Kimi wa Petto
Jan. 31st, 2009 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timerippleI can has rain boots! YAY.
So, I promised![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cadragongirl that I'd do a drama post some time, because I've been watching them like a crazy drama-watching thing these past couple of months. I'll do another, less detailed one at some point, because I have a lot to say about a lot of different dramas. But I just got back comments on my pseudoincest paper, and I'm in analytical-mode, so I felt the need to write an essay on Kimi wa Petto.
I tore through this show in record time. I'd just finished the epic kdrama Legend, and I guess I was overwhelmed by all the pretty, flowing, silky Korean hair. So I was needing a bad hair fix, as one does. And of course for a badperm fix one always goes to... MatsuJun.
Kimi wa Petto (2003) is similar tosarahtales's Drop Dead Gorgeous in that it takes a completely cracked out premise and uses it to explore Serious Issues. (DDG totally had serious issues. IT DID, OKAY? Interspecies love, and racism, and homosexual nonpanic, and things. SRS!) Serious social issues intertwined with deeply personal psychological ones.
The Setup: Iwaya Sumire is having a really bad few days. She’s been dumped by her cheating boyfriend; transferred to a Less Serious department (she’s a journalist) as punishment for standing up against workplace sexual harassment; and the office psychiatrist won’t stop petting his creepy little chihuahua while staring at her. Arriving home in a downpour, she finds one (1) large cardboard box containing one (1) bloody and unconscious Matsumoto Jun. Like any sensible woman, instead of calling an ambulance she drags him into her apartment.
Long story short, Sumire agrees to let him stay at her place-- as her pet. That’s right. Pet. She names him Momo, after her beloved long-dead golden retriever. And the show feels the need to do this at the beginning of every episode:
MATSUJUN: So, my name’s Momo now, and I’m living with this woman as her pet.
IMPLIED AUDIENCE: Oooh, kinky.
MATSUJUN: Not so much. Unfortunately. No, literally, PET.
IMPLIED AUDIENCE: *disappointed sigh*
MATSUJUN: Tell me ‘bout it.
I’m endlessly fascinated by the psychology of the power relations in this drama. Here’s the thing: tall, gorgeous, elite-educated Sumire tends to make everyone around her feel inferior. This means she has a hard time finding people who want to get close to her; and even when she does, she has a hard time letting them in. Her ex-boyfriend cheated on her because he constantly felt like he wasn’t good enough. Her colleagues call her a Noh-mask behind her back. In other words, she’s really not a people-person.
Enter Momo, and we find out just how psychologically withdrawn and insecure Sumire is. She strips Momo of all human rights: he’ll be her pet, he’ll come and go and sit and stay and eat when she says so. His only purpose in life is to love her unconditionally. And in return, she’ll love him too-- but like she’d love a cute furry thing whose kisses reek of dogbreath. A cute furry thing for whose health and well-being she’s completely responsible. She owns him.
Only by means of ownership can Sumire love unreservedly. She can only be her true self in front of someone over whom she has virtually total power.
...Yeah, it’s a little creepy. I mean, pets are sort of expected to unconditionally love their owners, and owners are expected to love their pets. And all this unconditional love is great but, as the creepy psychiatrist points out, it’s definitely not a relationship of equality. (The power dynamics in this drama are awesome. And there are all these amazing tensions between what any given relationship nominally entails and how the participants feel about it at any given time.)
The psychiatrist goes on to make a big deal about how career women these days are unable to love men because of strain their careers put on the traditional marriage model; there’s an epidemic of Japanese career women who can only love their pets.
I would rephrase that a bit and say: what the drama actually claims is that successful relationships between professional, heterosexual men and women are more difficult because people have different and often incompatible ideas about what a good marriage model should entail.
For these reasons (and possibly others), the show says, the traditional man-woman marriage-trajectory model is not working for Sumire and for smart, educated, career-focused women like her. It then asks: is there a type of loving relationship that smart, educated, career-focused women can have successfully? And can it be a model for a new kind of man-woman relationship?
The answer the drama comes up with is: smart, educated, career-focused women have no trouble loving and caring for their pets. And a pet is a lot easier to have a good relationship with, because the owner-pet relationship is completely different and much less complex than a husband-wife relationship. For many obvious reasons.
So, the drama says, is this kind of relationship possible between humans? What if the “pet” is an attractive, shorter, younger man with the capacity to fall in love with his career-woman “owner”? How seriously can Sumire regard Momo as nonhuman and therefore categorically Off-Limits? Is it possible to sustain a close, loving, physically affectionate, cohabitational relationship without introducing sex into the equation?
(Short answer: Maybe.)
What really surprised me was how intensely, on an emotional level, I wanted Sumire and Momo’s experimental power-unbalanced relationship to revert to an idealized sexual one between equals. This is partly due to Momo’s not-remotely-subtle signals about how he feels. But it’s also due to the cultural climate I’m used to: a cultural climate that says marriage is the most ideal and best possible relationship between two people. A cultural climate that celebrates permanent monogamous unions, posits the existence of True Love, and insists that there’s someone for everyone. (Case in point: my current music.)
Now, I find my reaction pretty interesting, because I identified with Sumire in a lot of ways and (at this point in my life) don’t necessarily consider marriage the best relationship model for myself. And on a plot-and-message level, I was utterly gleeful about the way things turned out. But emotionally... argh. Well, it’s a jdrama. I know better than to expect an emotionally satisfying resolution!
Anyway, the way the drama explores these questions and possibilities is really fascinating. Also, as I've begun to demonstrate here, it's gloriously postmodern. If you're into that kind of thing. I quite highly recommend it, both for the crack and for the serious issues.
