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Feminist Movie Friday: Spirited Away · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: And Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And welcome to Stuff I've Never Told You, a production
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. And welcome to another edition of Feminist Movie Friday,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: or possibly Wednesday. Things are shifting in our schedule.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: One of those days.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Feminist movie whenever you're listening.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Day.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. So for this one, this is kind of
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: out of left field for me because as of recording this,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: it's Halloween. It's October. And so I normally try to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: find something pretty scary for that month or like Halloween classic.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: But because this movie is celebrating its 25th anniversary, I've
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: been seeing that it's playing in theaters. And it just
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: came to me like, You know what? This is kind
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of a spooky. There's some spooky vibes in here.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: There are spooky vibes.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Yes. And the movie we are talking about is Spirited Away.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: No Face is very scary.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: No Face is very scary. And also, I've seen excellent
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: cosplay of No Face.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So good. Okay, first of all, see the Savor episode
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: we did on the foods of this movie? Because there's
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of food scenes and food imagery.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I love this movie and I went out of my
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: way to see it when it was released in America.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: And I still have the VHS shell like case because
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I loved it so much. And I actually wanted to
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: cosplay the main character Chihiro because I thought it would
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: be a pretty easy cosplay. I wanted the green striped
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: shirt thing that she wears. But yeah, I really, I
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: love this movie. And I know this you hadn't seen
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and had been putting off because your partner was very
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: excited about it.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: But you were worried it was going to be upsetting
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: in some way. So how was your experience? Yeah.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: So when it comes to like anime animations, I get
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: really wary because I know there's always like something sad
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: or something melancholy. And I'm just like not prepared. Look,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I've been traumatized by Bambi, Land Before Time, stuff like that.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: So I assumed this would be along those lines, but
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: it wasn't. I was pleasantly surprised. I did kind of
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: hold my breath a few times and I did get
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: annoyed a like with the parents, I'm like, obviously they're
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: under a spell. Why would you do this? Why would
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: you not listen to her? That was my first comment.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: As well as the fact that like, I did watch
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Totoro beforehand and Totoro was a lot more melancholy to
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: me than this one. This one at least had like
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: happy feels, you know, a little bit of happy feels.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Like this girl had a goal. She knew what she
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: needed to do. Uh, the main character, Sin slash Totoro?
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Chihiro.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Chihiro. I'm just trying to combine their names. Um, Jihiro,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: you know, trying to figure out, she was, like, getting
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: good help somehow and all the, like, things. So it
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: did make me feel a little better. But, yeah, it
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: was not bad.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I could see why a lot of people loved it.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And we're going to talk about the impact that
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: it had. But it was the first release that the studio,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Studio Ghibli, had in 2019. The United States and kind
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: of like internationally at large. And it was this huge
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: success because they had made movies previously. But this one
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: is the one that really put them on the map internationally. Right.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: And it won at the 75th Academy Awards. It was
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the first hand-drawn non-English feature that won the best animated
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: feature category. It was a huge commercial and critical success.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: It just really... was like looking back at the numbers,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I was kind of shocked at how successful it was.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Because I feel like when it came out, I had
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: to search for it. It wasn't an easy thing to find.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: But maybe that's kind of the point was that people
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: were searching for it and it hadn't been something people
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: necessarily outside of Japan had been looking for. But yes,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I love it. It's really beautiful. It's strange. It's gross.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: It's fantastical. I was telling you before, You watched it.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I was trying to minimize any potential anger and or
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: pain that the movie might cause. And I said melancholy.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I was just like, this is kind of melancholy. I
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: think a lot of that comes from the music.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Maybe.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: The music is kind of melancholy, and I think it
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: gives a lot of space for silence also. And we're
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: going to discuss this in the theme section, but growing
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: up with Disney movies, it feels very different. It feels
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: like a... more meditative, thoughtful film. And so maybe that's
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: why I had that in my head, that it was
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: kind of melancholy. And, you know, the final scene is,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, a little, like, a little, oh, goodbye
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to that chapter, maybe. I don't know. Right. I have
