Tamika Flynn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dieofliving) wrote2019-01-06 05:04 pm
dieofliving) wrote2019-01-06 05:04 pm
Shimanami Tasogare: Queer Trauma and Media
[image: a boy leaning against a railing with a popsicle in his hand, wondering, "'Why don't you swing by tomorrow?' It's not that simple. Or is it?"
"Shimanami Tasogare", also known as "Our Dreams at Dusk", is a manga series written by Yuhki Kamatani, and it's one of the best pieces of queer media I've honestly ever read. The official summary is as follows:
"After recently moving to Onomichi, Hiroshima, high school student Tasuku Kaname is thrown into despair at the possibility that he may have been outed for being gay. Convinced his life is over, his despair turns into shock when he sees a woman jump out of a window of a nearby house. Tasuku races to the house in a panic only to discover that it's a public meeting lounge owned by the woman he saw before. Tasuku comes face to face with the woman as she walks past him unharmed, but not before she implies that she had been watching him from afar.
Confused, Tasuku follows her up to the top of a steep hill where she offers to briefly listen to what's on his mind. Although Tasuku doesn't go into too much detail, he later accepts her invitation to come to the lounge to meet others with similar troubles."
At only 23 chapters, it's a fairly quick read, but it's unbelievably striking in both its art and writing. Kamatani is notable for use of visual metaphor, just enough for the moments to stand out and never grow stale. A person panics about a part of themselves they're not ready to face, and their chest shatters into dozens of glass shards. Another person is carefree, mysterious, and their very existence has others seeing them as someone who can effortlessly float away from high ledges with no fear or worry. These sort of images and so many more appear in Shimanami Tasogare, and they lend a sort of surrealness to what is otherwise a very down to earth and realistic series.
The art style only lends to the feeling in which these visual metaphors draw in with them. Despite the images I detailed above, Shimanami Tasogare has a fairly realistic style for the most part save during moments such as playful bickering or background aggravation. Not only does this help the visual metaphor segments stand out because of the contrast, but the realism is depicted with an almost... delicate touch that draws out a sort of fairy tale air to it. Kamatani is an excellent artist, whose skills surely shine within the series.
However... As you might gather from the brief summary, this is not a series which shies away from some of the struggles the queer community faces. Where the art style is fairly realistic, so, too, are the trials in which the characters face.
[image: a boy entering a room, contemplating, "Why did I come here? Anonymous came to mind even before I thought about dying."]
Whenever I recommend this series to someone, I always include the following warning: "This series is fantastic, truly beautiful, but it deals with very heavy subjects. In the opening chapter, the protagonist is contemplating suicide because he thinks he's been outed, for example." As a queer person, I naturally have a lot of queer friends, and I'd never want to spring something onto them that they wouldn't be prepared to deal with.
However, sometimes not everyone gets such warnings, and one such person felt inclined to make the following post online:
"god. ppl being like ‘read shimanami tasogare! its got lgbts in it!’ i feel so betrayed. dont fucking read it without knowing its triggering as fuck and has near constant misery. like its well done but also nearly exclusively abt how much it sucks to not be cishet. like just because no gays actually die on it doesnt mean its a fun time. like you need to know its constant Close to Home suffering, bc that content isnt for everyone in the community at all. it can be sobering to some but a painful reminder that the world hates you.
in particular the arc about the trans guy (of which i am one) where you have to constantly listen to a transphobe shittalk him and his friends, exclusively deadname him, talk about how sick in the head he is, and brand herself an ally. like transphobia and homophobia are honestly a just as prevalent part of shinanami tasogare as the actual lgbt characters. idk like my life sucks enough i dont need a manga to tell me how fucking little the majority of people think of me too
it feels like lgbt content for cishets. like so they can cruise the depths of lgbt suffering and learn to form empathy with us, which is like a valid goal for a piece of media i guess, im just tired of ppl promoting it without even mentioning the kind of experience it is. btw am not saying its bad or anything like that. its clearly well made and genuine in its lgbt content and i know we’re all dying for scraps of those, just that i think we can afford to just have lgbt content without being kicked in the kneecaps constantly."
That bit of bolding up there is courtesy of myself, as it's going to be a main topic of this whole post. I'm going to talk about the whole response here, but that part in particular stood out to me.
