Contemporary Issues in Fictional Media
Madoka Magica, Accidental Feminism
It has been said somewhere before, that without the histories and stories of people of color, all of fanboy and fangirl culture makes no sense. I think that holds true for far more than just racial justice. All around the world, a man rapes a woman every minute; another man hits a woman every nine seconds; men murder 1000 women via domestic violence a year; while laws prosecutes less than ten percent of these men, convicting and sentencing even fewer. Why all this (patriarchies with a rape cultures ruling the Earth) is the case and what if anything can be done about it, were questions answered for me and many friends by an anime and a manga. Their names are Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. It is time they were both given the critical respect they deserve for doing this. It is time what their themes are advocating for was put into action in the real world.
Why is there rape culture; Madoka Kaname, age 13, finds out after she watches each of her four best friends (Mami Tomoe, Sayaka Miki, Kyoko Sakura, and Homura Akemi) be tortured and killed by it, each worse than the last:
An alien named Kyuubey from a race calling itself the Incubators, one by one, offers Madoka and each of her friends a contract. He will grant them any wish they ask of him to the letter, and in return they let him activate their magical powers, and subsequently becoming Magical Girls and doing battle, as so many others have and are, with demons haunting the cosmos that Kyuubey names witches. Because they do not ask, though, he does not tell the un-written terms of the deal.
Contracted Magical Girls overtime become the witches that terrorize the universe. Exhaust all your manna; die giving birth to a witch. Succumb to madness and despair; transmogrify into one, and the Incubators make sure they contract with those they deem most likely to fall into this latter camp. The birth of a witch releases a lot of energy, a Magical Girl’s transmogrification even more. The Incubators use this energy to fuel the multitude of civilizations across cosmos that they rule from behind the scenes. Do not worry though, they do not, use everyone as a battery. The civilizations they fuel, including those of Earth, just so happen to all be patriarchies. They only have to deceive, torture, and murder women and girls in order to harvest energy efficiently. It is all for the greater good, Kyuubey claims:
He is not the only one who does. In the real world there is an institution where women sign contracts and agree to do battle, often because of promises of having their hopes, dreams, and wishes come true; only to be raped and likely dishonorably discharged should they report it, or if the rapist is married. It is called the United States Armed Forces:
The United States of America is not the only one with such priorities. The One Child Policy and still ongoing Green Revolution also sacrifice women to achieve their goals. In a way though, they are far kinder than the Incubators or the USA Military. They only traumatize and murder non-white women, that is, their laws and a process together always seem to let business people take land and jobs away from both women and men, yet hire only the latter, thus leading to the former’s extermination:
Much the same can be found true about the so called better world the One Child Policy, Green Revolution, the USA Military’s response to rape, and the general global tolerance of violence against women have created.
Madoka does eventually contract with Kyuubey. She wishes for the power to stop all witches throughout space and time from being born, and save all magical girls from transmogrifying into them. It works. Madoka ascends to godhood, recreates the universe, and strips the Incubators of their power to transmogrify anyone into a witch. Though she sacrifices her own mortal existence to do so and does not destroy the patriarchies that the Incubators created; she has opened a door:
All of her friends are reborn, and now have the freedom and so the responsibility to and overthrow patriarchy and rape culture completely, replacing them with something better. How and with what, Madoka and her original series do not tell them, or us. This is where Sailor Moon comes in...
Command does nothing on 99% of rape cases because: “the military has more important matters to deal with.”
Who cares? To paraphrase the American funders of all this, a lot of the same men behind anti-abortion legislation in the States: “Uplifting the poor is not my concern. My only concern is what Communists do to large populations of hungry people.” Women, girls, and all that they cultivate (the so called “feminine”)—must always be powerless and exploited, so say Kyuubey, the Incubators, and the leaders they are based on. It is the only way to build a better, immortal, world. The better world the Incubators have built, however, is found wanting. It may be immortal; however there is no friendship, compassion, or love here, only isolation and strife:
This essay was first submitted for publication to Bitch Flicks their 2013 Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists Month, which began 20 December 2013. It was republished on FanBros.com
Its thesis was based on the theories and writings of Tumblr users: http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/ and http://intersectionalfandom.tumblr.com/, and the Junot Diaz episode of the FanBros Show.