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: to say, when I was researching this movie, a lot
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: of the top results were, what is this actually about? So... Okay.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: We're going to go over it, but there is a
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: lot of cultural stuff in here that might go over
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: my head. I will say that.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: And there was a lot of context and history going
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: on that we're going to touch on, but that's a
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: whole different podcast to get into what was going on
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: in Japan at the time. But just to have noted that,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and you mentioned that you watched with subtitles on.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: And there was quite a difference there.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, interestingly, like, I was saying, I did watch the
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: dubbed version. However, even with a dubbed version, it's obvious
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: the subtitles was specific to the Japanese language. And we
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: all know, like, subtitles, you never know what you're going
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: to get. Especially because I don't speak Japanese. Other than,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: you know, understanding Sayonara, which was the song at the end.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: But like.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: they were really different. Like some of the ways they
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: referenced the characters, the way they were like talking about
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: how things were happening, what they were seeing, like the
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: way they referenced the baby was different. The way a
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: little bit every now and again, the way they difference
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: the grandpa slash Kumanji. He wasn't, he says granddaughter. He
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: never says that in the subtitles. So I was like, well,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's a random point. Why would he
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: call her his granddaughter? I'm very, I'm very confused. So
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: there was definitely a lot of differences. that I was like, huh,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: what's happening? But trying to push that aside because I
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: was also trying to listen. But yeah, it was, for
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: those of you who do know Japanese and have actually
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: seen the original and understand it, let us know what's
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: right and wrong on the dubbed versus subtitles.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Yes, please let us know, listeners. And I've noticed this
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: before when I watched the Final Fantasy VII movie and
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I just remember thinking, I was reading the subtitles and
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I was listening to what they were saying and I
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: was like, there's something wrong That was not translated correctly.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: That's not correlating right, yeah. But also there's the famous
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Pokemon Jelly Donut Onigiri mistranslation. I don't know that it
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: was necessarily a mistranslation, but people who were behind airing
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Pokemon in somewhere like the United States thought people wouldn't
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: know what Onigiri is. So they put Jelly Donut instead
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: in the translation it's kind of a very famous wow
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: example and i believe on binging with babish he did
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: an episode where he made onigiri and then the jelly
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: donut version i.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Was gonna say is there such thing no i didn't
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: think so like it's not typically sweet no but people
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: have made because they're called brock's jelly donuts and so
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: people have made recipes for them if you want to look.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: It up but yes that being said let us know
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: listeners If you are like, this is clearly not what's
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: going on.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: What is happening?
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Yes. All right, so let us try to explain what
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: is happening. Yes. Spirited Away is an animated, about-to-be-coming-of-age film. Like,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: it's before the coming of age. Written and directed by
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. And it's considered
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the studio and Miyazaki's first international hit, as I said.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: It was first released in Japan in 2001, and it
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: follows 10-year-old Chihiro, who has really come into herself and
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: her confidence and self-worth over the course of the movie
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: to save her family and spirit world. So the film
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: opens with Chihiro's family in the process of moving to
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: a smaller town, something Chihiro's not excited about. Her father, like,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: they see the house. But then he accidentally takes the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: wrong turn into an abandoned amusement park right before they arrive.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Which they almost die because he decides to go speeding
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: down the rough terrain of where he doesn't know is glowing.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, it seems like a very hasty decision. And something
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: feels off about this abandoned amusement park. I can't imagine
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a situation where an abandoned amusement park feels like this
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: is the place to be unless that's what you're looking for.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: You're like, this is definitely where I want to go.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, but Chihiro is definitely immediately, something is wrong here.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I don't think we should be here. And her parents
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: continue to ignore her complaints and concerns. Chihiro meets a
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: young boy named Haku, who warns her that she needs
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to be on the right side of the riverbed before
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the sun goes down. Basically, don't cross this riverbed. The adults, meanwhile,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: find a huge buffet of food. and absolutely gorge themselves
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: until they are transformed into pigs. Yeah, it's pretty gross scene.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Because it turns out that spirits called kami from Japanese
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Shintoism roam the amusement park. And that was their food.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And now the river has flooded, so that Chihiro is
