Review

Author(s): Funda Başak Baskan

Review by: Funda Başak Baskan
Source: Marvels & Tales, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2010), pp. 363-366
Published by: Wayne State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388970
Accessed: 27-06-2016 09:41 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Wayne State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Marvels & Tales

This content downloaded from 128.42.202.150 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 09:41:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 REVIEWS

Allsburg are ignored entirely (well, she did find that Sendak liked Hoffmann's
original illustrations). The terrible violence of the Holocaust and the literature
for children that deals with it are outside her concerns. How one can purport to
bring Struwwelpeter up into the twenty-first century without being aware of such
wider presentations of violence - indirect, allusive, or graphic - or even in as
limited a range as in Jumanji or The Z Was Zapped , is beyond me. Violent video
games do not exist in Chalou's world, probably because they have not apparently
replicated Shockheaded Peter iconically. But perhaps this is unfair. Her territory
is, after all, supposed to be only Struwwelpeter clones and knockoffs, and she
does indeed identify a number of them in chapter 5, though she does not
demonstrate that she has read or examined many of them.
Chalou's final Conclusion (there are other Conclusions, all helpfully
bolded), gives us a view of the book's efforts toward probity: "Every good story
has a conflict to be resolved - or not - for it is the conflict and how it is handled

by and affects the protagonist that captures the reader's attention. Violence is
often an integral component of this and fortunately authors have moved away
from the superfluous violence of the nineteenth-century children's cautionary
tales toward a much richer literary tradition wherein violence, if present at all,
is an integral part of the text and is used judiciously to reveal the universal
conflict of good and evil" (77). I guess that pretty much covers it - or not.
Frankly, reading Struwwelpeter: Humor or Horror ? 1 60 Years Later insulted
and angered me. I was insulted by the simplistic, naïve reductionism of the
synoptic historicizing, and I was angered that any legitimate press (Lexington
Books is a subsidiary of Rowman and Littlefield) would have such disregard
for quality as to bring this "book" to print.
Stephen Canham
University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (Gake No Ue no Ponyo). Directed by Hayao

Miyazaki. Voiced by Yuria Nara, Hiroki Doi, Joji Tokoro, Tomoko Yamaguchi, Yûki
Amami, Kazushige Nagashima (Japanese version); Noah Cyrus, Frankie Jonas, Tina
Fey, Matt Damon , Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchett (English version). Studio Ghibli, 2008.
The latest animation by Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki was released on
August 15, 2009, in North America. Miyazaki's best-known works include
Princess Mononoke (M ononoke-hime 1997), which holds Japan's highest-grossing
film record, and Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi 2001), the first
anime film to be nominated for and win an Academy Award. Miyazaki, however,
refused to collect the award at the ceremony, explaining later that he "didn't
want to visit a country that was bombing Iraq." In 2004 Miyazaki adapted the
fantasy novel Howl's Moving Castle by Dianne Wynne Jones; this movie (Hauru

Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2010 3 63

This content downloaded from 128.42.202.150 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 09:41:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 REVIEWS

no Ugoku Shiró) also an instant success, was nominated for an Academy Award
for Best Animated Feature in 2005. Pony о won the esteemed Japanese Academy
Award for Best Animation for 2009.

Compared to multilayered films by Miyazaki such as Spirited Away and

Howl's Moving Castle , Ponyo has a simpler plot. The film tells the story of a gold-
fish who wants to be human. Brunhilde, daughter of sea goddess Gran Mamare
and wizard Fuj imoto, lives with her numerous sisters and her father in a sub-
marine. Curious about the world above the sea, she lands on a jellyfish and
starts her journey for the unknown world. She is stranded on shore and res-
cued by Sosuke, a five-year-old boy who lives in a house on the cliff. He names
the goldfish "Ponyo" and promises to protect her forever. In the meantime,
Fujimoto realizes that Brunhilde/Ponyo is gone. Eventually he finds her and
takes her back under the sea. However, it is too late: when Sosuke cuts his fin-
ger on broken glass, Ponyo heals his wound by licking it, and the taste of
human blood has made her yearn to be human. Back in the ocean, Ponyo defies
her father, and she uses his magic to transform herself into a human and escape
to the surface. This use of uncontrolled power, however, unleashes a heavy
storm, causing a tsunami. Riding the waves, Ponyo searches for Sosuke, and
they eventually reunite. The tsunami scene is the climax of the film; dark waves
with eyes leap over one another and eventually submerge the town. Ponyo's
wish to become human and to be with Sosuke has disrupted the harmony of
nature; as a result, prehistoric sea creatures start to swim above the flooded vil-
lage, the moon leaves its orbit, and satellites fall from the sky like shooting stars.
In the end, Ponyo's mother, Gran Mamare, intervenes and announces that if
Sosuke passes a test, Ponyo can live with him as a human, but if he fails, she
will turn into sea foam. Sosuke is then asked if he still loves Ponyo even though
she is a fish. When Sosuke assures Granmammare that he loves Ponyo no mat-
ter what her form is, Ponyo's magical powers are taken away and she is allowed
to remain with Sosuke and his mother as a human being.
Miyazaki's latest work can be considered a loose adaptation of Hans Chris-
tian Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Mermaid." But for producer Toshio
Suzuki, the only similarity is that both narratives feature a female ocean crea-
ture that wants to be human. Suzuki specifies that Miyazaki's story is not about
abjection and Christian self-sacrifice. The little mermaid's quest for an immor-
tal soul has become a quest for love and companionship. Miyazaki's Ponyo is
a film about love and joy. In this sense, it is also quite different from Disney's
The Little Mermaid film, in which conventional gender roles and patriarchal
ideology are strongly reaffirmed.
In Ponyo there are no deep and complicated villains or protagonists. Fuji-
moto, with his long hair, earrings, and dandy look, is an older version of the
wizard Howl of Howl's Moving Castle. He may appear like a villain at the begin-

