- 著者
-
東 園子
- 出版者
- 社会学研究会
- 雑誌
- ソシオロジ (ISSN:05841380)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.51, no.2, pp.91-107,145, 2006
This paper looks at female homosocial relationships, that is to say, the social bonds between women, by considering the meaning of the fact that the Takarazuka Revue is performed exclusively by women for fans who are mostly women as well. In male-dominated society where heterosexuality is compulsory, relations between women are either persecuted as homosexual relationships that go against heterosexuality, or they are perceived to be inferior to heterosexual relationships and regarded as trivial. Therefore, it is difficult to find representations of strong female homosocial bonds in society. To enable female homosociality, the influence of heterosexuality must be controlled. In the case of Takarazuka, there are two worlds of stories. One world is the stage, where the stories of love between women and men and of male friendship without sexual desire are played by "otoko-yaku" playing male roles and "musume-yaku" playing female roles who neither have sexual bodies. The other world is the backstage sphere open to fans through the media, where friendships within the Takarazuka company are emphasized within the framework of a girls school in which students are exempted from any of the obligations of heterosexuality. So, Takarazuka performers known as Takara-siennes have two faces. First, they are the "otoko-yaku" and "musume-yaku" on stage, and second, they are "students" in the backstage sphere, girls who are indifferent to heterosexuality. By superimposing the backstage sphere on the world on stage, through Takara-siennes who have duplicity, fans of Takarazuka can read the bonds of the performers backstage into heterosexual relations and the relations between the men they play on stage. Therefore, Takarazuka becomes an unusual sphere in which it is possible to have a realistic sense of female homosociality. Takarazuka shows us both the possibility of the representation of female homosociality, and the difficulty of representing it in elsewhere in the contemporary society.