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: unable to cross back. So in order to save her parents,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Chihiro has to work with the spirits and the spirit world.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: That really comes alive at night. She agrees to work
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: for a very expensive, over-the-top bathhouse owned by a witch
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: named Yubaba at Haku's Advice. A woman who works there,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: at the bathhouse named Lind, leads Chihiro to Yubaba and.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Yubaba, it turns out, is the one who bewitched her
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: parents and attempts to frighten Chihiro. But Chihiro doesn't back down.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: So Yubaba offers her a contract at the bathhouse and
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: renames her sin by removing one of the kanji from
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: her name. And over time, Chihiro is struggling to remember
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: her full name. And that's kind of what Yubaba does.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: We'll get more into that in a second. Haku informs
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: her that if she does forget her name completely, Chihiro
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: will be under the control of Yubaba as happened to Haku.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And that if that does happen, Chihiro will be trapped
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: in the spirit world forever. So Chihiro is very hardworking.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: She's very genuine and kind. So she finds herself getting
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to know and helping several spirits. And she's very open
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: to learning. But despite that, in the early days, she
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: is made fun of. and accidentally invites in No-Face, believing
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: he is a customer. And No-Face is this giant creature
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: in a black robe and a white mask. He is creepy.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: He is creepy, as we said. Chihiro's first customer, though,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: is the spirit of a polluted river, and he's absolutely filthy,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: just caked in mud. Chihiro cleans him, and he gives
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: her a dumpling that induces vomiting in return, which I actually,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: I knew that It made people throw up, but I
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: didn't realize it was purposeful. I don't know why.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know that either. Yep.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Also, when she's cleaning him, like everything comes out like
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: it's just trash, trash, trash, trash. So we've got no
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: face at the same time who's going around demanding food
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and giving workers gold coins, gold, little pieces of gold
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: in returns. And Chihiro refuses his offer of these pieces
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: of gold. No-Face does not appreciate this and starts eating
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: the workers. Chihiro doesn't know this at the time. She's
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: busy looking for Haku. Right. And she discovers Haku in
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the form of a water dragon. And he's being attacked
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: by a type of paper origami kami or spirits. And
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: he gets injured, so he crashes into Yubaba's place. Chihiro
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: rushes over there, unaware that she is carrying one of
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: those paper kami. They're called shikigami. And that turns out
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: to be Yubaba's sister, Zaniba. Zaniba transforms Yubaba's son into
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: a mouse and informs Chihiro that Haku stole a cursed
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: magic seal that will kill him. Haku destroys the shikigami and...
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Zuniba disappears. Both Chihiro and Haku fall through the floor.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Chihiro induces him to vomit up a slug with the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: dumpling and the magic seal. She kills the slug immediately.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: With her bare foot.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: With her bare foot. A lot of stomps. Chihiro decides
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: to return the seal to Zuniba. On her way, she
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: encounters a truly engorged snow face, stuffed to the brims.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: and feeds him what remains of the dumplings so that
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: he too throws up, including the workers that he had eaten,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: still alive. With Lin's help, Chihiro, No-Face, and Yubaba's son, Bo,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: leave the bathhouse. When Yubaba learns of this, she's on
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the verge of ordering the execution of Chihiro's parents, but
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Haku offers to bring back her son in exchange for
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the freedom of Chihiro and her family. Zaniba tells Chihiro
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: that all this time, Haku has been under the control
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: of Yubaba, thanks to the slug that Chihiro destroyed, and
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: gives her a magical hairband. Haku arrives and flies Bull
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and Chihiro back. No face, meanwhile, decides to stay with Zeniba.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: While on the journey back, though, Chihiro is able to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: restore Haku's memory with memory of her own of nearly
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: drowning and being safely returned to the shore. She figures
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: out he is the spirit of the Kohaku River. Yubaba
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: confronts Chihiro, tasking her with pinpointing her parents out of
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: a group of pigs, which Chihiro manages to do, rendering
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the contract null, so she gets her full name back.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: The river is now dried up, and Chihiro is able
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: to cross. Haku promises to see her again, and on
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the other side, she meets her parents, now in human form.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: When Chihiro glances back, there's nothing there, and she's still
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: wearing her magic hairband. The end? Yes. I was reading
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: people's interpretations of the ending and I always assumed it
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: meant like, some people thought none of this really happened.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Time passed, though.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: But I was like, but the magic hairband was there.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: No, but the time passed. That's why the car was
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: covered up and still like in the woods and they
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: were trying to figure out why it was all covered up. No, no, no, no.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: It happened because, again, what I did want to see
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: was the mother's obsession with meeting the movers, what happens
