Love and capitalism in Spirited away

I saw Spirited Away for the first time in 5 years and at least the 15th time in my life. Even though this recent viewing has confirmed it's no longer my favorite Miyazaki film, I still really love it. But what really surprised me were the many commentaries on capitalism I had missed during those previous 14 or so viewings. I mean, sure I picked up on all the surface level "some people are greedy and they're dumb and bad" scenes that any kid would notice, but that's only about 30% of what's there.

MONEY IS FALSE POWER

The first thing that happens when Chihiro's parents decide to eat some unattended food without permission is Chihiro asking, "Are you sure you can eat that?" to which her father responds, "Don't worry, you've got Daddy here. I've got credit cards and cash." Money gives him the illusion he can do whatever he wants, and enables his greed. Chihiro's parents voraciously and thoughtlessly consume what's in front of them, and for this they are turned into pigs (likely the film's most overt symbol.)

Yubaba controls people by taking away their identity. She runs the bathhouse and holds people in servitude of the almighty dollar until they're pretty much faceless employees motivated initially by their reluctant need for money and eventual greed for it.

No-Face rigs the system by springing up gold from his palms. As someone formerly not allowed in the bathhouse and seen as a disgusting creep, people now bow down to him and do whatever he says so they can have some gold. They become obsequious and roll out the red carpet for this bloated monster who gets everything by throwing gold around and creating yes-men in his wake. That describes many of us in the position of working for companies and people we can't stand and disagree with morally but we just go "oh yes sure right away whatever you say" because we need/want the money.

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Cont...
But money's power is all arbitrary. After No-face completely wrecks the bathhouse, Yubaba is sitting there in her bathrobe with a big pile of gold that will barely cover the damage, while Haku tells her she has lost something precious and hadn't even noticed it. Turns out it's her baby, whom she has ignored while being caught up in capitalist concerns. She finds out the baby in the room is an impostor, and just at that moment the pile of gold deteriorates into some black dust. A frog says "It was just sand!" Pretty much. Like anything else, currency is really just made up of basic material that we've arbitrarily decided controls our lives. It has no intrinsic power.

After No-Face gets well by eating a bit of Chihiro's herbal cake and vomiting up everything he's eaten (another symbol that we need to go through pain to evolve as people, pain that our ego will initially reject and perceive as detrimental,) Chihiro, on her way to the train station, calls No-Face and tells him to come along. Lin asks why she'd call to him, and Chihiro says, "He can't stay there." This could mean that Chihiro fears for his safety, that he might face the wrath of Yubaba and her employees after the destruction, but I think it means Chihiro fears for his spirit. Since he's able to create gold at will, the Bath House will only serve as an enabler that will cause him again to form into a bloated rapacious ego monster, which, though powerful, is ultimately unhappy.

...

Cont...
LOVE TRUMPS (AND IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH) GREED

Chihiro is the hero of the story not just for becoming an adult by maturing out of the whiny terrified child she was, but she also rises above the greedy capitalist system by having the one thing that practically no one in the bathhouse even comprehends: she has love. The fact that she cares for Haku in his hour of need is what allows her to refuse No-Face's gold. In fact, it's not even a dilemma, she has no interest in it because she has something more important to do.

Kamaji, similarly, is someone who was driven by love at some point. Hence him having a train ticket out of the bathhouse that he's kept for 40 years, but probably never used because money held sway over him and he had to stay in the system to keep alive. When Lin sees Chihiro caring so selflessly for Haku and going on a journey across the river to see Zeniba, she says to Kamaji, "What's happening here?" to which Kamaji says, "Don't you see? It's called love." Those constantly looking out for themselves and pursuing capital don't understand love, which is a selflessness that trumps greed.

No-Face himself was trying to gain love and affection by using his wealth. His entire goal at the bathhouse was to impress Chihiro, to whom he felt grateful after she allowed him into the bathhouse when nobody else would. Being a product of the capitalist environment, No-Face believes that money gets you what you want, and when the bathhouse attendants bow to him and sing him praises (another symbol of money being their god,) No-Face mistakes this as being love, when it's really just a lie. When Chihiro refuses No-Face's money, he can't comprehend it at first, and when a yes-man stands up for him, he throws him aside, knowing the love he's been shown thus far was a greed-driven facade.

NATURE > INDUSTRIAL LIFE

But if we don't have cash and live in expansive man-made fortresses, how do we survive? Nature. We trust in the earth out of which we sprung and realize we are not alien to this planet, but rather a part of it like every other creature. All of this industry is just a pernicious counterfeit, fundamentally superfluous and ultimately damaging in its excess.