Now, please don't misunderstand. I'm highly sympathetic to this. Whoever recommended this series to the above person should have given a warning, even a vague one. At the same time, this person misrepresented a lot of things, from the story to who this story is for.
The sentence that I bolded comes back to be relevant here, because here is a fun fact about Yuhki Kamatani: they're an aromantic asexual x-gender person.
Dismissing a series as "lgbt content for cishets" when it has a queer creator leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The taste only worsens when I get blocked for pointing this out, and it was already pretty bad considering the particular sexuality and gender that Kamatani is. The gray community gets shit on a lot, even within our own overall queer community, and nonbinary people still are struggling to be acknowledged in any fashion that isn't mocking. I doubt this was the individual's intent, but when I see someone dismissing a story written by an ace x-gender person as "for the cishets", it reminds me of the constant arguments I have against exclusionists in what should be my own community.
Yet perhaps it's for the best that I was blocked. I have a lot of thoughts on the commentary that was given for Shimanami Tasogare and queer media, and the format of the comment's original site wouldn't have lent well to all of it.
So. Here we are.
[image: a woman peering into a house saying, "Oh, you're here! Well then, let's go. You can leave your stuff here." A boy follows her, asking, "Where are we going?" The woman grins darkly, holds up a crowbar, and replies, "To demolish."]
In the recent years, the use of queer trauma as a titillating cheap thrill in media has become particularly highlighted because of events such a when the television show "The 100" killed off the character Lexa not too long after she got together with another girl she loved. This particular example brought a lot of attention to the trope known as "Bury Your Gays", which is summarized from the site as thus:
"It is the presentation of deaths of LGBT characters where these characters are nominally able to be viewed as more expendable than their heteronormative counterparts. In this way, the death is treated as exceptional in its circumstances. So it can be fairly said that, in aggregate, queer characters are more likely to die than straight characters. Indeed, it may be because they seem to have less purpose compared to straight characters, or that the supposed natural conclusion of their story is an early death. [...] Nowadays, when opinions on sexuality have shifted somewhat, justification may be attempted via Too Good for This Sinful Earth. Sometimes it's because the Magical Queer has died in a Heroic Sacrifice so that the straights may live. Naturally, this is subject to debate."
Lexa's death brought a lot of attention to the trope, but her story wasn't the only one where it popped up, and would continue to not be the only one where it occurred. Tara from the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fell to a similar fate back in the day, where she too died after confessing and reaffirming her feelings for her love interest. The movie "Atomic Blonde" features a sexy James Bond-esque female spy, with a female love interest... who, as in many James Bond movies, ends up dying. On the animated sign of things, "Voltron: Legendary Defender" also got some flack for introducing a gay love interest, but only in flashbacks, and only for him to die relatively quickly. All of this came after his existence was quite hyped up by the studio beforehand.
However, death is not the only kind of tragedy which is often applied to queer characters in media. Just their very existence can be tragedy enough, often calling back to the real life bigotry that actual queer people have to face. Brokeback Mountain is a good example. Sometimes, it's not even that, but that they're not given the same consideration and care that their straight and cis 'coworkers' are. J.K. Rowling's treatment of Dumbledore is a fairly famous example in its own right. In a series where love is supposed to be the ultimate power, the gay wizard is the one whose love to a guy is portrayed as ultimately negative and tragic.
Needless to say, this is something which annoys a lot of queer fans, as the commenter who kickstarted this whole post exemplified. Media has a fairly large impact on our lives, and there are a lot of famous stories where representation seen somewhere inspired someone to write, or act, or sing. In that same vein, it can be pretty depressing and frustrating to only see yourself in stories with the same misery you're trying to forget for a while. Straight and cis people can see themselves having romances even while they're casually fighting an alien invasion, or being superheroes, or in literally any genre. Queer people don't get that, even on a basic gay level. It's only to be expected that we would long for stories where we can simply be.
That doesn't mean we should condemn all stories which deal with tragedy and hardship.
