Date of Graduation
7-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies (MA)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
Advisor
Elizabeth Markham
Committee Member
Tatsuya Fukushima
Second Committee Member
Rembrandt Wolpert
Keywords
Language, literature and linguistics, Social sciences, Communicatiion and the arts, Anime, Gender, Japanese, Literature, Manga, Theater
Abstract
The performativity of gender through cross-dressing has been a staple in Japanese media throughout the centuries. This thesis engages with the pervasiveness of cross-dressing in popular Japanese media, from the modern shōjo gender-bender genre of manga and anime to the traditional Japanese theatre. Drawing on theories from gender-studies and performance aesthetics to delineate the female gender in traditional Japanese theatre, I follow the roles of, representation of, and media for women, concentrating on (1) manga, a form of sequential art featuring illustrations with corresponding text, (2) anime, animated productions (where the word anime is the abbreviated pronunciation of “animation” in Japanese, and (3) live-action dorama, or simply dorama, television dramas, not animated, but acted by live actors. With the permission of Hatori Bisco, and concentrating on my own translation of a single chapter from her manga, Ouran High School Host Club, as my case study, I complement my focus on gender performativity and cross-dressing, by analyzing the act of reading the manga in the light of contemporary cognitive studies in comic scholarship. Throughout my thesis, then, I frame the history of the female subject in Japanese popular media, through an analysis of the shōjo genre, the act of reading a shōjo manga, and the actual plot of that shōjo manga and its derivations to support my argument that in my material cross-dressing and gender performativity carry an enigmatic fascination that entraps the curiosity of audiences.
Citation
Woods, S. M. (2015). The Fascination of Manga: Cross-dressing and Gender Performativity in Japanese Media. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1273
Included in
Japanese Studies Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Theatre History Commons, Translation Studies Commons