Dark undertones are not unique to My Neighbor Totoro; another Miyazaki film known as Spirited Away is allegedly about child
prostitution in the bathhouses of early Japan (Horton). Even beyond Miyazaki,
fairytales have always had a darker side to them, most famously those from the
story collection Children’s and Household
Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (published in 1812). Disney, the
superpower of children’s media in America, has borrowed many of its beloved
stories from the Grimms, albeit sugarcoated versions of them. To name just a
few examples of the horrors in the original fairytales, the stepsisters in Cinderella cut off parts of their feet
to fit into the lost slipper; in The
Little Mermaid, the heroin commits suicide; while the main character of Sleeping Beauty is in her coma, the king
rapes her (Lindsay). Given the strong tie between Disney and Studio Ghibli
(Disney distributes the English versions of Studio Ghibli films), it is not a
stretch to say Miyazaki’s tales have equally dark undertones as those of the
Grimms. That is not say the stories are meant to be disturbing and horrible
tragedies, but Miyazaki is certainly not one to ignore all angles of humanity
and nature.
The reason I chose to study this famous Japanese
animator/director and his film My
Neighbor Totoro is due to its rich incorporation of both oriental and
western styles and cultures. As mentioned in Greenberg’s essay, Miyazaki often
alludes to a motley of children’s tales preceding his own, including novels by Swedish
author Astrid Lindgren, Swiss author Johanna Spyri, and Canadian author Lucy
Maude Montgomery. Kjosleth recognizes Totoro’s
references to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in
Wonderland: in order to find Totoro, Mei and Satsuki go down a tunnel
similar to the rabbit hole; the Neko bus with its wide grin and disappearing
ability is strongly reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat. Ultimately, My Neighbor Totoro is a versatile and
timeless work worthy of representing the genre of children’s literature as a
whole. Unlike a lot of children’s
story writers, Miyazaki does not neglect the reality and context of adulthood,
but embraces it as the ends of growing up—a challenge all children must face.
Fans, including myself, were children when we first
saw My Neighbor Totoro. As we have
grown up, so has our interpretation of the film, due to the complex symbolism
incorporated by Miyazaki—it is this flexible complexity, on top of the
heartwarming coming-of-age elements, which begs the work be re-watched and
re-evaluated as a narrative reflective of individual context, not solely that
of its creator. Although Miyazaki did not intend for his children’s films to be
seen in a darker light, his style ties in strongly with Japanese culture and
traditions, which inevitably ties his films to every aspect of those histories
and traditions, dark or innocent. It is human nature to search and draw meaning
out of life, especially from a literary perspective. When one analyzes a
children’s story as an adult, the work itself never changes, but one is able to
extract a subtextual idea that is unreachable to the understanding of a child.
This does not mean the implications do not exist. At the root of all literature
are fairytales and myths told to children before bedtime—they were never meant
to be happy-go-lucky, they were meant to appeal to a child’s imagination,
emotions, id, Ninjo. Giri and its socially acceptable maturity has censored
such raw emotion; it is a mask over the animalistic chaos in us all, our lust
and bloodlust. Therefore, the interpretation of My Neighbor Totoro as an allegory for a murder is every bit as
legitimate as society’s façade of innocence. After all, if ignorance is bliss,
then bliss is darkness.
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