Context is vital for deciphering many things, and that's no less true when it comes to this particular subject. We must consider the context of culture, time periods, the writer, and even the story itself. For example: if a queer character is made miserable because of their sexuality or gender, are there other queer characters who are happy who can balance this out? If there aren't, then that queer character becomes the only representation in that series. When your only representation is made miserable because of an aspect of themself that can't and doesn't deserve to be changed...
Looking back into both our history and the history of other places is a good exercise, if nothing else, for learning about how important context can be.
[image: a pair of hands are shown clasped. "A place where we can say what we want to say right now. A place that won't reject anyone. A lounge..."]
It's not uncommon knowledge that queerness of any type was lawfully and violently discriminated against. Such things are the building blocks of our community, unfortunately. The first Pride was a riot, and we've been fighting for marriage equality viciously in a battle that's still ongoing. What do tend to be often missed or overlooked pieces of knowledge are various details such as the small ways our community thrived in all sorts of areas. One of those ways was the lesbian pulp fiction genre.
For those of us in the modern day, it's relatively easy to learn about the queer community. The internet has allowed many people to learn about other genders and sexualities. Celebrities are coming out in various ways, some good, some bad. Even children's shows are slowly allowing queer characters. We're loud, we're proud, and we're not prone to shutting up anytime soon.
Such liberties weren't so available to those in the past. To be particular, they weren't allowed to those in the mid-20th century. Without internet and the shame of being queer an ever present vice, it could be hard for queer people to even learn that they had a word for themselves. 1952 is the year that things changed for a great many queer women in this area, as that is the year that a pulp novel called "Spring Fire" was published. Many consider it the origin of the entire genre, although it was encouraged by the release of another book not long before its own release. The author, Marijane Meaker, is a lesbian herself, and admits to this day that the ending of "Spring Fire" was truly dreadful in her eyes: one lesbian committed to a mental institution, the other saying she never loved her.
During the time period, this sort of ending was inevitable. In fact, it had been requested from her editor. Their publishing house couldn't be seen as "promoting" or "encouraging" homosexuality. If it was, then, in the best case scenario is that the shipment of books would be sent back. More likely is that the books would be destroyed, and trouble could be brought down on their heads. It was a tragic ending or nothing.
To many queer women in the USA at the time, that didn't matter. "Spring Fire" was an unbelievable success, and Meaker received overwhelming floods of mail from relieved women. No one had known there was a queer audience out there before then... not even other queers. Even though the story ends in tragedy, it was one of the first stories many queer women had access to that showed they existed at all.
"Spring Fire" was so an overwhelming boost to the lesbian pulp genre that it doesn't really come as a surprise that many straight male writers jumped in to make money with little care to the real life tragedy such stories mirrored or were based on. At the same time, actual queer women were inspired by Meaker's tale into writing their own. Many were trapped by the same limitations that she had been, so their stories could only end in tragedy as well. Others were able to use her story, and the stories of others, as stepping stones. Through one way or another, they could include stories where lesbians got together and actually have a happy ending. Those stories might be rare, but they manage to exist. They exist because of the stories that came before them.
I've included this bit of queer history to demonstrate how different the context was for those tragic queer stories back then. Yet for this next portion, it's more the culture than the time period which is relevant in regards to context... and it's context that's important to acknowledge when discussing Shimanami Tasogare. That is to say:
What are the feelings of Japanese queer people when it comes to representation in media?
For the west, a lot of our queerphobia can find origins in the countries which colonized the United States in the first place, and the overwhelming Christian viewpoint which transferred over. That makes it its own unique history of queerness and queerphobia. Needless to say, in countries where such colonization hasn't taken a hold, that history is much different. Queerphobia can still (and often unfortunately does) exist, merely in a different manner. Japan can be argued to be a very good case of comparing its differences to the west, considering their isolation for a good chunk of their history. That history thus influences their media.
Going into such history would take a considerable amount of time and might draw this post off its tracks. Thus, we'll keep focused on the media representation. A good way to talk about views of queer people and representation is to mention "Class S" relationships. Some people might know it by a trope name: "Romantic Two-Girl Friendship".
The long and short of it is this: young girls can have friendships or feelings of fondness with other girls so strong that they can be "mistaken" for romance, but it's really just practice for when they get into "real" relationships with guys once they've properly matured.
(As a note, the anime "Bloom Into You" touches on this very subject.)
