Takarazuka and Gender

I was staring at the poster in my room I bought after watching Takarazuka for the first time in Japan, and I couldn't help wondering how Butler might apply to the theater troupe.

First, Takarazuka is an all-female musical theater group, famous for its otokuyaku (male role-players). Typically, the musicals staged by Takarazuka follow similar plot lines: a man falls in love with a beautiful and innocent young woman, but before their feelings for each other can become manifest, some villainous type comes to stand in their way (there are often love triangles).  I watched the troupe's staging of The Great Gatsby on DVD, and I was surprised to see Daisy transformed into a young, selfless woman who only wanted to love her daughter and true love, Gatsby. I didn't remember the story unfolding quite like that...

Butler writes, "It would make no sense, then, to define gender as the cultural interpretation of sex, if sex is itself a gendered category.  Gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a  pregiven sex (a jurdical conception); gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established."(10)

An interesting aspect to Takarazuka is that both musumeyaku (female role-players) and otokoyaku (male role-player) must undertake rigorous training to learn how to act feminine and masculine, demonstrating Butler's concept that gender is performative. The Revue often deflects questions about sexuality presented in their performances by repeating their motto (typically, there is nothing beyond kissing on the cheek in a performance, but in regards to fans' fascination with Takarazuka, the Revue insists that, despite whatever reason fans may come, their performances are not sexual): "Modesty, Fairness, and Grace." In maintaining the legitimacy of this motto, the Revue depends on sex as "a gendered category."

In their need to teach both actresses how to perform their respective genders, the Revue reveals their motives to promote certain ideals through gender. The behaviors they teach are not so much what is real (if their gender were representative of reality, then why would the musumeyaku need such rigorous training?), but what will best promote their motto.

They rely on "sex" as a "gendered category" to hide their particular structuring of gender. They demonstrate gender is performative, but deflect questions about sexuality by insisting on their actresses "real" sexes as females, implying that within that category of sex is a natural inclination toward heteronormativity. They genderize sex, relying on its definition as a natural construct, in order to hide the true unstable nature of gender made evident  through their performances.