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: when they get to the place and then nothing's there.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: I'd hope to see that. But like, no, yeah, because again,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: they were like, why has this overgrown? Why does it
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: look like this? Because time had passed. They were pigs.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: That's what I thought too. I was a little confused
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: people had this interpretation.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: That's not a correct interpretation, says the person who just
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: watched it for the first time ever.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It did make me doubt myself for a minute,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: but I I quickly shook it off.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that doesn't make sense.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: So let us go into the themes. There is a
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: lot to go over here. And like I said at
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the beginning, a lot of this is for a different podcast,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure that podcast exists. Oh, yeah. Even the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: savor one about food. go listen to that. But we'll
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: touch on a lot of the main themes. So I
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: wanted to start off with the fact that a lot
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: of Miyazaki movies have similar themes. A lot of times
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: there is a young girl or girls finding themselves kind
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of young adulthood and environmentalism. There's something about the environment
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: in there. I did struggle with This is my personal
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: favorite Miyazaki movie, but Prince Mononoke is a close second,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: and that one is very much about the environment. So
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: that was kind of a tough choice when I was picking.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I thought this one was more Halloween themed. Yeah, so
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: there are similar themes in a lot of his movies.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: In a lot of things I was reading, people brought
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: up the fact that when you're talking about... a female
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: protagonist in an animated movie like Disney, this was pretty
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: different because there's some romance usually, but it's never, ever
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the main thing. And in Disney, usually it is the goal.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: It's the driving thing for women, especially. So we're going
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: to talk about that more towards the end, but anyway,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: That was something that I think stood out when this
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: movie was first released, that people who are used to,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: especially in somewhere like the United States, used to animated
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: movie being Disney. And then you get this animated movie
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: that is not like that. But to be fair, I
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: don't know, to clarify, Disney is the partner that releases
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Studio Ghibli's movies. They have nothing to do with anything else.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Other than their release, but... Right. Yes. Yes. Okay, so
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that's out of the way. I think one of the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: biggest themes to me when I watch these movies, this
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: movie in particular, is overconsumption and consumerism. And that does
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: present itself in a lot of ways. I think the
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: obvious way in the beginning is with the food. Right.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: When her parents find... I mean, random food at an
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: abandoned amusement park. And just go to town. Yes. Absolutely
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: go to town feasting.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: That's closed with no one around. Like, why would you
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: do this?
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Like, food just sitting out. We don't know how long
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: it's been there. Right. What are you thinking? What are
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: you thinking? But it is gross. It's a gross scene.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Showing them just stuffing their faces. The sounds. is really gross.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: It's viscerally like the animation is not putting it in
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a good light.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Whatever that slimy sack thing that he slurps up. I
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: was like, what is that? That does not look right. Yes.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: So one of the interesting things about food is in
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the representation of food in this movie, is that it
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: does indicate socioeconomic class. So when you look at the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: bathhouse or in this scene, a lot of those foods
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: are pretty decadent and just abundant everywhere. But when you
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: look at the people who work at the bathhouse, it's
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: very simplistic, kind of small meals. So that's one way
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: they show this kind of class status. But also, That's
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: not to say the foods that the people who work
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: at the bathhouse weren't good are comforting, because a lot
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of those foods were comfort foods. I thought that was interesting.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: You could talk about greed in here in a lot
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of ways, too. Not just the food, but also the
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: people who are accepting the gold from No Face, Yubaba,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: and her willingness to.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Exploit workers, but also just do anything to please to
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: get that gold. Because when No-Face is like, I've got
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: all this gold, Yubaba says, give him anything he wants,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. And it turns out she should have
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: questioned that a little bit.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Just a little bit.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Just a little bit. And so speaking of the gold,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of commentary about capitalism in here. and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: a specifically Western capitalist influence in Japan. And so if
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you look at the dress of Yubaba, she's dressed in
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a typical European way, and she's the only one who's
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: dressed like that. You also, when you see the abandoned
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: amusement park, I read that that was meant to represent
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: failed commercialization attempts.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: In Japan from Western culture and how that kind of