Japanese media has plenty of other queerphobic stereotypes that it shares in common with western media: perverted predatory queers, "camp" gays, etc, etc. However, this particular trope, this cliche, of romantic schoolgirl friendships gives a hint on how different Japan views queerness. Japanese queer people have a sort of opposite problem when it comes to fetishization of their identity in comparison to those living in the west.
Western media fetishizes queerness through both a sexual lens and one focused solely on the miserable trials we can face. Such a thing shows that queer people are only seen as sexual objects or that queer people can only ever expect misery in the story of their life.
In contrast, while the sexual lens is still as much of a pervasive problem there, Japanese media fetishizes queerness through what one could call a lens of condescension. It's seen as a silly and cute immature thing, with no bother to address the real issues and troubles that queer people experience. That leads to Japanese queer people feeling as though they're being silenced.
Now that we've talked about how important context is in regards to queer representation and trauma on a general level...
[image: a set of three panels going through the sky and ending at a young man standing before a house. Words are set in each panel: What do I want to do? What do I want, and what should I give up on? Why did I end up like this?]
Let's talk about the specific context that embeds "Shimanami Tasogare".
I've already gone into depth on the context that comes with story originating in another culture- in this case Japanese. However, there is one aspect I have yet to give quite the same treatment to, and that is the context surrounding the writer and how their experience clearly shows in their writing of Shimaname Tasogare.
In more cases often than not, you can usually tell when a story with a queer character has been written by a cis heterosexual writer. This doesn't necessarily mean a story is bad, although it can be. However, even if a writer doesn't veer into Bury Your Gays territory, their portrayal of a queer character can still fall into stereotypes at worst or simply fall shallow at best. This is because, even with good intentions, a cis heterosexual writer won't automatically think of certain things. They don't have the inside view and experiences that a real life queer person does. Think of it this way: it's one thing to yell out game advice while you're a spectator in the stands of a football game. It's another thing to be a player, on the field, taking all of those hits and exhausting yourself personally.
Shimanami Tasogare is written by a queer person, and it shows.
The commenter who spurred me to write this post isn't wrong. There is trauma in this series. A gay character has to deal with homophobic slurs being tossed at him and also existing in his general vicinity. A trans character has to deal with misgendering and dead naming. Every character has their arc of real life queer struggles that they have to experience. It's true that those sort of miserable real life occurrences are often used, abused, and overly focused on in queer trauma written by cis heterosexual people.
However, it says something to me that the commenter neglected to mention other occurrences in the series. For example, it's not only cis heterosexual character which use those slurs. Very notably, a character that is trans panics and lashes out at another character by using homophobic slurs against them. It is a reoccuring theme that gay characters fall behind using those same slurs in an effort to hide their sexuality or hold onto their sense of self.
Are those the kind of experiences that are really meant for a cisgender and heterosexual audience?
In most mainstream media, often written by cis straight people, the inter-community allegiances and clashes aren't given any particular attention. Frankly, it's a miracle if a non-queer focused story includes more than a single gay character, or a bisexual character who they don't dare to actually call bisexual. There's no thought given to how queer people bolster one another up, or even harm one another.
In contrast, Shimanami Tasogare's main focus is community. By focusing on our community, the series is thus a story for us, first and foremost. If a cis straight reader learns something and learns more empathy for our community, that's great. However, they aren't the intended reader, exactly, at least not in my opinion. Shimanami Tasogare looks directly to the queer community and speaks to us.
Sometimes, it's with statements: There is a life waiting for you and you don't have to die. Don't hurt yourself in your own struggle. It is okay to just want to live a life as yourself. It is okay to be enraged.
Other times, it's with questions: Do you know the past of the community you're in? Will your anger hurt or help? What helps most at what time- your presence, your words, your actions- and when should you use them?
All of these things are said and asked within the context of the queer community, for a number of different aspects of it. Gay characters, trans characters, the young and the old members of our community- all are touched upon and all interact with one another in varying ways. In that manner, we are to learn something from this story. There are a lot of messages that Shimanami Tasogare carries in each of its character-focused arcs, but I believe its message of community is by far the strongest and most intertwined one.
