foreward: This is not one of my best works; it was done in one huge ten-hour stretch the day it was due. Well, usually that's how all my papers get done, but this time it could have come out better. Still, feel free to read it if you like. And remember; this is the IDEOLOGY. It is not how the people wearing the clothes necessarily feel or think!

World War II may be over, and any traces of dictatorship may have been erased from the government during the US occupation, but these events do not necessarily dictate the end of war influence in Japan. Were one to search outside the mainstream culture, it is possible to find bands running around in full military uniform, the flag of the rising sun in tow. At places such as Yasakuni Shrine, the kamikaze pilots are still honored among the cherry trees every year for their sacrifice. Whereas one form of war recognition is being used for shock value, the other is an expression of sadness and honor for the sacrifices of the dead. But regardless of the difference, one thing is for certain; the war still plays an important role in the Japanese psyche that manifests itself in varying forms of everyday life.

With these material reminders of the war so accessible, it may be easy to overlook the sociological and idealistic remnants of war mentality that still dictate the culture and individuals of Japan. The ideologies that lead the Japanese people towards the war mentality and eventual emperor worship, and most importantly lead to the idea of the kamikaze, are no longer present in the society. However, the Japanese people still seem susceptible to the same methods of mobilization that were used in the war in a new, much less threatening, and more modernized context.

This time the war is not in the context of a physical war but a mental one, and is designed to be fought against Japanese culture itself by a section of the younger generation of Japanese females. These girls, called gothic lolitas, are hardly dangerous, and it seems almost ridiculous to compare them to the kamikaze of the mid twentieth century. In fact, at first glance they appear to be, and largely are, simply a subculture spin-off of the Japanese mainstream consumer industry.

Gothic lolitas are defined mainly by their clothing and peers, fitting perfectly into the current Japanese teen culture. However, a closer look at the ideology behind the gothic lolita reveals marked similarities between the ideologies that are being promoted for the girls now, and the ones that were designed to gather popular support for the emperor and war back from the beginning of the Meiji period to WWII. The goal that the mobilizer, a section of the fashion/entertainment industry, promotes for the girls is given in the form of a similar holly war. I will compare the movements and show that they are extremely alike.

But this is not to say that the two movements are parallel to one another. There are major differences between the ideologies that were used during the wartime and the ones that are being used currently that obscure the original connection between the two. The main difference is that, whereas the soldiers of the war were mobilized to fight against foreigners, and against foreign consumerism and influences as a result, the girls are being mobilized under western commercialism to resist certain aspects of Japanese culture. Whether they are doing so consciously or not is uncertain, and how many of the girls who dress as gothic lolitas are actually aware of the ideology is also questionable. However, simply by wearing the clothing they are diverging from mainstream Japanese cultural uniformity, which is important in itself.

Fundamentally, it appears that the gothic lolita style is a response to the pressures that women have been feeling to be the cultural and social backbones of Japanese society since at least the Meiji period. Their major role has been to act as good mothers and wives, and to shoulder much of the burden of raising their children well to conform to societal standards. They also care for their husbands, and as a result commit themselves to receive a large amount of dependence, or amae, without having anyone aside from their other female friends with whom to have mutual amae relationships. Gothic lolitas maintain this same sex amae group, but appropriate the image of child-like dolls in order to protest growing up and assuming the roles of Japanese women. However, in asserting their opposition through gothic lolita clothing, the adherents to the style are simply perpetuating the Japanese hierarchy and social order that they claim to stand against. The actual effectiveness of the gothic lolita style in creating social change is very weak indeed.

The Gothic Lolita - Gothic, Lolita, and their Japanese Appropriation

At first popular mainly among the fans of Japanese rock music, specifically a very british-glam band influenced form of visual rock called vis kei, or the types of teens who would visit Harajuku on Sundays, the gothic lolita style has recently diffused throughout Japanese society and has been gaining recognition as a new trend among Japanese teens. The variety program Hanamaru Café ran a special introduction program on Gothic Lolitas, complete with interviews with the clothing designers, models, and the style adherents themselves. Since the program is hosted by women who appear to be in their mid to late twenties, all in modest clothes, it can be assumed that Gothic Lolita fashion is making a breakthrough into popular culture. As grown women, as opposed to counter culture teens, these hosts lend credibility to the fashion through their alienation from its origins, without actually promoting it. In fact, they treat the style, amidst much bafflement and giggles, as an amusement. It is, ultimately, described as "kawaii," or "cute" in Japanese, which effectively passes it off as part of the shoujo culture.

