stiffness. However, I've noticed one parallel in regards to something I haven't seen mentioned yet -- namely, the problematic treatment of female characters and sociopathy.
If you haven't seen both shows, let me explain.
In Durarara, female protagonist Celty Sturluson is a Dullahan who lost her head a few hundred years ago, along with a significant chunk of her memories. Naturally, this is of some concern to her, so her main goal throughout the series is to get it back. Essentially voiceless, she wears a motorcycle helmet to conceal the fact that she has no head, and uses text messages on her cell phone to communicate with others. She also lives with Kishitani Shinra, an underground doctor who claims to be in love with her. I should mention that he met Celty as a child, saw his father vivisect her on an operating table, and was then given a scalpel to operate on her himself.
Disturbing enough yet? Just wait, it gets even better!
Shinra also thinks that Celty is totally hot without her head, and spends much of his screentime trying to convince Celty to forget about it. Celty does not like this. They argue. Celty usually storms off. And so the pattern goes, until Celty finds out that Shinra knew where her head was the whole time. FOR TWENTY YEARS. Celty is about to rip him a new one for this, but not only does he refuse to apologize, he says that he's afraid she'll disappear if she finds what she's looking for. And then goes on to suggest, "Hey, why don't you marry me instead?"
At this point, I had a nice scenario in mind that involved Celty decapitating Shinra with her scythe. I might have been satisfied if that had happened, but instead, Celty admits to Shinra that she's afraid of disappearing too, and they topple onto the couch together in a suggestive manner. In the meantime, I try not to let the computer monitor make contact with my fist.
In Baccano, female protagonist Chane Laforet is a mute knife-wielder. The daughter of a scientist named Huey Laforet, Chane devotes her life to him without realizing that he sees her as an experiment to manipulate as he pleases. As the story reveals, she is significantly voiceless in both the literal and the figurative: she has given up her ability to speak for her father, and unlike Celty, she's not interested in reversing this condition.
Throughout the narrative, Chane only acts on Huey's behalf. Nothing she does is for her own personal gain. Nor does she ever question her sympathy to her father, even though she ends up killing other people in order to fulfill his objectives. (You know, if I were going to attack a faction in The Name of Love, I would at least ask myself if I were doing the right thing, but Narita Ryougo seems to think that blind love is a substitute for a brain.)
Later on in the story, another character named Claire Stanfield -- aka the Rail Tracer, a guy who kills train passengers, bites off another character's fingers, and ends up being responsible for a good third of the violence in this show -- falls in love with her. He then asks if she's interested in becoming his girlfriend. Unlike Shinra, he doesn't push his feelings onto Chane, but does mention that her mute state is what he finds attractive.
Chane doesn't reject Claire's offer immediately, and somehow ends up falling in love with him. According to the novels, they get married and have children later on. Her devotion to Huey is forgotten, and her affections are redirected to Claire. The end.
Okay, what's wrong with this picture?
These situations may not be identical, but they parallel each other in noticeable ways. Both of the female characters here lack agency in some shape or form -- and in Celty's case, she is attempting to fix her situation. Shinra could help her, but doesn't. Instead, he actively interferes with something that should be her decision alone. That's not love, but in both Baccano and Durarara, this sort of sociopathy is normalized.
In Baccano, I let go of Chane's treatment in the storyline because the show had other well-written female characters, like Eve, Nice, and Rachel. But after watching Durarara, I found this situation impossible to ignore, because Durarara took the nagging sense I had that something was wrong and amplified it into a glaring flaw.
In Durarara, the line between portraying violence/craziness/etc and actually condoning it is very vague. This is true of Baccano as well, and both series seem to implicitly laud certain reprehensible actions because they're supposed to be fun to watch. When combined with how the female characters are treated in these two subplots, it becomes questionable at best.
This also bothers me because none of the events in Baccano or Durarara aim to have much, if any, significance. For the most part, they're supposed to be an amalgamation of elements that entertain, like a potboiler. Nothing less, nothing more. Baccano's title indicates this from the get-go -- it's just "noise," or as Narita puts it, "stupid commotion." Moreover, there are very few negative consequences for any of the psychopaths in the cast. Despite all of the gore, not a single major character that the audience cares about stays harmed; as a result, there are no repercussions. And although Durarara hasn't ended yet, my suspicion is that it's going to continue along the same lines.
All said, I may not like the plotline where "Female Character A loves Sociopathic Male Character A who manipulates her, only to fall in love with Sociopathic Male Character B and spend the rest of her character arc thinking about him," but "Female Character A tries to regain agency and is thwarted by Sociopathic Male Character A, who manipulates her but is excused by the narrative because of his supposed love for her" ranks much higher on my Personal Scale of Bad.
no subject
on 2010-05-12 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-05-20 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-05-12 03:12 am (UTC)(Also, two things. I think Ladd loses an arm? <--- doesn't quite remember, but, TV tropes says so. I'd argue that a portion of the audience cares about him and that he's a major player, but. And I'd argue against this, here: another character named Claire Stanfield... falls in love with her. He then asks if she's interested in becoming his girlfriend.
I wouldn't say that he falls in love with her - he says that he's asked plenty of other girls before - b/c I got the impression that it's kind of routine for him to ask the girls that he meets to marry him, probably because he doesn't view them as any more real than anything else. But in any case, the end result is the same, so~)
no subject
on 2010-05-20 10:47 pm (UTC)Now, onto your other two points. Ladd does lose an arm, but it's something that both happens: 1) near the very end of the series, and 2) without emotional consequence, for the most part. The fact that anything happens to him at ALL is the exception that proves the rule, since the show is pretty glib concerning violence done wrt the rest of the cast. (Hence the "few negative consequences for any of the psychopaths in the cast" bit.)
As for Claire, that's definitely possible! I didn't read his feelings in the same light while watching Baccano, but that could very well be the case.