Chihiro, while riding on Haku's back, remembers who he is. She remembers the time she fell into the Kohaku River, which, though she was terrified, did not let her drown and pushed her body safely to shore. Through Chihiro's words, Haku, one of only four people who helped Chihiro along, who had been there since the beginning, is reminded that he is not an industrial servant but rather the very spirit of that river, and he now remembers protecting her. Chihiro tells him she was so grateful for that.

This is another one of those all-pervasive environmentalist themes you find in all of Miyazaki's work. Be in nature, it's better than factory life, you don't need to live in service of rapacious industry, it's unnecessary. Let us not forget the difference between the lifestyles of Yubaba and her twin sister Zeniba from across the river. Zeniba lives among the woods in a small cottage, and she's basically "the good witch" here. Let us also remember that the industrial Yubaba rules over, mistreats, and through her power nearly leaves for dead the natural Haku.

Where have I read this before? It looks so familiar.

THE SHELTERING SAFETY OF WEALTH IS DETRIMENTAL

Yubaba's child is a selfish monster who's been lead to believe that the outside world will make him sick. Chihiro once believed the same thing, but she tells him "It's staying in here that will make you sick!" Mentally, of course. Spiritually. Those sheltered by wealth never fully grow as humans and stay weak and terrified. Chihiro was initially sheltered, but matured through hardship and responsibility and getting her hands dirty, all of which becomes instinctive when motivated by love. Yubaba's child is made all the better for escaping his wealth-shield of extravagant throw pillows. By the end of the film, he's standing up all on his own, and to Yubaba's disbelief he says, "Baby's happy now."

You can see Miyazaki obviously sending a message to the youth with that subtext. He even feels this way about his own animators, which becomes obvious in the Nippon TV special when he's trying to instruct them on how to animate certain parts of Haku as a dragon falling into the boiler room: "Have any of you ever seen a snake fall from a tree?" "Has anyone here ever owned a dog?" "You know what an eel looks like as its resisting being cut?" None of his animators have had any of these life experiences. They grew up believing that they must remain sheltered and simply study drawing, isolated in their art-chrysalis, but in reality this sheltered life has made them worse as animators because they don't have the life experiences to draw upon for reference.

SUMMARY

At the end of the film, even Yubaba's own child and employees are flippant towards her after observing Chihiro's courage fueled by her love and selflessness. Chihiro even demonstrates her courage by referring to Yubaba as "Obachan." By using an affectionate name, Chihiro shows us she has love and is not slave to the rich. Chihiro did not beat the capitalist system by playing the game and climbing up the company ladder. Haku tried doing that and in the process he forgot his own name and remained a slave to Yubaba for a long time. Chihiro beat the system by recognizing it was unnecessary and even irrelevant once she had concern for someone other than herself.

So I wouldn't say the film is exactly anti-capitalist in the political sense of the word, but it's against money over nature (which capitalism rewards,) money over humanity (which capitalism rewards,) and a life dictated by greed (which capitalism rewards.) It's less of a "smash the system, no more government" kind of anti-capitalist message, and more of a critique of the kind of behavior the system enables, and how ultimately it can foster stagnation of character and a life of servitude.

Hey idiot the movie’s about dragons and shit.

tl;dr but digibro made a video about money in Spirited Away and yours seems to be similar so not many are probably gonna read this.

Checked also the first para of OPs post

> I mean, sure I picked up on all the surface level "some people are greedy and they're dumb and bad" scenes that any kid would notice, but that's only about 30% of what's there

Why is Miyazaki so based?

didnt thought about the haku condition. thanks for the read

But Sup Forums told all of Ghiblis movies are just overrated Disney tier shit with no nuance and the best of anime is in all the more shit we watch.

>Miyazaki is ANPRIM

From the summary

>It's less of a "smash the system, no more government" kind of anti-capitalist message, and more of a critique of the kind of behavior the system enables, and how ultimately it can foster stagnation of character and a life of servitude.

Miyazaki is a socialist.

He was a socialist in the past(and was also a union head as well I think) but later denounced it as a "flawed" system.

To be fair what hasn't he denounced?

Nature,love and cuckoldry

OP here I am glad to let you guys know that this is taken from r/truefilm.

Also that anons favourite film is My neighbor Totoro and yes these are themes that permeates his entire work.

I knew this great analysis would be simply rejected as "reddit", so I thought what would happen if I hid that :^)

reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/3c4gma/love_vs_capitalism_in_miyazakis_spirited_away

Even if you copied this from elsewhere I'm glad to see no-bullshit effortposts about films on Sup Forums.

>hurr durr muh reddit
Fuck off with your attempt at making a shitty statement faggot. Noone gives a shit.

I am not making a statement. Just saying this is OC that I made but that it is copied from reddit and I posted it here because I thought it was quite good.

