Enamoramiento y maternidad: el mandato de género en televisión a través de las protagonistas de “This Is Us”=Falling in Love and Motherhood: Gender Mandate in Television through the Female Characters of This Is Us

<p><strong>Resumen</strong></p><p>En la actualidad, el número de personajes femeninos en los contenidos audiovisuales se han visto incrementados, pero esto no es suficiente como para afirmar que existe la igualdad en la representación. En este artículo se propone una revisión a dos personajes protagonistas femeninos en la serie de televisión estadounidense <em>This Is Us</em> (NBC: 2016-) con el objetivo de definir la feminidad en términos narrativos: a través del viaje de la heroína y de la psicología de personajes. El amor romántico heterosexual y la maternidad forman parte de la transformación interior de los personajes aquí analizados, lo que nos presenta cómo la evolución femenina sigue unida a ambas cuestiones tradicionalmente femeninas. </p><p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>Nowadays, the number of female characters has increased, but this is not enough to sustain that there is representation equality. The aim of this paper is to analyze two female characters in the TV show <em>This Is Us</em> (NBC: 2016-) in order to outline how femininity is performed into the narrative: through the heroine’s journey and the psychology of fiction characters. Heterosexual romantic love and motherhood are part of the inner transformation of the characters analyzed here, which shows us how the individual female evolution continues to be linked to both traditionally feminine issues. </p>

Heroine’s journey to love: Spatial rhetoric in romantic subplots in BioWare’s fantasy RPGs

This article explores the potential of digital games to encode references encompassing specific cultural ideas of romantic love within their spatial structures, thus helping guide the player’s interpretation of romance as they interact with and move through those spaces. It undertakes an analysis of romantic subplots in BioWare’s fantasy role-playing games, specifically those which reappropriate the courtly love trope, and discusses elements of that remediation which rely heavily on spatial metaphors and structures, including the shared experience of heroic journey, the role of questing for the development of romance, and spatial positioning of lovers on the game map. Through its analysis, the article explores how digital games can employ spatial rhetoric while approaching topics of love, and how they are equipped to represent the materiality and spatiality of love and love narratives.

The Heroine’s Journey towards Wholeness as seen in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing

This study discusses the psychological journey of the female heroine in Margaret Atwood's Surfacing. This paper applies the psychological approach since it is believed to be the most suitable approach to analyze the process of the heroine’s journey towards wholeness. It examines the process of individuation in the main plot of the novel and the characteristics of the process on the heroine’s personal quest. The portrayal of the individuation process is identified through the theory of individuation proposed by Charles Gustav Jung which discusses the process of the individual’s development towards psychological completeness. In order to support the analysis, library research was conducted using the novel as well as the supporting articles from any reliable websites. The result shows that the heroine’s journey can be translated as Jungian’s theory of individuation as there are six characteristics of the process of individuation found within the story. Furthermore, five stages occurred in the heroine’s journey, namely the recognition of the persona, the assimilation with the shadow, the confrontation with the animus, and lastly the appearance of the Self that leads the heroine towards psychological wholeness.

“Russian” and “Soviet” Plot in the Literary Works of Yoko Tavada

In the article the concepts-signified as “Russian” and “Soviet” expressed in the works of the German-Japanese writer Yoko Tavada (born 1960) are touched upon. The concepts signified as “Soviet” and “Russian” do encompass everything that is connected with Russian culture, literature and the Soviet Union. The empirical material for the given depiction were the essay and novel by Tavada “Suspicious passengers of your night trains” (2002, 2009). Based on the example of this novel the attitude of the younger generation of the socialist countries of late 1980s to the Russian language is revealed. The transition of the socialist bloc (Yugoslavia) is described on the example of clothes (jeans, aluminum fork, and pizza), the younger generation (good manners vs. bad manners), and language skills (English vs. Russian). The heroine’s journey along the Trans-Siberian Railway (Moscow – Irkutsk – Khabarovsk) enabled the author to reveal the micro-historical realities of the last decade of the Soviet era. The plot of the novel showed that in the last decades of the Soviet era there was already a “nostalgia” for household goods, the style of clothing and music, and Western pop culture (Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley). During the contact with the main character, the Russian soul (benevolence, openness, hospitality) and low standards of eco-awareness and disrespect for non-smokers in public transport (train) are revealed. The Soviet era is also confessed at the level of smell and food (garlic, cheap cigarettes, onions, black bread, porridge, soup butter drips, vodka, etc.). In the course of the narrative and communication with the surrounding people the Siberian “real” world is indicated, i.e. the poverty of the interior of the Siberian villages of the Soviet era. In the course of describing the Siberian expanse its natural and climatic constants such as cold, snow, bathhouse and birch, the latter as a symbol of all of Russia with its mythological stratum, were presented. The attributive cycle of the Siberian natural-climatic and “material” world is completed by the theme of androgyny opened up in the Siberian bathhouse, which is a space for identifying all types of physical things, that is, of female and male in woman and man.

