From Bamboo Dong at Anime
News Network (ANN): Frenchy Lunning is a researcher and lecturer at the
Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Specializing in Japanese popular
culture, she is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Mechademia, a journal that focuses on anime and manga.
She is also
the co-founder of Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits: Culture and Creation in Manga
and Anime, an annual workshop featuring lectures from notable anime scholars
and other events. Lunning was brought in as an expert in the case of Christopher Handley. Asked whether the
ruling in the case will affect academic studies in manga and anime, she said:
“It will affect the people — fans — who live under the same myth that Mr. Handley
did: that your private mail is private. Under the law that Mr. Handley was
prosecuted under — a Homeland Security act — we have lost many rights, including
the right to privacy in the mail. [I’m not sure about this; I think Handley was
prosecuted under another law. But Homeland Security laws have undoubtedly
undermined individual privacy. — RCH] And since pornography laws state that
pornography is established by "community standards" the Lolicon was
judged pornographic and thus illegal under this law. One of the positions I
took was that Mr. Handley's community was not the good people of Iowa, but our online fan
community. Although I feel this is true, that one apparently didn't sell with
the court. Scholarship in this area will continue: one of the advantages of
scholarship is that it is primarily words, and the academic press is rarely
under much scrutiny: we are too dull for most readers, and certainly for
curious postal workers!
“Our
culture bears the mark of our Puritanical ancestors,” she continued. “Our
colleagues in other countries have not had that cultural upbringing and it does
make a difference. ... Japanese do not hold sex to be "horrific" as
we do. This is part of the entire problem. I do not know about many other
countries, I know it is also easier in France, mainly because they have a
stronger comic book culture there to protect and exert a stronger market demand
than we do.
Comments