@UIUC: Patrick Drazen talk: "Gay, Kind-of Gay and Pseudo-Gay in Anime and Manga: What's the Point?" (22 Oct, 4-5:30pm; Noyes Lab 163)

"Gay, Kind-of Gay and Pseudo-Gay in Anime and Manga: What's the Point?"

a public lecture by Patrick Drazen

Thursday, 22 October 2009
4:00-5:30
Noyes Lab 163

From the cross-dressing of Osamu Tezuka's Princess Sapphire in Princess Knight (Ribon no kishi, orig. 1953-56) and Ryoko Ikeda's Oscar de Jarjayes in The Rose of Versailles (Berusaiyu no bara, 1972-73) to the fake twincest of the Ouran High School Host Club (Ouran Koukou hosuto-bu, 2003-), Japanese pop culture has not been shy about playing a variety of sexual games with its consumers. However, given the essential conservatism of pop culture's message despite cutting edge story-telling techniques, there is far more teasing going on than actual same-sex romance. In this presentation, using clips from various anime, Drazen will show that the point of most works is to nudge the consumer toward the conventional rather than away from it.



Patrick Drazen is the author of the Anime Explosion: The What? Why? and Wow! of Japanese Animation (2003). He has given presentations at the Cherry Blossom Festival Anime Marathon at the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution (2006), Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits (2004), Yaoi-Con (2002), and, for the past several years, Anime Central in his hometown of Chicago. He also participated in a panel discussion with Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino as part of the Chicago International Film Festival (2006). Drazen has written on anime and manga for the magazines Animation, SFX, and Time Out New York, and sits on the editorial board of and has contributed to the manga and anime studies journal Mechademia. He is currently working on his second book.

This talk is sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, the School for Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Resource Center, the Department of Comparative and World Literatures, and the Gender and Women's Studies Program.