Blossay Pt. II - Mentoring

Lisa Khadaran
Blossay Pt II
5.9.2011
W.C. 2209

Mentoring - Audience and Character Interactions

For my final project, part two of my blossay, I wanted to write on the role of mentorship in the texts we discussed in class. Even though these are Japanese texts, I still thought it'd be pretty awesome to study mentorships because it's a topic that bridges both American and Japanese cultures. Understanding what it means to learn from each other allows for us to be better able to communicate with our peers, and to reach out and feel comfortable about building a communicative relationship. I think an important part of the mentorship process is communication, and, after careful consideration, I decided to divide mentorship into three different categories. Now, it's important to understand first, before reading this, that mentorships don't always have to be a positive experience - rather, it is our cultural understanding of what we prefer them to be, but mentorships can just be relationships where at least one person in the party learns. It doesn't have to be a negative or a positive experience, but rather an experience where the characters can take away from the experience something, and in turn, so does the audience. The three categories I divided the mentorships we discussed in texts were a positive mentorship, a negative mentorship, and a mutual mentorship.

The texts that I thought had positive mentorships were in Astroboy, The Family Game, and Kneel Down and Lick My Fee. I define a positive mentorship as where the mentee positively grows from the relationship they enter in, with who is usually, an older, more worldly adult (or at least older, figure).

POSITIVE MENTORSHIPS:

In Astroboy, I think that there is a positive mentorship. The adults that Astroboy is the the ward of take care of him differently. The first adult, Dr. Tenma creates Astroboy as a replacement for his son who died in a car crash. Now, even though Dr. Tenma doesn't create Astroboy with really the right intentions, and instead sees him as someone to mold into his son, doesn't mean he hasn't contributed positively to Astro's developmental growth. Even though Astro is a machine, a robot with limited rights, Dr. Tenma still treats Astro with the respect of his own son. The two are in a content relationship, where Astro can rely on Dr. Tenma as his father and ask for things that a normal little boy could want. Dr. Tenma in return fosters affection with Astro, and by treating him as a boy, his programming begins to respond and better function so Dr. Tenma can have a child. However, the only thing that is preventing this mentorship of Dr. Tenma showing Astro how to be a real boy, is that Astro cannot physically age. Even though some people would view this as a mentorship with negative aspects, I think that this is still a positive mentorship. Dr. Tenma is still able to show Astro how to be a real boy, and even though Astro is not a real boy, the doctor is more dissatisfied that he will never be able to replace his son. Sadly, this gets taken out on Astroboy, and he is sent to the robot fighting place, but I think this is still a positive mentorship. Astro is better able to understand what it's like to be a "human" robot, in a world where there are robots aren't given any equality at all. Dr. Tenma may seem like a horrible person, but in reality, I think he was more disgusted by himself for trying to replace his son, than he was for Astro not able to fully transform into his son.

Paralleling Dr. Tenma, is Professor Ochanomizu. However, the latter mentor to Astro is still much the same as Dr. Tenma. The only difference is that the latter has not lost a son. There is no void to fill, so this mentorship is actually, I believe, a more positive mentorship than what Astroboy had before. However, these are still positive mentorships, because Astroboy has had a positive experience in both; two different men that wanted a son, but were in different positions to realize they wanted different things from Astro as they raised him. Dr. Tenma wanted his son back, while Professor O was able to treat Astro as an individual.

The next text I wanted to look at was Family Game, and the mentorship, because the mentorship between Yoshimoto and Shigeyuki is one of almost paternal/brotherly affection. Yoshimoto, the tutor, is hired by Shigeyuki's family to straighten him up to get into a good high school. His methods are a bit sketchy, but they work, and Shigeyuki is grudgingly moving on up there, or at least trying to, in the class rankings. Now, I think this is a positive mentorship and not a mutual one, because I don't see what Yoshimoto would get out of the relationship besides some comedy gold caused by Shigeyuki being ridiculous. True, Yoshimoto is being bribed by his mentee's father, but in the end, there is no sign that he is actually happy with what he collects. Yoshimoto is like a strange being, that comes and goes, and we really don't know his true purpose in the story but to push Shigeyuki to excel. I think this is primarily a positive mentorship, because Shigeyuki does get some academic betterment out of it. He doesn't have to compete for Yoshimoto's attention, so he benefits from having someone besides his coddling mother to smack some sense into him. His brother's attitude towards school is also going downhill, so it's not like he can turn and use his brother as an example on what to do correctly in life, and his father is absent and unable to truly be a pillar that Shigeyuki can lean against. That leaves Yoshimoto, because even though he is attending a poor rate college and is getting paid to spend time with Shigeyuki, there is still no hesitation of his efforts to do his best to help Shigeyuki succeed. There is no other real emotional fulfillment/betterment that I can find him benefiting from, which is why I think it's a positive, and not a mutual mentorship the two are engaged in.

