On 04/13/98 23:17:02 you wrote:
>
> Anyone even passingly familiar with Japanese film knows that rape
>scenes are distressingly common. However it is not presented to disturb
>western audiences and has its roots deep in Japanese culture.
>
> While it is a complex issue, essentially in Japanese film, rape
>becomes the the purification of the sexual female through blood and
>pain.
<snip some really interesting stuff>
> (IMHO) In WoH, Shiro feels impotent both to effect his own life and to
>affect the larger events that are happening around him. His attempt at
>raping Leiqunni is his attempt at regaining some control over at least
>one aspect of his life.
>
> But Leiqunni, while in some ways an innocent, is also a mother figure
>(hence why the rape doesn't succeed) to both Shiro and the young girl in
>her care (daughter/sister?). As a mother she is expected to know Shiro's
>fustrations and, as a caring, forgiving mother figure, is expected to
>forgive him. Which is exactly what she does.
I saw that scene differently. I agree with you about Shiro feeling out
of control, but I think its more than that. I think he's feeling worthless,
at that point -- his TV interview was a disaster, the people are picketing
the space program, he feels he's not living up to Leiqunni's religious
principles. I think the rape attempt was a subconscious pushing at his
own limits, to see how low he could go. And he found he found that he did
have a limit -- he couldn't go through with it.
Leiqunni's forgiveness the next morning was pretty typical of her portrayal
all along -- she was always so passive in her relationship with Shiro. For
all her religious fervor, she didn't have a lot of sense of self-worth. (To
be fair, her religion, as presented, was not exactly designed to be
confidence-building). I think she was dragging Shiro down into her self-hating
spiral, and that was why he had to leave her before he could work his way
back up.
Marina Frants
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http://www.sff.net/people/FrantsDeCandido
"The forces of evil hate losing at chess." --
Verne the turtle in "Over the Hedge"
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