As for gothic lolitas, there are really two distinct styles among which they divide themselves. One leans more towards the gothic, middle age, or vampiric look, while the other, the lolita style, resounds more of childish, doll-like innocence. In the Gothic & Lolita Bible, a roughly quarterly magazine devoted completely to the style and culture of the gothic lolita, the writers establish the distinction between the two with opposing examples of a typical day in the lives of both (1). Two models, one gothic and one lolita, act out the activities that a typical adherent may chose to follow. In these schedules, "gothic" becomes associated with the night, dark colors associated with the medieval nobility, and the almost gypsy-like mysticism of tarot cards, while the lolita is associated with tea parties, music lessons, pastel colors, and other things reminiscent of more modern European aristocratic culture. However, both are expected to strive towards beauty, as is suggested by the highly polished form of Japanese many lolitas chose to adopt. Thus, from the beginning, the image of the gothic lolita is separated into two distinctive and somewhat complimentary forms of activity and dress.

However, the most noticeable and important difference between the "gothic" and the "lolita" lies in their clothing, and not in their lifestyles. In the schedules, although the models are posing for different activities, the emphasis is placed on what they are wearing. As they pass through the day their clothing changes to suit the activity in which they are participating, and the brand names of the clothes and their prices are given in the corner of each picture. The styles are also separated into categories of light and dark, and are given so much emphasis that it becomes clear that, rather than promoting the activities, the activities are promoting the clothes. The gothic lolita culture is, ultimately, one of highly aesthetic, fashion-oriented consumerism.

Closer analysis of the two styles reveals the nature of their difference from a fashion-oriented perspective, along with their inherent similarities. The gothic style, which was introduced on the Hanamaru Café program as "the preferred fashion of middle age European aristocrats," has connotations of the dark and mysterious that western Goths have also appropriated. Meanwhile the lolita style, described as "using frills and lace, like a princess would," has the added implication of being doll-like, or as one host put it, "it looks like something a princess would wear, like a French doll." The gothic is mysterious, uncomfortable, and chronologically removed from the mainstream, while the lolita is more bright and childish, but removed from the mainstream on a realistic and humanistic plane. Together, they present two separate forms of escapism through fashion. These forms are compatible with one another through their combined promise for escapism, and not as separated as the magazine and hostesses would present them.

Because the styles are so similar, it is not surprising that they are often mixed together, hence the name "gothic lolita." Fans, whose pictures can be found in any magazine devoted to the style, will mix the two styles just as often as they will separate them. As they do so, they also effectively mix the ideologies and influences as well. One girl, clad in the black dress of a goth, or what she called "a female vampire," stated that her interest in the style rested on "being able to feel that she had returned home to [medieval Europe]." And indeed, she was dressed in a long dress of black silk, reminiscent of medieval aristocratic attire. Her identity seemed to rest on the fact that she was wearing the black color and long dress associated with the gothic part of the style. Her companion, an "angel style" lolita, was dressed all in white, accentuating the proposed difference between the two.

Yet however much the gothic lolita may have taken from medieval fashion, there were still some modern, Japanese elements to her costume. For example, she was wearing large, visible platform shoes, and a lolita headdress which looked nothing like its medieval counterpart. The headdress, in fact, is a uniquely Japanese addition to the fashion industry, and easily one of the most popular items in the Gothic & Lolita Bible. The overall effect of these elements is to create something that, on first glance, would appear to hold little similarity to the clothing that the gothic adherents claim to emulate.

Indeed, although the gothic lolita style is often referred to as "oyoufuku," it is something undeniably Japanese. This trend has been recognized before by Meech-Pekarik, who stated that one clothing designer during the Meiji period of Western style adoption "transformed all that was borrowed into something distinctively Japanese" (2). As an experiment, I asked American teens unacquainted with gothic lolitas for their impressions of the style, and all but one affirmed that they had never seen anything that they would consider similar. The other simply brushed it off by saying that he "lived in Florida; we got a lota Asians down there."

Thus, the gothic lolita style takes its original influences from western sources, but the end result is a style and concept that is itself completely Japanese. When a Japanese person says "oyoufuku," they are really saying "hen na kakkou," or anything that does not fit in with Japanese popular culture (3). Even the nature of the gothic lolita's radicalism is different from that of the united states, where the idea of dressing apart from the popular culture appears to be individualization. In contrast, the lolitas do so in a group that mimics the close knit nature of Japanese popular culture. In a sense, dressing as a lolita is a way to assert one's individuality in respect to widespread Japanese culture, while developing the same sets of interpersonal relationships in an even more consumer oriented, tightly knit subculture that is equally Japanese by nature.

Lolita Identity and Ideology

The marginal position that the lolita occupies as fundamentally Japanese, but foreign by self definition, becomes important when placed in the context of the gothic lolita ideology and identity. The identity is largely that of a doll, as recognized in the television special and the Gothic & Lolita Bible. However, the media does not simply stop at encouraging the girls to be like dolls, but adds the element of sacrifice that is traditionally associated with dolls in Japan. By wearing their doll-like gothic lolita clothing, the girls become martyrs for childhood innocence and freedom in a society which strives to oppress female individual identity. They do so through their clothes, which place them firmly inside Japanese society, but which also distance them and allow them to reject the sacrifices of self and amae that accompany female transition from childhood to motherhood in Japan.

The clearest example of the link between gothic and lolitas and dolls is presented in the form of an introductory poem to the third issue of the Gothic & Lolita Bible. In the poem, appropriately entitled "Doll," Novala Takemoto (Nobara Takemoto) identifies the lolita with a doll, but also implicitly as a victim of society and the pressure to form relationships of amae.

I was born in a furnace, I was made from steel.
I have no soul, and these things they call friends, I do not understand.
The people whom I call my father, my mother, I do not understand…
I have no emotions.
They are not important to me, so one day I burned them all away…

Wandering lost amidst the forest, turning here and there, I was finally dragged by my golden hair and trapped in a rocky prison.(4)

Immediately, being a doll becomes linked with not being able to feel not only emotion, but also not feeling obligation or attachment towards other humans. If, as Doi suggested, the major amae relationship in Japan is that between the mother and the child, then this poem directly attacks the Japanese social order by removing the child-like lolita from the amae cycle. It also renders her incapable of performing the role of a mother by mechanizing her, and in a sense raising her above the rest of humanity by making her unaffected by human attachments. She is cut off from the necessary amae attachment that she would need to permit her child to have as well.

The reason for removing the lolita from society rests simply on the pressure that is still placed on Japanese women to devote themselves completely to their families. In Japan, "the world is structured very precisely and the role of any single Japanese in that world must be carried out with the same amount of precision" (5). As a result, as Japan modernizes, the traditional social hierarchy has maintained much of the same dynamics. It places women in the traditional sphere of the home, and in relationships where they accept amae but are not allowed to express it in return. This is remarked upon by the women in "The Good Wife of Tokyo," who all speak of their responsibility to give unselfishly to their husbands and mothers-in-law, and who obviously hold a sort of resentment towards their treatment. The "rocky prison" that Takemoto speaks of is then, in this context, society. The lolita's long hair is a symbol of her femininity, and it is her identity as a female that has lead to her entrapment.

Interestingly enough, the last lines of the poem are "but until that day [they fall in love], these girls are a little like those from a picture book." This line establishes that this form of independence can only be carried out in a fantasy setting that is removed from society, and is broken when the girls are faced with the amae necessary for love. Their independence is ultimately reached through the fantastic nature of the gothic lolita style, which removes the girls from society by making them dolls. It also gives them an internal focus; their imagination that allows them to appear as a doll. And it is this ability to remain like a child that is meant to define the lolita and remove her from society.

However selfish this might seem, an earlier poem establishes the gothic lolita's self-centered identity as one of sacrifice. Instead of being selfish, the lolita/doll becomes a martyr for childhood imagination and innocence. In one story by a well known gothic lolita artist, Mitsukazu Mihara, a young girl attempts suicide and is saved by a doll. The girl, who is bullied at school, still holds dreams of angels who help people in need. Her teacher stands up for her, and as a result she begins to associate him with angels, considering him her savior. Meanwhile, a Doll (6) has fallen into the hands of a jealous man, who tortures her as a proxy for someone who left him. She too dreams of being rescued by an angel, and the first panel of the comic begins with them both looking at the same picture of an angel and thinking "angels have to exist."

Later the girl loses faith in her teacher when he, faced with the shame of having an unruly classroom, denies that she has been bullied in a talk with the principle. She goes home and jumps from her bedroom window, only to realize in mid-air that she does not want to die. Olive is passing below and sees her falling. She catches her and saves her, fulfilling her wish. Meanwhile the girl damages Olive beyond repair and effectively kills her, thus fulfilling Olive's wish. They both, just before she dies, have an image of each other as angels.