Does anybody here really need an explainer as long as the movie itself to figure out that one of the messages is that capitalism is bad?

What explainer do you have for us next? Princess Monoke is about how industrialism is bad and the environment is good? That Howl’s Moving Castle and Procco Rosso are about how war is bad? Miyazaki movies are not hard to parse for meaning.

Sad

None of that is particularly about capitalism though. It's about money, but capitalism is not the only system that involves money.

It's not so much about capitalism than the attitudes that the system has created.

To be clear Miyazaki isn't sternly anti-capitalist but rather about how we let our greed and obsessions rob us of our own identity and steered away from things that give us true Happiness

They're not the result of capitalism though. "Love of money is the root of all evil" predates capitalism by a large margin.
Don't use the word "capitalism" when that is not the issue.

They're not a result of capitalism but capitalism exacerbates(and often rewards) these negative traits.

It also uses them to encourage productive work. But neither of those points are relevant to the film.
Again, capitalism is not the issue.

That's not criticism of capitalism, it's criticism of materialism, which exists regardless of politics or the market.

If you watch The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, you'll see Miyazaki isn't really trying to hide any of this, he's pretty vocal about the things he dislikes in the world.

Yubaba is an entrepreneur who owns the bath house and runs a for-profit business, her workforce signed a contract, and that contract gives Yubaba power over the employees not by some divine right but because the employees agreed to it by signing the contract. Yubaba is not a monarch and her bath house is not a state, it's a private property. That is not vague, it sounds pretty capitalist to me.

Capitalism has not created materialistic worldviews.
Socialism is inherently materialistic, that doesn't make Spirited Away about that system either.

I think created was the wrong word to use on my part.

None of which makes the movie or the above analysis about capitalism.

Yes it does encourage productive work but that doesn't mean it can't worsen the issues Miyazaki is talking about. A system can have it's faults and benefits.

But as this user has said it could be a critique of materialism more specifically than capitalism.

Also the father also remarks in the beginning that what they’ve found is “an abandoned theme park. They made a ton of them in the 90s and left when the economy went bust” This is historically accurate. Someone in my family went to Japan in 1990 to work on Sanrio’s theme park. You can view any company with a recognizable brand rushing to a get rich quick scheme to make a Disneyland facsimile and then leaving everything as a stain on the environment once it was deemed unprofitable as an indictment of capitalism as well.

Capitalism is the most inhumane and outright evil system created by humanity, so it's pretty common for artists to criticize it.

Pity most animes are nothing more than commercial cashgrabs with less artistic value than a pebble by the road.

Who the living fuck could possibly believe this?

Sup Forums is sick with stupid disease

ur dumb. its about how being childish doesnt cut it in the real world, that only if you work hard will you have a chance to fulfill your desires

Fuck off communist.

>Dr. Anime
>All the world's anime has been turned to stone
>MC-kun vows to save all of them
>Antagonist Miyazaki-kun only wants to save the all-time classics, as moe-shit has corrupted the industry
>Part 2: Normie Kingdom vs. Otaku Kingdom

>Thinks Capitalism, the method by which one can transcend class barrier and better one's life is evil.

>Thinks Communism, a failed socio-economic system which has murdered- not 'killed'- honest to god lined up against the wall and shot, MURDERED over 100 million people.

Go die in a goddamn fire you communist fucknut and take your failed states with you.

I think you can criticize greed without having an anti-capitalist message. I think it falls in line more with general Japanese thought than marxism like this guy implies.

Why are you responding to obvious bait meant to derail this thread.

he's probably a middle-aged man who never heard of trolling before, note his prose style

There you go, OP. This is why you shouldn't use the word "capitalism" when you don't need to.

What is the point of making a story about greed and materialism if it doesn't address capitalism, the dominating economic system on the planet within which the movie itself was made? Who the hell is the intended audience?

It has to be a critique of materialism, because the points it criticizes are of human flaws. It doesn't argue against a system, it argues against a perspective, against behavior.

The overt focus on the material world is what caused socialism and "historical materialism" to exist in the first place. Of course a market economy will have people obsessed with money, but the film isn't arguing against the economy, but against these people, and these people exist absolutely everywhere, in any system. As long as scarcity exists, so will the materialistic worldview persist.

The film isn't saying you shouldn't own anything and money is the devil, it's saying the most important things have nothing to do with material wealth, and that by focusing on material wealth (something that both greedy people and classic socialists do, as both start from the materialistic point of view) you're missing the point of life and bringing misfortune upon yourself and others.

Yeah, I mean despite it's ridiculous size and a few steampunk elements, Yubaba's bathhouse doesn't seem that different than the ones in feudal Japan.