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: fractured the culture. But also, I think it's interesting that No-Face,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: he experiences this just all-consuming hunger. He's never satisfied. But
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: when Chihiro gets him to throw up everything that he's
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: been ingesting, the way he kind of develops as a creature,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: a person, is to get out of that commercialized bathhouse
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and find this old witch who sort of lives out
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. Right. Yeah, that's how he's
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: able to... It's like he was sick. Yeah. And then
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: he got out of that situation and he's not sick anymore. Yeah.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: As I said, labor exploitation, which is something also under
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: capitalism we see a lot. With Yubaba, you can't go
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: home once you sign the contracts and you lose your
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: name and your identity, your memories. who you are if
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: she succeeds. And there are environmental themes in this, as mentioned.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I think that, you know, the river spirit who comes in,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: that's Chihiro's first customer. You can see it where it's
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: just all that trash she pulls out when she's cleaning in.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: But also the river spirit, Haku, because she says, Chihiro
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: tells him the river was destroyed to put up apartments.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: And so... as part of the reason he ended up
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: in this situation where he couldn't remember who he was.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of stuff like that. And it
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: is really beautifully animated. The part where Chihiro is going
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to see Zaniba and they get away from the built-up
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: bathhouse and all those lights, it's just really pretty. It's
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: really nice and calming.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Speaking of them going... Where are the people going? So
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: they're all shadowy figures on the train. And there was mention,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: and maybe this is not something I know, that it
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: used to go back and forth. No longer does that.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: It just goes the one way. And then there are
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: people in there stopping at different stops. And they're obviously,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they're the dead or are they,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: is this a real train that she cannot see them
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: because they're in a different realm? But who are these people?
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: What is happening here?
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, but that's a great question. And it's actually
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: a great segue into my next theme. Okay, first of all,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: like I said, this is a lot of Japanese Shintoism.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of Japanese folklore and legends in here.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: So there's probably some explanation in that. As someone who
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: isn't well versed in that, I've always assumed it meant
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: that the spirits who were populating this bathhouse were disconnected
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: from nature, from who they were. were and that getting
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: out kind of meant you wouldn't go back in like
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the bridge between where the bathhouse is and where they
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: were going is crumbling because it's like fundamentally at odds
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: with what being a spirit is but I'm not sure
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: listeners again if you if you know tell me yeah
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: so segwaying into my next I think a big theme
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: in here is transitioning and coming of age, kind of
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: moving throughout phases of life. One thing that stuck out
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to me when I was reading a lot of people's
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: reviews about this movie or their thoughts about this movie
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: was that they were saying this is probably one of
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: the first times Chihiro realized you can't count on your parents'
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: protection forever. And she had to do all of this
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: on her own. And so that's a moving to a
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: different phase of life. And I think a lot of
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: us can relate to that when you realize your parents
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: are not perfect. And having to step up in that moment,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: which is not always a positive thing at all. But
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: in here, it was presented as her learning what she
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: can do and taking on this responsibility. A lot of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: people also wrote about, I think it's called online. O-N,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and it's a Japanese philosophy of like moral indebtedness, like
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: feeling like you owe people. So I think that with
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: her parents, they were talking about that, like she feels
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: like they're her parents. And so she has this moral
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: responsibility to help them. And I mean, you know, they're
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: her parents. So I think it showed up in a
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: couple of different areas, but I know a lot of
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: people were talking about that. So also when we're talking
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: about transition, I think The transition from night to day,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: from this abandoned amusement park to a ghost world, was
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: always visually striking to me. That the spirit started to
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: come out as the lights went down. And all the
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: lights at the bathhouse started to come on. I think
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: it's cool. I thought it was cool. So we also
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: are talking about adolescence. when you're in a different phase
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of life. So Miyazaki said he wanted to make a
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: film about the first stage of adolescence, really early adolescence.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: And the main character is based on the daughter of
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: a good friend of his. Notably to me, at least,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: he took note from manga that was marketed towards girls,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: but he found that they were too heavily focused on
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: crushes and felt that this missed what was, quote, true
