Start Date
17-12-2021 9:50 AM
Description
Since its emergence in the late 20th century, Anime, or Japanese animation, has grown in global popularity, creating strong connections to consumerism and fan culture. Our work integrates television studies, animation studies, Anime studies, and queer studies to analyze the popular television series, Ouran: High School Host Club. My research partner and I will provide a detailed textual analysis of the series using existing literature on Japanese culture, specifically on how the club and educational system interact with depictions of queer gender and sexuality. Our final paper will examine how the series constructs queerness by obscuring heterosexuality and gender conformance through costume, sensuality, and eroticism. By focusing on sequences where outside characters, who conform to the traditional power structures, interact with the queer space, we observe how the queer characters either transform or defeat others who conform to trends of heteronormativity. Through our examination of the conflict between queerness and the systems of power in Ouran: High School Host Club, we indicate further questions for analyzing other Anime works.
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Queer Gender and Sexuality Versus Traditional Systems of Power in Japanese Anime
Since its emergence in the late 20th century, Anime, or Japanese animation, has grown in global popularity, creating strong connections to consumerism and fan culture. Our work integrates television studies, animation studies, Anime studies, and queer studies to analyze the popular television series, Ouran: High School Host Club. My research partner and I will provide a detailed textual analysis of the series using existing literature on Japanese culture, specifically on how the club and educational system interact with depictions of queer gender and sexuality. Our final paper will examine how the series constructs queerness by obscuring heterosexuality and gender conformance through costume, sensuality, and eroticism. By focusing on sequences where outside characters, who conform to the traditional power structures, interact with the queer space, we observe how the queer characters either transform or defeat others who conform to trends of heteronormativity. Through our examination of the conflict between queerness and the systems of power in Ouran: High School Host Club, we indicate further questions for analyzing other Anime works.
Comments
Mentor: Sue Scheibler