So, I promised
cadragongirl that I'd do a drama post some time, because I've been watching them like a crazy drama-watching thing these past couple of months. I'll do another, less detailed one at some point, because I have a lot to say about a lot of different dramas. But I just got back comments on my pseudoincest paper, and I'm in analytical-mode, so I felt the need to write an essay on Kimi wa Petto. I tore through this show in record time. I'd just finished the epic kdrama Legend, and I guess I was overwhelmed by all the pretty, flowing, silky Korean hair. So I was needing a bad hair fix, as one does. And of course for a badperm fix one always goes to... MatsuJun.
Kimi wa Petto (2003) is similar to
sarahtales's Drop Dead Gorgeous in that it takes a completely cracked out premise and uses it to explore Serious Issues. (DDG totally had serious issues. IT DID, OKAY? Interspecies love, and racism, and homosexual nonpanic, and things. SRS!) Serious social issues intertwined with deeply personal psychological ones. The Setup: Iwaya Sumire is having a really bad few days. She’s been dumped by her cheating boyfriend; transferred to a Less Serious department (she’s a journalist) as punishment for standing up against workplace sexual harassment; and the office psychiatrist won’t stop petting his creepy little chihuahua while staring at her. Arriving home in a downpour, she finds one (1) large cardboard box containing one (1) bloody and unconscious Matsumoto Jun. Like any sensible woman, instead of calling an ambulance she drags him into her apartment.
Long story short, Sumire agrees to let him stay at her place-- as her pet. That’s right. Pet. She names him Momo, after her beloved long-dead golden retriever. And the show feels the need to do this at the beginning of every episode:
MATSUJUN: So, my name’s Momo now, and I’m living with this woman as her pet.
IMPLIED AUDIENCE: Oooh, kinky.
MATSUJUN: Not so much. Unfortunately. No, literally, PET.
IMPLIED AUDIENCE: *disappointed sigh*
MATSUJUN: Tell me ‘bout it.
I’m endlessly fascinated by the psychology of the power relations in this drama. Here’s the thing: tall, gorgeous, elite-educated Sumire tends to make everyone around her feel inferior. This means she has a hard time finding people who want to get close to her; and even when she does, she has a hard time letting them in. Her ex-boyfriend cheated on her because he constantly felt like he wasn’t good enough. Her colleagues call her a Noh-mask behind her back. In other words, she’s really not a people-person.
Enter Momo, and we find out just how psychologically withdrawn and insecure Sumire is. She strips Momo of all human rights: he’ll be her pet, he’ll come and go and sit and stay and eat when she says so. His only purpose in life is to love her unconditionally. And in return, she’ll love him too-- but like she’d love a cute furry thing whose kisses reek of dogbreath. A cute furry thing for whose health and well-being she’s completely responsible. She owns him.
Only by means of ownership can Sumire love unreservedly. She can only be her true self in front of someone over whom she has virtually total power.
...Yeah, it’s a little creepy. I mean, pets are sort of expected to unconditionally love their owners, and owners are expected to love their pets. And all this unconditional love is great but, as the creepy psychiatrist points out, it’s definitely not a relationship of equality. (The power dynamics in this drama are awesome. And there are all these amazing tensions between what any given relationship nominally entails and how the participants feel about it at any given time.)
The psychiatrist goes on to make a big deal about how career women these days are unable to love men because of strain their careers put on the traditional marriage model; there’s an epidemic of Japanese career women who can only love their pets.
I would rephrase that a bit and say: what the drama actually claims is that successful relationships between professional, heterosexual men and women are more difficult because people have different and often incompatible ideas about what a good marriage model should entail.
For these reasons (and possibly others), the show says, the traditional man-woman marriage-trajectory model is not working for Sumire and for smart, educated, career-focused women like her. It then asks: is there a type of loving relationship that smart, educated, career-focused women can have successfully? And can it be a model for a new kind of man-woman relationship?
The answer the drama comes up with is: smart, educated, career-focused women have no trouble loving and caring for their pets. And a pet is a lot easier to have a good relationship with, because the owner-pet relationship is completely different and much less complex than a husband-wife relationship. For many obvious reasons.
So, the drama says, is this kind of relationship possible between humans? What if the “pet” is an attractive, shorter, younger man with the capacity to fall in love with his career-woman “owner”? How seriously can Sumire regard Momo as nonhuman and therefore categorically Off-Limits? Is it possible to sustain a close, loving, physically affectionate, cohabitational relationship without introducing sex into the equation?
(Short answer: Maybe.)
What really surprised me was how intensely, on an emotional level, I wanted Sumire and Momo’s experimental power-unbalanced relationship to revert to an idealized sexual one between equals. This is partly due to Momo’s not-remotely-subtle signals about how he feels. But it’s also due to the cultural climate I’m used to: a cultural climate that says marriage is the most ideal and best possible relationship between two people. A cultural climate that celebrates permanent monogamous unions, posits the existence of True Love, and insists that there’s someone for everyone. (Case in point: my current music.)
Now, I find my reaction pretty interesting, because I identified with Sumire in a lot of ways and (at this point in my life) don’t necessarily consider marriage the best relationship model for myself. And on a plot-and-message level, I was utterly gleeful about the way things turned out. But emotionally... argh. Well, it’s a jdrama. I know better than to expect an emotionally satisfying resolution!
Anyway, the way the drama explores these questions and possibilities is really fascinating. Also, as I've begun to demonstrate here, it's gloriously postmodern. If you're into that kind of thing. I quite highly recommend it, both for the crack and for the serious issues.