The criticizing comment mentions that this series is just full of nonstop misery, and I agreed that this series does hit on a lot of hurtful experiences the queer community goes through. Simultaneously, this series would not be as impactful if it was nothing but nonstop misery. For every trial the characters go through, for every instance of hurt which affects them, they are able to surpass it and move into a brighter future... because of the rest of the community that bolsters them, which helps them upwards.
A good example of this lies within the summary of this series which I gave at the very beginning of this post. This whole story starts off with a young gay boy thinking he has to kill himself, because he won't be able to withstand the idea that he has been outed to his school. Yet he doesn't do this, distracted by the need to help another human being. This leads him to a place, to a person, who reveals that he has a sanctuary, a listener, a community. Upon reading the story proper, the protagonist reflects upon this in later chapters, and thinks this:
I'm glad I didn't die back then.
That is, ultimately, "Shimanami Tasogare" in a nutshell.
[Image: The scene is a small lounge of sorts, with a comfortable sitting area (including a plush squid) towards for the foreground and a miniature kitchen area towards the back. An older gentleman is in the kitchen, making tea, and there is a teenage boy standing in the middle looking at it all. The boy is thinking, "I began to want to know about the lounge, and the people who gather there."]
Coincidentally, that's why I also have a problem with the criticism that "Shimanami Tasogare" is full of nothing but near constant misery. It has no more trials than any other story, only, instead of defeating an evil wizard or losing a loved one, they're aspects of our lives which strike unfortunately close to home. The tribulations come off to us as deep and overwhelming because they are experiences or fears that happen in our real lives.
It's because of that which I think makes its rises all the more meaningful and poignant.
I will be one of the first people to tell you that I think western media needs more stories where queer characters get to have the same kind of adventures as their cis and straight counterparts. We need fantasy knights who are gay, scifi pilots who are trans, ace secret agents, bisexual superheroes- the list goes on.
At the same time, stories like "Shimanami Tasogare" are also needed. They aren't stories that might be needed for every single person, or for every single person at the same time, that's true. Yet they are invaluable for the times when they are needed. As much as we all might hate it, and rage against it, we still live in a queerphobic society... even here in the "enlightened" West. For that reason, to read a story where characters have to deal with that but ultimately triumph and thrive against it all? That can be very important for many people. It gives the desperately needed hope that we have a future in more than a shallow platitude. "Shimanami Tasogare" shows why one's life deserves to be kept going, even when bad things do happen.
This brings us right back around to the theme of "community" which I keep bringing up. That is yet another reason why I believe that "Shimanami Tasogare" is such an important series, especially for new generations of queer people. In the time that I've grown up with the internet, one of the troubling trends which I've noticed is how easy it is for us to fall prey to intercommunity fighting. Lesbians end up listening to the bigoted venom of TERFs, "transmedicalists" try to gatekeep who is really trans and how, and exclusionists hack at the limbs of our own community by targeting anyone ranging from ace people, nonbinary people, to even bisexual or trans people. This infighting fractures a community that came together because of common origins and is still targeted by a common enemy. This leaves us, all of us, vulnerable to action taken against any member of our community. A good example would be the "bathroom bill" fiasco, where conservative republicans tried to ban trans women from using the restroom of their gender. Republicans, TERFs, and anyone else with transphobic views talked about how it would keep women safe from men trying to rape them in restrooms. However, once that view was put into the public sector and enforced, it was any person who didn't fit the ultra feminine appearance that got targeted. Sure, that could be trans women... But cis women with short hair and clothing that wasn't form fitting enough were also targeted. There was a news report of how a woman in short hair and baggy clothes actually got taken by the police for it.
That's the thing about the common enemy of the queer community as a whole: their bigotry often blends into other forms of bigotry. Sexism, homophobia, biphobia, acephobia, transphobia- all of that and more are tightly entwined by the simple idea that "people are not behaving in the roles they should be". If a conservative Republican politician hates trans people, for example, the chances are high that their views on gay and other such sexualities aren't going to be great either.
In this way, it could be argued that "Shimanami Tasogare" gives us the best versions of our community while still being grounded in reality. This series does away with the infighting so depressingly common in our online communities. Across generations and across identities, those in this series help one another, and, through that, they are made stronger. They are made happier. They are made more caring. Pain still happens, and sometimes the source is in their own community, but they all ultimately make it through because of their empathy for one another.
