Prompt for Paper #3 on Miyazaki Films

3-4 pages, due April 18

According to Susan Napier, films today do a great deal to define and project an image of national character or identity to the world. She also argues that there is a tendency in Miyazaki films like Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke to offer “a vision of cultural dissonance, spiritual loss, and environmental apocalypse in which humans and nature battle each other.”  She also finds it distinctive that women are major players in his films, and not bound by gender stereotypes. Finally, in the end, she sees his films having a "destablizating" effect, leaving the viewer with a sense of "de-assurance" as opposed to the "re-assurance" often found in Disney films.  What do you think of these ideas? 

Write a paper which looks at some of Napier’s arguments and applies them to Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke.