My own hentai digital artefact

I think the process of turning my autoethnographic study into a digital artefact will really bring to a head all the tensions I’ve been having with this topic. I have to find a way to channel the aspects of this study that challenge my ideas of what I consider, as a Western feminist, appropriate representations of men and women, but also express it in a way that I feel comfortable sharing with my peers, i.e nothing too graphic that could offend someone.

I feel there are a lot of questions that need to be asked about how this genre might contribute to the patriarchy and gender stereotypes, and what the implications of this are given that hentai is animated material, not real life.  Hentai, at least the correct Japanese manifestation of it which means perverse, produces some truly disturbing and profane material. Exploring this within my own digital artefact will be interesting.

I’m thinking I’d like to create some parodies of the genre, perhaps with clear role reversals, but my drawing skills are, and I’m being generous here, limited. Though that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do some kind of digital collage. Or I could even take an existing video and subtitle/dub it with an altogether different dialogue that subverts the original meaning.  Maybe even get some of my friends involved and do an improvised, collaborative re-dub.

I also think that it’s reached that time in the autoethnographic study arc that I begin to engage with some online communities. Since this methodology requires that the researchers themselves are a primary participant, and that in regards to hentai the online forums abound, I believe I should leave the periphery and cautiously edge my way in.

For an example of what I potentially have in mind here’s a parody dub from the Dark Knight…