Gay people help an ace person. An ace person offers opportunity to gay and trans people. A lesbian offers her shoulder to a gay youth.
Lessons like that are greatly needed in our community. Our own particular communities within the whole are important, undoubtedly, because there are some experiences unique to our genders and sexualities. At the same time, that whole bolsters all of us, no matter the community. We are better versions of ourselves when we reach out to one another.
[image: an individual saying, "It's a done deal once it's settled. So why not just decide when you want to?"]
So, once again, I will implore anyone and everyone to take a look at "Shimanami Tasogare", whether online or by looking into local bookstores. At the time of this writing, the first volume is due to come out translated into English in May of 2019 this year, so that's something to look forward to. The art, as I've constantly included into this post, should give you a good idea of the art style that's featured within, and I would like to believe that I've talked enough about its story that one should get a solid idea of how good I find this series to be. In fact, the entirety of my thoughts no doubt reveal a lot!
At the same time, I will repeat what I said before: I know this series might not be for everyone, or that it might not be the right time for some people. It touches on personal struggles that many queer people go through themselves and, as it comes from an insider perspective, they can hit particularly hard. If you want a story that's just, for example, a gay wizard being casually gay while causing mayhem with no touching on homophobia because you deal with enough of that in the real world... That's understandable. If you have recently had an experience that's left you sore and sensitive to such matters so you don't want to read about them, that's understandable. If you decide not to read "Shimanami Tasogare" now or even ever, I simply give my thanks that you stuck with me long enough to read through this entire post. I hope you enjoyed it, learned something, or simply have something to think about.
For those who are curious but unsure on checking out the series, I'm going to include a warning list down below giving you a heads up of what to expect. From there, you can decide on your own if this is something you would like to read.
Without further ado:
- Queerphobia: There are a couple of instances where characters express frustration at why the queer characters can't just keep quiet about it.
- Homophobia: Various slurs are said at a couple of different points throughout the series, from different characters. A gay joke is made once ("If guys who say slurs and stuff like that are gay, then I guess I am!"), although told off. Being outed without permission is brought up a couple of times. Family struggles (in coming out to them) are also issues.
- Transphobia: A mix up of what it means to be trans and gay is discussed. A character struggles with what is likely body dysphoria. Being misgendered, dead named, and trans identity being thought of as a "mental disorder" also come up in one arc.
- Acephobia: A character discussions frustrations with people dismissing it as a sexuality and having to explain it constantly to other people.
- Internalized queerphobia: A couple of different characters struggle with this as they come to terms with their identity.
- Suicide: As discussed at the beginning of the post, the protagonist contemplates suicide (falling from a high place to be exact) because he thinks he's been outed. Another character is framed as about to commit suicide, although it doesn't happen and it's hard to say how based in reality the event even is.
- Sexual harassment: One character discusses escaping a situation where she had to deal with this. In another event, a character has to deal with a groping event and the aftermath of that.
If anyone else familiar with the series can think of anything else which warrants warning for, please let me know. For anyone who talks indepth about the series in the comment, please make sure to mark your spoilers.
Once again, thank you for reading.
[image: a silhouette of two boys standing and facing one another. In the background, there are grayscale fireworks falling down towards the ground. The words imposed over the image are, "As long as the confession, his reply, and our altered relationship would be limited to this night, and dissolve into nothing along with the fireworks."]
no subject
You're very correct about the queer people needing this kind of story right now-- one that focuses so heavily on the "community" and what it means to be a community.
Anyway, thanks again for writing!
no subject
Those tweets really worked me up because all I could think of were arguments dismissing nonbinary and ace people from the community, and that alone got under my skin. However, as I worked past that burst of anger, other ones kept bubbling up because it seemed to dismiss everything about the story because they were so focused on the painful parts. Which is understandable, of course, but it was frustrating to read.
In the end, since a conversation didn't seem likely, I realized that writing out everything in a large proper post (with visuals, my favorite) was far more conducive to the kind of message I wanted to tell and explain a lot more.
Anyway, I'm glad that you enjoyed the post!