This story places the doll, and the gothic lolita by association, in a position as a martyr. First the Doll received the anger and demands of her male partner, and then later sacrificed herself once again to save the young girl. This can be seen as a sacrifice to society that directly parallels the role of the gothic lolita. Both accept the anger of society for their identity as dolls, with the Doll being physically abused and the gothic lolitas being verbally abused or criticized for their choice of dress that links them with the Doll (7). Indeed, the gothic lolitas are given the mission to die as "martyrs for beauty" in a "fight against the many who lack the power to see dreams." The clothing style is also compared to that of an orthodox Jew, lending to its identity as a religious object (8). In the end, they both accept the abuse in order to maintain the unfettered fantasies of their childhood: their imaginative power. In the case of the story, it allows an individual who would have been killed by societal pressures to live. In other words, the gothic lolitas maintain individuality through their dress, and individuality is in direct opposition to the principles of Japanese society (9).

But however radical the gothic lolitas may appear, it must be remembered that they are carrying out their opposition to society in one of the most blatant expressions of Japanese consumerism and group identity imaginable. Their mobilization lies in the identity that they assume when they wear the clothes of the doll and effectively act as a proxy for the clothing in initiating the sacrifice for imagination. However, it is this extreme that allows them to oppose their culture.

When Kelsky quotes Nonini and Ong and Appadurai in Women on the Verge, she essentially captures the nature of gothic lolita resistance. "Imaginaries inspired by mass consumption…fantasies of other places…can be disciplined to support hegemonic views of truth…or to undermine them…to play with different cultural fragments in a way that allows them to segue from one discourse to another, experiment with alternate forms of identification, shrug in and out of identities, or evade imposed forms of identification." "The imagination is today a staging ground for action and not only escape" (10)

This form defiance is the one appropriated by the lolita, who claims to be western, and thus alien, but at the same time carry out their "westernization" through Japanese consumer patterns and social interactions between one another. Even their use of polite speech, which affects an air of self-humility in Japanese discourses, is highly valued yet used out of traditional social context. Lolitas will use it because it is considered pretty, not because it connotes any feelings of humility. This fits well into their roll as "martyrs for beauty." That aside, Takemoto observes in yet another poem that the lolita is ridiculed because "she acts too well the part of a shoujo, and then she is yelled at for not being part of society" (11). It is this fantastical over-acceptance of the shoujo culture, which expects the girls to be childish, mixed with the claim that the girls are inherently foreign, that creates gothic lolita resistance.

Yet, as Kelsky also points out, "cosmopolitan experiences have the ability to reinforce precisely the relations of power that they appear to be undermining" (12). Although the girls are defying there roles as potential mothers momentarily, there is still a highly socialized aspect to the style, and a lean towards conformity in the smaller gothic lolita grouping. Also, the importance placed on the clothing effectively limits the identity of the lolita as a Doll who is exempt from amae relationships. It is the clothing, not the lolita, which has become the true symbol of innocence and imagination, while the girl simply acts as a body for the clothing. Given that clothing in Japan has been traditionally given a will of its own and a connection to powers greater than humanity (13), it is easy to see how this concept could develop. In fact, the clothes of Oshira-sama dolls were expected to absorb the polluted elements of the houses that kept them, just as the gothic lolita is absorbing the pollution from societal pressures (14). In this context, the clothes are the true martyrs for society and symbols of imagination and individualism, while the girls simply become shoujo advocates in what can be considered a cult that centers on perpetuation of the clothing. They are far from solving the social ills that they seem to be rebelling against, as they absolve themselves of responsibility for social deviation through their clothing and fantastical western background.

Methods of Mobilization: Kamikaze and Gothic Lolitas

Gothic Lolitas are accepting another aspect of Japanese culture along with the clothing, whether they are aware of it or not. The mobilization of the Japanese populace under a central cult object for spiritual protection of society, specifically the females of the society, is by no means a new concept. Nor is the tradition of linking beauty and martyrdom, as the gothic lolitas do when they chose to die for beauty. Similar ideologies and mobilization tactics have been used before in the mobilization of the population under the emperor, and in the martyrdom of the kamikaze pilots.

