The film Kamikaze Girls can be said that it is the story is about the friendship of the two female protagonists and demonstrating the youth subcultures in Japan. However, we can also try to look at this film in relation to the concept of class. Class, as concluded by Bennett, Grossberg and Morris in their work, “refers to ‘a division or order…or rank or grade of society,' common in the phrases ‘higher (upper), middle, lower classes.'” (39). The two protagonists belong to difference classes as depicted by the dressing and life-style of them, and such differences in class in the film is used to bring out the theme of the film.
In Kamikaze Girls, the class difference can be found on the two female protagonists, Momoko and Ichigo, and they are representing different youth subcultures. Both of them live in the same place, in a rural town Shimotsuma, but they are totally different persons. Momoko is a Lolita girl, very girlish and which always fantasize she lives in the Rococo-era; on the contrary Ichigo is a Yanki, a rather boyish girl and belongs to an all-girl motorcycle gang. Here, the class difference is obvious as these two subcultures already represent different rank of class. Lolita belongs to the higher class and Yanki belongs to the lower class.
[...] The tension is initiated by the difference of their classes. From the dressing to the living style, the two characters can be said as in two extremes. But in the film, they have gradually affected each other and had some changes about their values, and this lead to theme of film that is to find their true self through the power of friendship. Momoko and Ichigo are trying to escape through being in a part of subcultures. Behind the fancy dresses and extravagant outlook, Momoko is an egoistic person. [...]
[...] To conclude, the class differences in the film Kamikaze Girls are depicted through the two youth subcultures, Lolita and Yanki, as represented by the two female protagonist Momoko and Ichigo. The differences is presented mainly by the dressing and living style of them, and these differences contribute to the tensions in the film and can finally put forward to the main idea of the film. Instead of just looking at the subcultures in the film, we can actually look beyond them and understand this film in the class perspective. Bibliography Kamikaze Girls. Dir. Tetsuya Nakashima. Perf. Kyôko Fukada, Anna Tsuchiya, Hiroyuki Miyasako Film. Raymond Williams. [...]
[...] Kamikaze Girls from the class perspective The film Kamikaze Girls can be said that it is the story is about the friendship of the two female protagonists and demonstrating the youth subcultures in Japan. However, we can also try to look at this film in relation to the concept of class. Class, as concluded by Bennett, Grossberg and Morris in their work, “refers to division or order or rank or grade of society,' common in the phrases ‘higher (upper), middle, lower classes.'” (39). [...]
[...] Also, she always wears a robe which resembles that she is one of member of the motorcycle gang. One interesting to note is that the robe that she wore has a wrong word embroidered on it, and she does not notice that until Momoko tells her. All these show that the class that she represents is the lower and reactionary class. From the dressing of them, there is an apparent difference of their classes. Class difference is also depicted in a way of exposing the life-style of the characters. [...]
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