Half-Naked Bodies in Anime and Western Culture Industry: Intercultural Remarks on the Aesthetics of Transgression

Abstract

This article takes into consideration some popular entertainment products and the way they present the image of the feminine body, questioning the way the body is portrayed and how this portrayal affects the representation of beauty, desire, and sex. The intercultural perspective refers to the Eastern and Western culture, and considers the issues of prohibition and its inherent transgression. A movie offers models or life-styles consistent with the social system and it also presents these models and life-styles as pre-arranged transgressions of the given rules. In doing so, it prescribes a model of tolerated transgression rather than a prohibition. In this way, the culture industry prescribes the transgression of an empty prohibition as a strategy of individual emancipation.