Like said, it seems like Miyazaki's political stance is probably a few shades lighter than anarcho-primitivism, around the level of the Taoists.

Fair point , I think the title should've been Love and materialism rather than capitalism but then again I copied this from r/truefilm and I think the OP of the original post must've been very observant to notice all these things.

>Who the hell is the intended audience?
Children.

But criticism about materialism applies to pretty much everyone. That includes socialists, who are materialistic by definition.

If I recall correctly he wanted Chihiro to be a role model for kids 10 years and younger. He thought that modern Shoujo shit is a bad influence on girls.

Regardless there are themes in this film that anyone can enjoy.

Give me a political analysis of this scene.

You have to consider the framing. The protagonist is from contemporary Japan and experiences an Alice in Wonderland type of adventure that revolves around an allegory for a modern privately owned business. Even if it's not againts capitalism, the movie is aware of capitalism. Greed is a timeless and universally appealing subject matter but it's explored through a specific kind of setting. The bath house's aesthetic draws from traditional architecture but is it really historical, or like a present day luxury resorts that was built to resemble something from the past? The fantasy world, in the narrative, is a reflection of the present day world Chihiro comes from.

Environmental disregard is not exclusive to capitalism. You're telling me every construction in a socialist country had a happy ending and was never abandoned? Look at Che Guevara's absolute failure in Cuba's industry.

Then look at the natural reserve in Chile that used to be owned by the founder of The North Face.

Caring about the environment isn't something that comes merrily along with the "correct" economic system. It's an individual perspective, and it can only be put in practice through individual action. If the individuals don't care, the environment will suffer in any system.

Because Japan is a conservative society and the message can be boiled down to 'dont be greedy or excessive' which is in line with Japanese culture.

Is this the kind of discussions that Evangelion fans pretend to have?

good number dude

>modern Shoujo shit is a bad influence on girls

How so?

...

funny downboat emoji dude

But the mere idea of private ownership isn't enough to make the film against this idea.
Yubaba is even portrayed as the architect of her own misfortune, it's not her ownership of the bath house that creates her problems, it's her attitude towards it, towards the people in it, and ultimately her blindness caused by this materialistic view.

It's a much deeper argument about humans than it is about these strict concepts of private property. The antithesis the film presents is one of the non-material world and of a deeper meaning to existence and happiness, not exactly about an absence of property.

Still baffles how more than 60 years later burgers are still brainwashed with the red scare. Try learning about the things you've been told to hate.

i.imgur.com/6VAUA4R.jpg

>burgers
>learning

go back there

Checked and for the lazy

You should read more carefully:
>Even if it's not againts capitalism, the movie is aware of capitalism
Anyway, Yubaba's problem partially stems from the strict hierarchy that is particular to the structure of her business. The employees have no way to influence or intervene on how Yubaba does things, because they signed a contract that denies them that kind of power. Yubaba's advantageous position derived from her status as the owner of the property (wealth) allows her to dictate the content of the contract. And again, she's literally a witch but in the sociopolitical context of the fantasy world she's just an entrepreneur, she isn't a slave-owning preindustrial aristocrat. She doesn't even have absolute power in her own domain, No-Face for example gave no shits about her magic powers. Again, my point is that the movie's story about greed is from a contemporary perspective and that means it unavoidably involves capitalism regardless of its stance on the system/ideology.

It's from reddit if you search the post in Google.

OP already admitted to copying this from r/truefilm which is the subreddit for serious film discussion.

"Industrial Society was a mistake, its all trash"

-Hayao Miyazaki

Regardless, this is good content and much more welcome than another Boruto or Darling thread.

even though i didn't like the movie that much, this kind of threads are good

Okay, so I think I understand what you're saying, but I'm not entirely sure of what relevance it has.
Yes, Yubaba owns the bath house. Yes, since it's her property she calls the shots and it's up to her whether to listen to what other people have to say about it or not. The setting is not in a post-scarcity world so it naturally involves such things.

What I don't get is what you're getting at regarding all this. You can use these things to say that a film is aware of capitalism (if by capitalism you mean exclusively the idea of private property and private businesses, which isn't really what a lot of people understand by it but we'll roll with it), but isn't that too wide a net?
I mean, you said yourself that it's a contemporary perspective, so a capitalist world is the status quo. I find it a bit of a stretch to argue that there's a deliberate inclusion of capitalism in the film's message beyond the natural circumstances of the world, if that's what you're saying.
You could still argue against materialism within a socialist or even anarchist setting, but that's much more deliberate since it's not the natural state of things.

You also mentioned Yubaba being a witch as something related to her status an an entrepreneur, but Zeniba is also a witch, and is a kind old lady. It's not as if there's any sort of demonization taking place.