Onnagata: The Art of Woman in Japanese Kabuki Essay -- Japanese Societ

The grace of a swan, subtle graceful movements, beauty, and finesse, these are completely aspects of the Japanese Onnagata 1.The Onnagata ( masculine actors portraying women) in Japan is viewed as the ideal women, according to the revered Misaki Isaka, their conduct offstage is made responsible for artistry onstage, such as render (ka), dancing (bu), and acting (ki) 2. This is how Japanese society has come to view them over the years, but in reality, the Onnagata is a repressed individual that is not allowed to express their maleness in any facet in society. This can be seen in a quote, within a short story, written by Yukio Mishima He must live as a woman in his daily life, he is unlikely to be considered an accomplished Onnagata. When he calculates on stage, the more he concentrates on performing this or that essentially feminine action the more masculine he will seem3. The Onnagata, in Japan, is the ideal perfect woman who surpasses all women, but they are the contradictory, male representation of the male fantasy. The manner in which, the Onnagata, essentially is in Japanese society has created a new ideal of sex activity in Japan and a new form of repression. Kabuki would have died had not increasingly believable, instead of merely pretty, female characters begun to appear in the mature male kabuki that emerged in the 1650s an open transition from gay theater to Gei Theater, gei being Japanese for artOnly actors past their adolescence could do and they were forced by law to recognise their physical attractiveness 4. The dictatorial members of the government at the time felt women and homosexual men had over stepped their bounds in theater, thus banning them. unitary reason for this is the essential make up of society for women in the To... ...the protests against this form of life, I neer realized that this was the basis of their ideas.19.Isaka, Misaki, Box Lunch Etiquette, Manners and Mischief, 56. (Ayame a famous Onnagata from the Tokugawa pe riod who laid out decorum for Onnagata. He said one should show dedication to their every action including eating and one should never leave their onstage role. They are to become onna in every way and to be beautiful even in old age. Ayame told them to embody real women and to front mischievous with a chaste mind and should never be seen to purposely make the present audience laugh for it is disgraceful, their most important role is to appear chaste). 20.Mishima, Yukio Onnagata Death in Midsummer, 1966, 146 (Onnagata can never capture the complete sense of femininity, for it is a piece of a brief moment in time, simply a fragment of a way of life).