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: to their hearts. So he wanted a story where they
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: could be heroines. Chihiro's not sexualized, neither is Lin. So
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: here's a quote. I've become skeptical of the unwritten rule
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: that just because a boy and girl appear in the
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: same feature, a romance must ensue. Rather, I want to
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: inspire each other to live. If I'm able to, then
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: perhaps I'll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Which I really like. Like, I know... You can read
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the relationship between Haku and Chihiro is romantic, but I
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: always thought it was much more... Like, I could see that,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: but I also thought it was kind of a caring
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: relationship where they wanted to help each other and protect
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: each other and help each other live. Right.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Well, he had saved her once, so he knew her.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And as we said with the Disney thing, it's
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: more about finding yourself versus finding a prince, which I
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: do really like.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: That's what the whole thing was. As I said, a
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: huge theme is spirits, the spiritual and Asian folklore, but
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: also liminal space, kind of in between spaces, going back
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: to adolescence and going between the living and the dead,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: living in the spirit world. There's a lot of that
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: in there. There's a lot about names and identity because
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: by taking the name Yubaba, is destroying your past and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: destroying your identity. And you see that on a personal
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: level with Chihiro and Haku, but you also see it
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: on a macro level with the amusement park and this
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: commentary on Western capitalism coming in and erasing identity.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: So out of curiosity one other question okay at the
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: beginning she starts fading does that mean she was dying
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: chihiro yeah remember he has to do a spell on
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: her and make her eat things he has to get
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: her to eat the food because she can't remain so
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: she crossed the river And so she's trapped in the
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: spirit world.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Right. And he gives her food from that world so
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: she won't fade away and presumably die. That's how I've
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: always interpreted it.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Okay. And is Lin human?
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think so.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Why would she want to get on that train?
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: It seems like they made a huge deal about Chihiro
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: being human.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: And being smelly. But I assumed that Haku was human
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: until it came into like, oh, he's a river person. So, like,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out where Lynn and the rest
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: of those individuals, because Lynn looks very human.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: And she talks about wanting to take the train one day.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: She's like, I'm going to take the train one day,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: which I'm like, they had tickets. Why didn't she get
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: on the train? Thoroughly confused. But like, so I didn't
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: know if she was human or not, because she seemed
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: very similar to Chihiro.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good question, because I always assumed... We're
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: going back to the top where the number one question
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: is what happens in this movie. I thought Lynn might
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: be somebody like Haku, where her name, we didn't have
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the first part of her name.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: She didn't have her memories. I think because the way
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: they reacted to Hiro was so rare as a human,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I always thought that Lynn probably wasn't human.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: But I don't remember quite if they specify anywhere.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Also, shout out to the radish guy.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: She thought he was a monster and he was helping
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: her the whole time. this is where i get a
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: little annoyed as i already said it at the very
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: beginning i was like she needed to say goodbye and
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: thank you to all these people who helped her the
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: radish the no face because he helped her get all
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: those little tabs in order to help like fix the
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: river god or river monster the soot spirits they helped
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: her a lot they kept her clothes they were keeping
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: all those things helped her get a job yeah.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah and that's kind of That's part of why I
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: feel that the ending is a little melancholy and bittersweet
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: is she doesn't really get the goodbye.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Even the baby.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: The baby was like, I want to stay this little mouse.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: I could have turned any time, but I want to
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: go on an adventure with you. And then he protected
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: her from the mother. I will never talk to you again.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, baby. Yeah. Well, this is once again, another good segue.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: You know, we love to talk about witches. So I
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: thought it was really funny. because if you've listened to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: our recent episode, our very special episode from Sea, where
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: we did, from the sea, where we did three dramatic readings,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: we ended on a fairy tale, and it was called
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: The Two Sisters. And I thought, when I was watching this,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: we've got two twin sisters, the witches, Yubaba and Zaniba,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: one good and one bad, which is pretty much how
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: that story went. But I do think that it's more...