I then looked at Kneel Down and Lick My Feet. I'm sure we can all remember that story. I wanted to use this story as a more extreme example of what a positive mentorship is, because, in the story the older adult narrator is helping out her friend by finding her work. Besides getting a pat on the back for bringing in new blood, the more worldly narrator is getting nothing from having her friend there, but her friend is benefiting. The time Shinobu spends showing her what she does to make money, Chika, the mentee, has a choice on whether or not to stay and continue. She is bettered in a way that she is brought above men in general through the highly, sadistic consensual sexual acts she is/will be expected to engage in. Shinobu showing her this job, and guiding her through it, acting as a big sister without any rewards, is, I think, able to turn Chika back into the woman she once knew that was able to live off herself. It's paradoxical, because the reason Chika wanted extra work was so she could have money to spend on a man. Shinobu was really rather selfless, which is why this is pretty much a one-sided, positive mentorship; Chika is able to better herself through Shinobu's tutelage.

The opposite of the positive mentorship is the, well, a negative mentorship. I think I can only really honestly say that we discussed one of these types of mentorship texts in class, and that was Cruel Story of Youth.

NEGATIVE MENTORSHIPS

For the text that I feel really had negative mentorships, I had to really think whether I was thinking they were negative because the relationships the characters engage in are negative to me, or were they negative to the characters. A lot of what we tend to interpret in text is based on our own knowledge, so I tried to step away and view these two texts to see if I could find any positive mentorships, and not just negative mentoring. First, in Cruel Story of Youth, I really couldn't find any positive mentorships. Instead, the adults that Makoto and Kiyoshi should be looking for direction are irresponsible in that they don't any interest besides what they can take from these two young people. I guess that is another reason for the title of the film, but these adults who are able to engage and guide these two adolescents have not, and for their almost irresponsibility, these two young characters die. I think that having the text end in death defines what a negative mentorship's relationship is. At least, in a positive mentorship, that will never end in death until a character has been able to utilize/acknowledge/reflect on the advice and tutelage their mentor has given them. Death, without doing any of these things, means they will never occur, so this will always be a negative mentorship. These two youthful people were steered away from a path they could have taken to a more exuberant future, which adults were too negligent to guide them along too.

Their needs to be some experienced partner in order, I feel, for the characters in our texts to really be able to engage in a mentorship. However, I think it's interesting that we can look at one text we studied and see a mutual mentorship.

MUTUAL MENTORSHIPS

Kamikaze Girls was the only text I could really link as a mutual mentorship. I feel like it's because we have two characters around the same age, who are in the same socio-economic life, but both have different aspirations. These two girls are able to learn from each other, and are able to bond over things they really don't have in common. Momoko's style is gentle and delicate, while Ichiko is rough and very impatient. I think that these two, as very different extremes in style, are able to come together and understand each other, because the other makes up for what they lack. These two girls are able to fill these lacking parts of their personalities with that of the other, but know still who they are and what defines them. Momoko will always be a sweet lolita, and Ichiko will always be a girl that is seeking freedom on her bike. But, Momoko realizes she can act tough, but still prefers to be a princess, and Ichiko realizes she can have a femininity, but still prefers to ride her bike. These two have a mutual mentorship because the both help each other grow and become better people. This is a positive mutual mentorship. I think we can actually imply that there are mutual mentorships that can be negative too, but I don't recall reading anything that I feel truly defines one. I feel like you'd have to have characters or completely hated each other in order to do so, and that refused to get along at all, and they would have to all die for it to come to an end and be finalized as a negative mutual mentorship.

In conclusion, I think the reason why we see a lot more positive mentorships in the texts that we discussed in class is because, from my understanding, Japan is a society that works on helping other people before helping themselves. Perhaps idealizing positive mentorships in texts can mean that people idealize being in a positive mentorship in their real lives. I feel like being in a positive mentorship is like looking up to someone as a role-model who truly doesn't let you down, even though they are getting little out of it. Now, when I say their getting little out of it, I mean in betterment of them. Sure, people probably go the extra step for monetary reasons, but I think self-fulfillment over monetary reasons as why people want to help others is a much better reason. I hope that makes sense. What I really took from this course is how these character's betterments of themselves could help me be a better person, and I think, that just might have been the message of the majority of the texts all along, no matter what extreme measures had to be taken to show it. Even watching a Cruel Story of Youth, I feel like the film was giving me the message to reach out and not flounder about with life. Perhaps these texts, even though the content can have many types of mentorships in it, are really all just positive messages on how we can better ourselves. In a way, it is like an audience too is involved in a positive mentorship with the medium. I mean, the dvd is most certainly not getting anything out of me watching it, but I can go out with a knowledge of how to change something, or a life lesson.