Poop, Justice, and the American Way

After I got over the trauma inherent in seeing epileptic turd cookies, I put some more thought into why I didn't like Princess Mononoke, or anime, in general.

There is no justice. The bad guys are not punished or reviled. No one farts in their general direction. Sometimes they are even thanked. And I don't like that. I can handle movies that leave you hanging, or movies without happy endings. I love it when evil characters are complicated, especially when you end up liking them despite yourself. So I haven't fallen prey to any of those western movie biases. But it turns out I like my stories to have a moral.

In Princess Mononoke, there is this nasty bitch who runs a town that processes steel to make firearms, then uses those firearms to kill nature gods. They try to make her a more complicated villain by showing that she has taken in lepers and ex-prostitutes to work in her mill. That might have made the story interesting, except that it becomes apparent that she chose them more for the fact that they would be immensely loyal and malleable than out of any sense of charity. They served her purpose nicely. Near the end, when she is out hunting down the main forest spirit, word is brought to her that her town and the women in it need her because they are under attack. She says she has done enough for them, and they'll just need to fend for themselves. She's out to kill the forest. This bitch needed a slap-down in the worst way. But did she get it? Nope. In the end, she's still in charge of her damned town and all the women still love her, despite the fact that her selfish stupidity ruined their home. She had a slight change of heart about one person who lived in the forest, but only because that person helped her out. Those who help her get her way can't be all bad.

In Spirited Away you had the nasty witch who made the main character's life miserable all the way up to and including the end where she tried to renege on a deal and keep the main character's parents to eat. But she was thanked at the end for all she did. The only help she gave the main character was to give her a job, but she only did that because she was required to give a job to anyone who asked. Another worthless character, and still no come comeuppance. If there were any justice, she would have at least been demoted so that she had to clean up the stinky baths or shovel coal, or some other menial task. But nope. She was still in charge.

And thinking about all this reminded me that I didn't like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the same reason. There, you had this little spoiled bitch who brought everyone who ever loved or cared about her to ruin. Veruca Salt was an angel, comparatively. Anyone with a shred of self-respect would have high tailed it in the other direction as soon as they figured out what this selfish little cunt was up to. But nope. They kept loving her, kept helping her, until they helped her help them to an early grave. Why? Because she was pretty? Because she was talented? I haven't the foggiest, but neither her looks nor her talent came anywhere close to making up for how utterly worthless she was otherwise. Yeah, she kills herself at the end. If that was meant as some kind of justice, it was too little, too late. But it wasn't justice. It was one last selfish act from this melodramatic little brat. Good riddance. Too bad no one managed to club her head in about an hour earlier.

Another Chinese film, Hero, seems like it could have easily gone down this same road. The bad guy doesn't get punished, but the combination of the bad guy being complex enough not to write off and the Hero willingly choosing his fate made that movie work a lot better for me.

So now that I realize what I don't like about these films, I'm left wondering why they have no justice. The only thing I've come up with is the eastern versus western idea of authority. In the west, you have to earn your respect; it doesn't come with your title. But in the east, respect comes with the position. Questioning authority is not encouraged. (I wouldn't say it is encouraged so much as expected in the US.) And all the characters in question here were in positions of authority. So maybe that's it. I'm open for other ideas, though.

Also, is this lack of punishment for evil something I should expect to find in a lot of Asian films? I didn't run into this in either of the Korean films I've seen recently (they had more of a problem with sap), but if this is common, I'm going to be hesitant whenever an Asian film tries to invade my Netflix queue. I've already given up on anime for a good long time.