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: complex like they have more shades of grey than what
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: we were doing in the fairy tale because Yubaba does
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: ultimately uphold her end of the deal yeah Zaniba I
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: feel like has she seems like great but also she
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: seems like somebody will mess.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: You up like she was like he's gonna die this
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: is your fault i'm a little mad at you uh
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: because you were just still for me but in the
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: end she was like teaching them all how to knit
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: yeah teaching them all these things she said no face
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: why don't you stay here with me she had a
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: lamp that led them to her directly and he was
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: just so nice bowing and everything yes i don't know
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: why i made it at him a lamp is a
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: him apparently perhaps.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Perhaps. So there was that, but also kind of going
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: back to what you were saying, and we discussed with
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: the fairy tale too, is that there is sort of a,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: you know, work hard, be kind, and good things will
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: happen to you vibe with your hero. And we made
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the point in that episode to say nothing wrong being kind.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: That's great. But it is kind of, it's interesting how
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: often that is the story of, you know, she was
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the daughter who had to like do all this to
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: protect her parents. Yeah.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: You know, enslave yourself to this in order to save
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: other people.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: That should be your duty. Yeah.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Like your responsibility, your moral responsibility is to do this.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: But you do see her get rewarded. She's like, the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: spirits take care of her clothes. You see Komaji, who
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: at the first, in the beginning, is very curmudgeonly protect
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: her and come on her side. So I thought that
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: was a parallel. I wasn't expecting, but when I saw it,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I couldn't. Couldn't see it. Oh yeah, the two sisters.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's what it was based on, on their own.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe. I did say we had a Q & A
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: after that episode and somebody asked, it was Noel Brown
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: of Stuff They Don't Want You To Know, asked about,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: you know, what does it mean when you see so
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: many similar variants of essentially the same story everywhere? And
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I said, you know, the two sisters, I found really,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: really violent ones The one we read wasn't that violent.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: But I remember one of the most violent ones. I
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: think it was Japan. It might have been Korea. But
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: it was like.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: No, the two sisters from Korea, we watched that movie.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, we did.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: That was based on that. And it is. It is
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: very violent.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Yes. But it's like a different take on the same story,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the same ideas, the same themes.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: I forgot about that one.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I remembered it. It recently came up on... you
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: might like this for me. And I was like, oh
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: my God, yeah, we did watch that. We did. Yes, yes,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: we did. And finally, just a quick note on mentors.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking the first time I saw this, so
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I would have been in middle school, 2001. I was
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: expecting Lynn's character in particular to be kind of a
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: villain because I'd been used to that dynamic. of you
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: get two women in a scene together and there's competition
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and they're not going to be friends. But Lynn is
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: a really good mentor and takes her under her wing.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: She does. Specifically, that's one of the things I remember
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: most from seeing this the first time was that I
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: was not expecting that. But you also have kind of
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: a mentor situation with Zaniba when they go and visit
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: So it's these women mentoring this young girl. And it
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: stood out to me.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: They're protecting and mentoring, yeah. Yeah.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot to say about this film. A
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: lot of people have written about it. And it still resonates.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: I have to say, it's one of those movies that
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: has had lasting power. And people still reference it and
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: are discussing it and discovering it perhaps for the first time.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: I saw some of that too with people seeing it
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: at the 25th anniversary screening so that's really cool.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah my partner was very happy because he's been begging
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: me for years to watch this and i refuse so
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: now that i've watched it it was good like i
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: said i feel like my neighbor totoro was much more
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: sad and i i enjoyed that one also totoro's very
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: cute character a little easier to swallow than the no
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: face character scary A.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Lot of people, I've seen some great cosplay of Totoro
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: as well. They usually have to plant because their outfit's
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: so big. So they just are like, I can't move
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: from this space, but it's fantastic. But yes, I'm glad
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: it wasn't a bad experience. I knew that your partner
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: had been trying to get you to see it because
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I was there in one instance.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: But a good movie. It was very sweet. It is.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: It's very sweet. And we would love to hear your thoughts, listeners.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I know there was so much in here that could
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: be expanded on. So write in, let us know. You
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: can email us at hello at stuffonevertoldyou.com. You can find
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: us on Blue Sky at Mom's Stuff Podcast or on
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok at stuffonevertoldyou. We're also on YouTube. We
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: have some merchandise at Cop Bureau and we have a
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: as always to our super producer Rima and our executive
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: producer Maya.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: You is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: you can check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.