Nausicaa

            Nausicaä is powerful because she is courageous, empathetic, and peaceful. This is a pacifistic film that has a sense of impending destruction throughout, punctuated by moments of chaos and violence. The violence in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is archetypal and cyclical, but it is not utterly inevitable. This is significant. The world of Nausicaä is a desolate and dangerous place. One thousand years ago, there was an apocalyptic war called the Seven Days of Fire. Since then, human civilization has only existed in small pockets, avoiding the ever-growing Toxic Jungle and its giant mutant insects. Nations are in violent conflict against each other as they try to decide what to do. Princess Kushana, the leader of the Tolmekian nation, is preparing a Giant Warrior with which to fight the Ohm and burn the Toxic Jungle. This Giant Warrior is a genetically engineered bioweapon, the very cause of the Seven Days of Fire in the first place. Even Nausicaä has violence within herself; when her father is killed, she goes berserk and kills several Tolmekians. No one is impervious to his or her innate violent impulses.

            But Nausicaä’s love and understanding of nature is the only effective and productive solution to the conflicts between both humans and nature – fighting and bloodshed is shown as unnecessary harm, nothing more than roadblocks to progress. While everyone else dismisses the life within the Toxic Jungle, avoiding and fearing what they do not know, Nausicaä is able to find life, beauty, and wonder there, even drawing resources from the underground lakes. While the impulse of Princess Kushana and the Tolmekians is to destroy the creatures that appear dangerous to them, Nausicaä has the impulse to understand them. By observing and listening to the Ohm and the other mutant creatures of the Toxic Jungle, she is able to soothe them and gain their trust. The climax of the film is not a battle but the evasion of a battle.

            The environmentalism in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is optimistic. The futility of violence and war is obvious and weapons of mass destruction are represented as less useful than reaching a state of empathy and symbiosis. This film is invested in ideas of change and progress.

The most powerful people in the film are women. I found it disappointing that despite all of Nausicaä’s strength and autonomy, the film still managed to sneak in a few moments of scopophilia. Underneath all the beautiful messages, there is a tinge of sexualizing the female protagonist who we are supposed to be identifying with. Women’s bodies are still things to be looked at, even when they are occupied with saving the world.

            The ideologies within all works of art are essential to identify and analyze. Children’s media is not exempt from this. Whether quietly hidden or overtly addressed, every film, book, television show, videogame, etc. includes implications, assumptions, or assertions about morality, political standpoints, social and societal issues, systems, institutions, and worldviews. This is why media literacy is so important – so that viewers can decide for themselves which ideologies they want to support, even when these messages are unintentional or harmless or positive.