The Heroine’s Journey of Mina in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Blood, Sweat and Fears

Dracula, (W. W. Norton & Company Inc. 1997) the epistolary novel written by Bram Stoker 1897 is a collection of diary entries, letters, newspaper articles and interviews collected and documented by Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray. She’s the perfect Victorian woman, a model of domestic propriety, always supporting her posse of men with her goal to be “useful” to them with her knowledge of new technology like the typewriter and the Dictaphone. She’s the keeper of the story, proficient in shorthand and beloved by her husband, and everyone who meets her including Professor Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood (Lord Godalming) whose efforts to destroy Dracula provides evidence of for authenticity. Although the novel begins in Jonathon’s voice and point of view as the classic Victorian hero confronted by evil including those undead brides of Dracula— it shifts into the voice and perspective of the heroine of the novel, which is the fiancée and eventual wife of Jonathan Harker and the only woman to survive drinking Dracula’s blood (not the other way around). Mina mind melds with him to reveal his location to the men who carry out his death sentence and release his soul.

THE COMPARISON OF HEROINE’S JOURNEY IN BRAVE MOVIE (2012) AND MOANA MOVIE (2016)

The aim of this research is to discuss the comparison of the heroine’s journey in Brave movie (2012) and Moana movie (2016). To analyze both of them, the researcher uses the theory of hero’s journey by Christopher Vogler. Hero’s or heroine’s journey is a stage about growth and passage each stage of journey must be passed successfully then could be called as a hero or heroine. Not only analyze the hero’s journey, but also compare it by using comparative literature theory. This research is designed as a literary criticism. The method used in this research is comparative literature method. The results of the research indicate that the heroine in Brave and Moana movie, both of the heroine have gone through several stages in Heroine's Journey. There is one difference in the two movies when viewed from the heroine's journey. From twelve hero’s journey by Vogler, the heroine in Brave movie goes through 9 stages of hero’s journey. Meanwhile the heroine in Moana movie passed 10 stages of the hero’s journey.Keywords: Comparative Literature, Movie, Hero’s Journey.

Stuck in a Labyrinth (or a Tower) with the Minotaur and trying to get out: Princess Aurora and Imperator Furiosa as the heroes of the Multimyth

In The Hero with a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell begins his thesis of the Monomyth with a recounting of the story of the Minotaur. His purpose is straightforward: the initiation and cycling of the hero’s journey is predicated on an origin of evil narrative which the story of the Minotaur quintessentially is. It is interesting to note, however, that differently gendered expressions of narrative evil give rise to distinct and gendered vectors of protagonist action. In Sleeping Beauty, for example, Maleficent, a female/mother variant of the tyrant-monster, gives rise to a protagonist, Princess Aurora, who is never the conscious agent of the action she takes. On the other hand, in Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa literally drives the narrative action which is initiated by the tyrant-father, Immortan Joe. Though it’s clear that Furiosa’s journey adheres to a more manifest expression of empowered action than Princess Aurora’s, this paper will argue that neither protagonist nor the implied origin of evil story setting each character’s journey in motion suffices to define the heroine’s journey. Rather, the fairytale princess and the female action-hero require a new interpretive model in order to describe both their conflicting and, surprisingly, common relationship to personal agency. Drawing on the methodology of Vladimir Propp, I intend to offer an alternative framework for understanding the attributes of the heroine’s journey which circumvents completely the essentializing gesture that is necessarily made in positing an expression of the hero-task which would be unique to a female protagonist. Rather, I offer the Multimyth, an interpretive framework which 1) applies the model of the hero’s journey to Sleeping Beauty and Mad Max: Fury Road in order to define, reveal, and interrogate the functioning of each film’s narrative structure foregrounding the roles of Princess Aurora and Furiosa, respectively; and, then 2) uses the aggregate conclusions of the application of Campbell’s model to each text to counter-interrogate the model itself. In doing so, I intend to expose the assumptions, omissions and limitations of the Monomyth as a narrative heuristic and at the same time elucidate the Multimyth as an interpretive model which honors Campbell’s conception of the hero-task and proffers new methods for the application of the hero’s journey which will result in a richer and more complex understanding of narrative structure.

The Spiriting Away of Chihiro: Miyazaki’s Global Heroine

From 1963 to present day, Hayao Miyazaki has recounted the Heroine’s Journey of strong girls and young women through his animated films, television series and manga. Theatrically released in 2001 his hand drawn masterpiece Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Sen and Chihiro’s Spiriting Away) became the highest grossing film in Japanese history. It was dubbed into English and released by Disney in 2002, and went on to win the Academy Award for what is still the only foreign film to have ever won the Best Animated Feature category. Many critics have ranked it as the best animated film ever made. It’s a coming of age fantasy written and directed by Miyazaki and animated by his Studio Ghibli. It’s the Heroine’s Journey of 10-year-old Chihiro Ogina who is on her way to moving to a new home when she’s sidetracked into the Shinto spirit world of folklore. Her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba, and Chihiro must find a way, as she works in Yubaba’s bathhouse to free her parents and escape back to the human world. This essay examines and analyzes how Spirited Away follows the 10-stage model that Maureen Murdock describes in her book Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness. Murdock was a student of Campbell’s and came to believe through her work with women in therapy that his model of the Hero’s Journey didn’t acknowledge the psychological-spiritual aspects of a women’s journey. It argues that Miyazaki and his male dominated studio didn’t follow the Joseph Campbell model of The Hero’s Journey by simply telling a Shero’s journey or one that replaces the male protagonist with a female one, but that he celebrates the psycho-spiritual journey of Chihiro that Murdock outlines.