Spirited Away in America
Hayao Miyazaki’s renowned Spirited Away follows a pre-adolescent Japanese girl, Chihiro, as she navigates and escapes a fantastical spiritual realm. The film was released in 2001, during a time of cultural transformation in Japan. As a result of sudden economic prosperity in the 1980’s, many Japanese people began prioritizing wealth and material possessions over traditional Japanese values of spirituality, moderation, and self-sacrifice for the sake of community. Because these values are so deeply rooted in Shinto and Buddhism, the country’s two major religions, this new widespread deviation from such fundamental Japanese lifestyles spurred controversy. While some praised Japan’s new affluence, others heavily critiqued the development of the Japanese character towards greed and acquisitiveness (Christopher 1983).
In contrast to traditional Japanese spirituality, American culture is infamous for its history of cut-throat capitalism. From the exploitative practices behind slavery to notorious CEO scandals (example? Jeff Bezos?), Americans, along with the rest of the world, adopted the notion that to be capitalistic is to be an immoral person. In recent decades, Americans have grappled with and tried to disprove this narrative through the implementation of new business practices, such as producing from “ethical” sources and selling “cruelty free” versions of products. In this, Spirited Away’s demonstration of how a young girl balances values of moderation and human connection within an increasingly capitalistic world eases the internal conflict of being a moral person whilst participating in economic competition that is present in both Japanese and American societies.
Miyazaki opens the film with Chihiro and her parents stumbling upon an abandoned amusement park. The deteriorated state of the amusement park is a direct reference to the economic period in Japan in which the 1980’s boom led to the mass construction of leisure centers, followed by the 1990’s crash, which resulted in the abrupt abandonment of these centers. In this, Miyazaki already foreshadows the film’s message surrounding the greed culture in Japan at that time.
In spite of the desolation of the amusement park, Chihiro’s parents are lured further into the park’s spiritual realm by the smell of fresh food. Unsuspicious of the park’s lack of customers and concessionaires, Chihiro’s parents relentlessly devour the unattended chicken, sausages, and rolls until they literally become pigs. Although explicit explanations of the film’s meaning are rare, Studio Ghibli commented upon this particular scene, explaining how the “transformation is reflective of how people turned into pigs during Japan’s bubble economy of the 1980s” (Ewens 2016). In both Japanese and American culture, pigs are often referred to to express excess consumption and lack of respectability, qualities that are also associated with greedy people. This quality sharply contrasts with Shinto’s emphasized respect and honor for nature and its inherent balance. These sentiments resonate with many Americans as well, as similar morals are suggested in Christianity. Westerners often allude to the Biblical idea of “forbidden fruit” in which religious figures, Adam and Eve, eat apples that are specifically off-limits. This is a criticism of indulgence, a quality that is both a cause and effect of greed. Despite capitalistic greed that is present in both Japan and America, Japanese and Americans alike are able to agree with Spirited Away’s criticism of such greed and indulgence as similar criticisms are embedded in each country’s respective religious backgrounds.
In an attempt to un-pig her parents, Chihiro is told that she must get a job at the amusement park’s bathhouse. However, in order to do so, she must face the daunting proprietor of the bathhouse, Yubaba, an old blonde woman with a high nose bridge, large brown eyes, long painted nails, and bathed in jewelry. Upon Chihiro’s initial requests, Yubaba refuses her a job, and even threatens death unto the child. Before Chihiro is sent away, however, Yubaba’s baby son, Boh, throws a fit that forces Yubaba to abandon her quarrels with Chihiro and attend to motherly duties. After Yubaba is able to calm Boh, she finally capitulates to Chihiro’s request for a job. Although Yubaba plays the main antagonist of Spirited Away, she does not embody the solely negative qualities that are typical of villains in Western cinema. On the contrary, Yubaba’s care for and attentiveness to her son allows audiences to empathize with her and recognize her humanity. In other words, despite playing the villain, Yubaba is neither entirely wicked nor entirely noble, which is characteristic of all people in the real world — even the seemingly inhuman Jeff Bezos (reference to intro??) Yubaba’s duality attests to the achievable balance between capitalism and people; she shows how one can maintain being sensitive and caring for human connection whilst participating in a capitalist society.
Some may argue that Yubaba’s obviously Western appearance coupled with her antagonistic role would deter Americans from enjoying Spirited Away, as her character acts as a direct criticism of particularly Western capitalism. While these anti-Western sentiments could be offensive to Americans, Yubaba’s portrayal as a more realistic, multifaceted person, rather than a purely evil creature, evokes a sense of relatability from American audiences. In particular, Yubaba’s motherliness towards Boh especially resonates with Americans because motherhood is highly regarded and viewed as respectable in American culture. As a result, Spirited Away translates well from Japanese to Americans because its cultural values of balance within people ease Americans’ internal conflict of wanting to be a moral person whilst participating in economic competition.
America’s reception of Spirited Away in such a positive light is because the capitalistic values in it are not necessarily uniquely Japanese, but are instead a result of Westernization and the imposition of American values and economic practices on Japan during the postwar era. On the surface, Spirited Away’s popularity among Americans seems to project an American effort to become “globalized” and accepting of other cultures. In actuality, Spirit Away’s popularity among Americans is a result of its reflection and imitation of American values towards capitalism. In other words, Americans resonate with Spirited Away not because of its introduction to Japanese folklore and traditions, but because it caters to Western ideals. The fact that a country that is so culturally different from America, such as Japan, caters their art and media to the West in order to participate in Western capitalism attests to the globalization of economic systems and its ability to transcend cultural boundaries.
