Themes, Influences and Style
Miyazaki's works are characterised by the recurrence of progressive themes, such as environmentalism, pacifism, feminism, and the absence of villains. His films are also frequently concerned with childhood transition and a marked preoccupation with flight.
Miyazaki's narratives are notable for not pitting a hero against an unsympathetic antagonist. In Spirited Away, Miyazaki states "the heroine thrown into a place where the good and bad dwell together. She manages not because she has destroyed the 'evil', but because she has acquired the ability to survive." Even though Miyazaki sometimes feels pessimistic about the world, he prefers to show children a positive world view instead, and rejects simplistic stereotypes of good and evil
Miyazaki's films often emphasize environmentalism and the Earth's fragility. In an interview with The New Yorker, Miyazaki claimed that much of modern culture is "thin and shallow and fake", and "not entirely jokingly" looked forward to an apocalyptic age in which "wild green grasses" take over. Growing up in the Shōwa period was an unhappy time for him because "nature — the mountains and rivers — was being destroyed in the name of economic progress." Miyazaki is critical of capitalism, globalization and their impacts on modern life. Commenting on the 1954 Animal Farm animated film, he has said that "exploitation is not only found in communism, capitalism is a system just like that. I believe a company is common property of the people that work there. But that is a socialistic idea." Nonetheless, he suggests that adults should not "impose their vision of the world on children."
Nausicaä, Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle feature anti-war themes. In 2003, when Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Miyazaki did not attend the awards show personally. He later explained that it was because he "didn’t want to visit a country that was bombing Iraq".
Miyazaki has been called a feminist by Studio Ghibli President Toshio Suzuki, in reference to his attitude to female workers. This is evident in the all-female factories of Porco Rosso and Princess Mononoke, as well as the matriarchal bath-house of Spirited Away. Many of Miyazaki's films are populated by strong female protagonists that go against gender roles common in Japanese animation and fiction.
Read more about this topic: Hayao Miyazaki
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