364 Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2010

This content downloaded from 128.42.202.150 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 09:41:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 REVIEWS

ning, but later we learn he is an eccentric misanthrope whose only concern is

protecting the fragile balance of nature from humankind. In this sense, he is
quite different from the stereotypical female "wicked witch" figure. As in other
Miyazaki films, female characters have the upper hand. The adorable Ponyo, a
redhead with a broad smile, is different from her sisters, who are much smaller
and move together as a school of fish. She is inquisitive, strong-minded, and
stubborn. When Ponyo embarks upon the journey to become human, she
likes everything that is new to her, whether it is ham, a cup of honeyed tea, or
a warm towel. Her verbal communication consists of single words, but she dis-
plays her emotions with intense, long hugs and kisses. Unlike Andersen's little
mermaid, who "treads on sharp knives and pricking gimlets" when she walks,
Ponyo does not experience pain when she turns into a human. Rather, as an
outsider who is different from her siblings and from humans as well, Ponyo
crosses boundaries and faces the consequences of her transgressions without
letting others define her. Sosuke, on the other hand, is a serious, responsible,
and compassionate boy. Since his father is a sea captain and away most nights,
Sosuke has a strong bond with his mother, Lisa. As in other Miyazaki films,
Ponyo does not represent a conventional family: while family plays an essential
part in the plot, parents are mostly absent.
Lisa is another strong female character - impulsive, powerful, and daring.
At times she is portrayed as childish, but she nonetheless displays a nurturing
and healing side. To put it differently, Lisa is not a stereotypical mother; she is
depicted as a human being who gets angry and can be quite stubborn. As we
expect from Miyazaki's earlier films, every age group is given a part in Ponyo ,
from Sosuke's schoolmates in the nursery school to the grannies in the senior
house. These four old ladies in particular perform the function of a Greek cho-
rus, supplying background information and common sense. Although some
feminist critics and viewers may be troubled by the representation of Ponyo's
mother, Gran Mamare, as an essentialist Mother Goddess, generally the film's
female cháracters appear as unique and powerful beings.
Miyazaki's films do not operate on Hollywood logic, and his storytelling
style may seem strange, even frustrating to a Western audience brought up on
Disney. In forums it can be observed that American viewers seem concerned
with the plausibility of Ponyo's plot; for instance, some are seriously offended
by two five-year-olds sailing, without supervision, in a boat powered by a can-
dle. And when Lisa leaves the two kids at home alone, one critic asked, "Could
she be the most neglectful mother ever?" Moreover, the romance between
Ponyo and Sosuke is not readily accepted as "appropriate." A comparison with
American animated films such as Cars and the Ice Age series shows fundamen-
tal differences in storytelling and filmmaking techniques between Hollywood
productions and those of Studio Ghibli. This phenomenon can be explained

Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2010 365

This content downloaded from 128.42.202.150 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 09:41:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 REVIEWS

by the fact that the fantastic is more accepted in Japanese culture than it is in
the Western world, which still carries the heritage of the Enlightenment in its
psyche.
Miyazaki refers to Elta the Frog by Japanese author Rieko Nakagawa and to
Natsume Soseki's The Gate as his inspirations. In addition, one cannot help
noticing a Wagnerian influence on the film and its haunting score by Joe Hisaishi.
Fuj imoto insists on calling his daughter Brunhilde. A famous figure of Norse
mythology, Brunhilde is one of the daughters of Odin (Wotan) and earth god-
dess Erda. She is imprisoned for defying her father, and she becomes human for
the love of the man who rescued her, only to be betrayed by him, which leads
her to take her own life. Brunhilde and her story have a major place in Wagner's
operas comprising the Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle. Unlike Wagner's tragic
story, Miyazaki's Pony о is an optimistic tale of hope for survival and renewal.
While Miyazaki used computerized animation to enhance hand-drawn
images in Princess M ononoke and Howl's Moving Castle, Pony о is produced with
traditional 2-D animation techniques. Pony o's U.S. release was made in part-
nership with Disney and Pixar (bought by Disney in 2006). Cate Blanchett,
Tina Fey, and Liam Neeson contribute to the A-list cast of voices in the English
version. Frankie Jonas, the youngest of the popular Jonas Brothers, is Sosuke's
voice, and Ponyo's is Noah Cyrus, the sister of Disney's Hannah Montana star
Miley Cyrus. It is clear that the American child and teen market is being tar-
geted. This marketing strategy can be seen as part of Disney and Pixar's efforts
to "tame" the movie for a Western audience and imagination.
In essence, Pony о is a tale of love, devotion, reciprocal acceptance, and
transformations. Miyazaki's exceptional skill and wisdom in the art of story-
telling make watching Pony о an experience to be treasured.
Funda Ba$ak Baskan
Middle East Technical University

366 Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2010

This content downloaded from 128.42.202.150 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 09:41:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms