Animality as punishment in Spirited Away
I first saw Spirited Away on a family trip to Reno, Nevada. I was a sophomore in high school and Hayao Miyazaki‘s film had recently won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. My mother bought the movie on VHS for my sister and me to watch, along with Miyazaki’s 1986 effort, Castle in the Sky.
I think my father wanted to vacation near mountains and — of the available options — Nevada was the best. During down time, my sister and I watched the Studio Ghibli films in our hotel room. She’s 10 years younger than I am, so she found Spirited Away to be a little scary, and Castle in the Sky much more her speed. But I loved the former.
For those unfamiliar with Miyazaki’s 2001 classic, the movie centers on a young girl named Chihiro who visits an abandoned amusement park with her parents. While there, her parents are transformed into animals and Chihiro is forced to work at a magical bathhouse. Legendary critic Roger Ebert called it “one of the finest of all animated films.”
During my last rewatch, I focused on the plot involving Chihiro’s parents. The movie begins with the family moving to a new home. They get lost and discover the aforementioned theme park, which Chihiro finds creepy. Despite her objections, the father investigates, noticing the smell of cooking food.
He follows it to an empty restaurant, where there is a feast awaiting them. Again, Chihiro urges caution, but, at this point, even her mother, who was initially reluctant to delay their move, begins devouring the meat. The child briefly walks away from her parents. When she comes back, they have transformed into pigs.
Of course, this is a horrifying moment for Chihiro. It’s not just that her mother’s and father’s appearance has changed. Yes, they’re presented as repulsive, but, perhaps worse, Chihiro can no longer communicate with them. They don’t recognize her. In a sense, they’re gone and she’s alone.
In order to return her parents to human form, Chihiro eventually begins working for Yubaba, a witch who runs the supernatural bathhouse, where her mother and father are taken. Yubaba explains Chihiro’s parents were turned into pigs because of their gluttonous behavior. Their animality is a punishment.
Of course, this is projection. Pigs aren’t destroying the planet with greed; humans are. If there is a species that embodies the sin of gluttony, it must be Homo sapiens. But I understand what the transformation of Chihiro’s parents is supposed to represent.
It should be mentioned Yubaba doesn’t reserve this punishment simply for overindulgence. Being turned into a pig seems to be a penalty for all manner of offenses at the bathhouse. For instance, one character warns Chihiro that, if she’s found in a forbidden location, she will be transformed.
Interestingly, just being a pig doesn’t seem to be the punishment, or at least not most of it. As I mentioned, the loss of communication with her parents seems to be the most frightening part of the ordeal initially. One assumes if Chihiro was also a pig and could communicate as pigs do, it wouldn’t be quite so terrifying.
How pigs are generally treated by humans seems to be the worst part of the punishment. At one point, Chihiro visits the crowded enclosure where her mother and father are kept. She frantically screams at the mass of animals not to eat too much or they will be killed and eaten.
Would Miyazaki encourage viewers to care so much about the slaughter of pigs if they were merely animals, and not humans trapped in the bodies of animals? I assume not. Still, I think it’s a revealing acknowledgment that the way we treat our fellow creatures is unkind, to say the very least.
Ultimately, before Chihiro’s parents are killed and eaten, Yubaba gives her a chance to escape with them. But first, Chihiro must identify her mother and father from amongst a group of pigs. Somehow — it’s not exactly clear — she knows her parents aren’t in the group. The trio are freed and the film ends.
Spirited Away is a beautiful movie. I particularly love the music by Joe Hisaishi. Film posters are my favorite type of home decor, so at some point I want to get a print from this Miyazaki masterpiece.