Ohnuki-Tierney, in exploring the mobilization of the population by the state, noted that the most important techniques were the use of adopted western songs and patriotic school books. As I stated previously, the gothic lolita style holds strong ties to vis kei music, which is a modern adaptation of western glam rock. In fact, it is popular for clothing brands in the Gothic & Lolita Bible to hire vis kei celebrities as spokespeople, and one of the most influential clothing designers is also one of the best know visual musicians in the current music industry. When asked who they admired most, those interviewed in the Gothic & Lolita Bible were likely to name him, or some other Japanese rock idol.

As for the use of textbooks, the Gothic & Lolita Bible takes on the form of an instructive manual for the lolita. Not only does she find the newest styles in clothing and gothic accessories, but she also receives lessons on how to speak, act, and perform on a daily basis from the magazine. The style is reminiscent of the preschool instruction that Allison's son received, where he was expected to follow a well defined, regimented set of behaviors and actions (15). The similarity culminated in his strictly charted summer schedule, which is reminiscent of the daily schedule of the gothic model and the lolita in the Gothic & Lolita Bible.

But the similarities between the movements are present on an ideological level as well. Leading up to WWII, "the state tried to appeal at the emotive and aesthetic level to the people in an effort to persuade them to fight and die for the emperor" (16). The gothic lolita movement is founded on the aesthetic beauty of the clothing, and the perpetuation of that beauty through the gothic lolita's language and mannerisms. At the same time the movement is founded on the emotions of fantasy and the desire to perpetuate childhood imaginative power and innocence. And, finally, the girls are defined as religious martyrs for their clothing, directly linking the clothes to the religious person of the emperor. The entire movement, supposedly a return to medieval Europe, really has its roots in the traditions of Japanese society.

Whether the girls are aware of their position as designated martyrs for either the west of the east is debatable, as it is impossible to determine with certainty the extent to which any ideology is followed by its adherents. However, simply by following the style, the girls are opposing traditional Japanese social values, and thus accepting at least part of the ideology. Although they may claim to be western, they are in fact acting as stereotypically Japanese as modern society permits them to act.

Notes

1. Gothic & Lolita Bible vol. 4, 84-85
2. Meech-Pekarik, 141
3. A poem from the Gothic and Lolita Bible vol. 2 starts "your mother will say it: "don't go outside in that strange style", meaning "don't go out in gothic lolita clothing," which is synonymous with "oyoufuku." There is a direct correlation between foreign and strange, not foreign versus Japanese. In a similar context, Malice Mizer, a band that is associated with the gothic lolita style, always wore very elaborate, creative costumes as part of their image. In television programs it was not uncommon for the hosts to remark that they "looked like foreigners," again linking foreign with the unusual.
4. Gothic & Lolita Bible vol. 3, 13
5. Allison, 102
6. Dolls are robotic servants, and almost always play major rolls in Mihara's manga. They naturally wear gothic lolita clothing.
7. "there are some people who think [my clothes] are horrible" - Hanamaru Café special
8. "your classmates will jeer; can't you be more normal!?" Gothic & Lolita Bible vol. 2, 11
9. Allison explains this in her book, "Permitted and Prohibited Desires." Children are taught from preschool to act in accordance with societal rules, and to function with their classmates in a way that highly encourages conformity. Failure to conform results in ostrasization for both the child and the mother.
10. Kelsky, ...
11. Gothic & Lolita Bible vol. 8, 85
12. Kelsky, ...
13. Yamaguchi, 59
14. Yamaguchi, 59
15. Allison, 105
16. Ohnuki-Tierney, 134

Bibliography:

Allison, Anne. Permitted and Prohibited Desires. University of California Press; Los Angeles. 2000.

Gothic & Lolita Bible vol. 2. Nuuberu Guu Mook Kera!. Aug, 2001.

Gothic & Lolita Bible vol. 3. Nuuberu Guu Mook Kera!. Jan, 2002.

Gothic & Lolita Bible vol. 4. Nuuberu Guu Mook Kera!. June, 2002.

Gothic & Lolita Bible vol. 8. Nuuberu Guu Mook Kera!. May, 2003.

Kelsky, Karen. Women on the Verge. Duke University Press: London. 2001.

Meech-Pekarik, Julia. The World of the Meiji Print. Weatherhill: New York. 1959

Mihara, Mitsukazu. Doll volume 3.

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago. 2002.

Takeo, Doi. The Anatomy of Independence. Kodansha International: New York. 1971.

Yamaguchi Masao, "The Poetics of Exhibition in Japanese Culture," in Karp and Lavine, eds., Exhibiting Cultures, pp. 57-67.

Copyright Faith Shinri, May 15, 2003