P.P.S. FUJIKO MINE!!!!!! and Goemon in Drag
Open in a dark room facing a starry window an emanciated yet emancipated man wakes up from a dream.
Fujiko... Fujiko...Aisha
He rubs the hollows of his eyes as he reaches for a cigarette lighter in the moonlight of the window pane.
Aisha.
Not again. I need sleep. Four nights now. Four tiresome nights. But still I can't get this woman called Fujiko out of my mind.
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Too literal, always too literal. Miles.
My first reading of Aisha was that she was a metaphor for all of the Fujikos of the past. And the writer's reluctant duty towards them. But questions, so many questions kept me up.
I'm still being too literal.
I'm not a woman. I can't speak for them so fear lept in my heart. Was I wrong? So I looked and read. And guessed and doubted.
And then came the dawn.
Too literal.
Aisha means a lot of things. She means everything.
In a general sense she can represent all of the feminist issues in this series and her relationship to her mother can represent the writer's cruel corrupted duty to them.
She can represent the female audience, the female spectator that feels betrayed yet fascinated by Fujiko's promiscuity especially when as little girls watching the movies and shows they came to slowly realize the world's restrictions on their own sexual identities and came to hate Fujiko.
She can represent the failure of feminism to return freedom to these women, and its lashing out at all female sexuality.
And that ending where "this Fujiko" kills Aisha's mother can represent both the failure to find the Ur-Fujiko the Fujiko independent of all of that, independent of non-diegetic manipulation, and female writer's who reluctantly play into all of that...stuff (if you haven't guessed by the opening its four in the morning and the fourth night I'm running on fumes).
Fujiko's forgiveness and understanding of their tortured souls, all while still being bound within her own constraints. And that puts a new spin on that Catholic school girl scene.
Seductive Fujiko may have been these girls first experience in seeing and engaging with female sensuality. And the idea of it may be uncomfortable but it rings true true. And for some that experience may have been meaningful enough that she shouldn't just be destroyed.
Aisha means everything, and I am still vexed.
On my fourth night of screaming FUJIKO MINE, in my bed in my underwear trying to puzzle out the mystery of this woman all I am left to say is that any show that can do that is important impressive.
Oh and I finally got Goemon in drag as both he and I got over our Madonna complexes towards Fujiko and just learned to accept her as she is. The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.
Ironically the show spends less time setting up the Fujiko/Lupin romance than it does the Goemon/Fujiko relationship. He's the only character she lives with. He's the character to pick up the pieces after Lupin's breaking speech or at least is the only one there to. But he has had a flaw the entire show. His Madonna complex keeps him from engaging with Fujiko on a sexual level. In episode 11 we see a shot of him cleaning/stroking his sword while trying to puzzle out Fujiko's deal an obvious visual reference to the act of masturbation.
I have no clue how the show views that, but again Goemon's fatal flaw is his inability to engage in female sexuality.
In the last episode in drag he makes the declaration that Fujiko is his girlfriend. Again that's a little vague but it does at the very least entail character development as he's gotten over his initial Madonna image of her.
Open in a dark room facing a starry window an emanciated yet emancipated man wakes up from a dream.
Fujiko... Fujiko...Aisha
He rubs the hollows of his eyes as he reaches for a cigarette lighter in the moonlight of the window pane.
Aisha.
Not again. I need sleep. Four nights now. Four tiresome nights. But still I can't get this woman called Fujiko out of my mind.
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Too literal, always too literal. Miles.
My first reading of Aisha was that she was a metaphor for all of the Fujikos of the past. And the writer's reluctant duty towards them. But questions, so many questions kept me up.
I'm still being too literal.
I'm not a woman. I can't speak for them so fear lept in my heart. Was I wrong? So I looked and read. And guessed and doubted.
And then came the dawn.
Too literal.
Aisha means a lot of things. She means everything.
In a general sense she can represent all of the feminist issues in this series and her relationship to her mother can represent the writer's cruel corrupted duty to them.
She can represent the female audience, the female spectator that feels betrayed yet fascinated by Fujiko's promiscuity especially when as little girls watching the movies and shows they came to slowly realize the world's restrictions on their own sexual identities and came to hate Fujiko.
She can represent the failure of feminism to return freedom to these women, and its lashing out at all female sexuality.
And that ending where "this Fujiko" kills Aisha's mother can represent both the failure to find the Ur-Fujiko the Fujiko independent of all of that, independent of non-diegetic manipulation, and female writer's who reluctantly play into all of that...stuff (if you haven't guessed by the opening its four in the morning and the fourth night I'm running on fumes).
Fujiko's forgiveness and understanding of their tortured souls, all while still being bound within her own constraints. And that puts a new spin on that Catholic school girl scene.
Seductive Fujiko may have been these girls first experience in seeing and engaging with female sensuality. And the idea of it may be uncomfortable but it rings true true. And for some that experience may have been meaningful enough that she shouldn't just be destroyed.
Aisha means everything, and I am still vexed.
On my fourth night of screaming FUJIKO MINE, in my bed in my underwear trying to puzzle out the mystery of this woman all I am left to say is that any show that can do that is important impressive.
Oh and I finally got Goemon in drag as both he and I got over our Madonna complexes towards Fujiko and just learned to accept her as she is. The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.
Ironically the show spends less time setting up the Fujiko/Lupin romance than it does the Goemon/Fujiko relationship. He's the only character she lives with. He's the character to pick up the pieces after Lupin's breaking speech or at least is the only one there to. But he has had a flaw the entire show. His Madonna complex keeps him from engaging with Fujiko on a sexual level. In episode 11 we see a shot of him cleaning/stroking his sword while trying to puzzle out Fujiko's deal an obvious visual reference to the act of masturbation.
I have no clue how the show views that, but again Goemon's fatal flaw is his inability to engage in female sexuality.
In the last episode in drag he makes the declaration that Fujiko is his girlfriend. Again that's a little vague but it does at the very least entail character development as he's gotten over his initial Madonna image of her.
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