the naruto promotional team never fail to make my eyes roll and stomach turn at this industry’

the naruto promotional team never fail to make my eyes roll and stomach turn at this industry’s inherent objectification.

yeah, she looks good… nobody’s mad at or contesting that – the problem is the semiotics that are at play here. (for real, this will probably be my most academic-like analysis yet so please read my information page to understand what i’m doing. ⚠️) but before even getting into that, there are some other significant issues in this:

• most of us should know (yet the general multitude of male fans struggle to even comprehend) that breasts – particularly larger chests – do not look like that; they are not firmly perked up in a fixed position. gravity, you know, exists. but we’re so accustomed to anatomically incorrect content and the sexualisation of fictitious female bodies (and, of course, real ones) that it’s nothing new, and most people will even find it trivial to be critical of such at this point because of how used to it we’ve become as a patriarchal-hegemonic audience.
  ↳ it is made worse by their prior post anticipating this image, de-facing her (literally, which is telling in itself), focusing individually on and as such reducing her to some of her most sexualised features (upper breast/cleavage, thigh, etc.).

• it is canonically incorrect – hinata would not voluntarily dress so exposed in canon, as kishimoto has stated in his third official databook (abstract pictured below). this was a painful problemwithstudio pierrot’s rendition of her outfit in ‘the last’ too – alterations and additional designs produced with the sole intent of marketing her through sexualisation; as an object of ‘the male gaze’ (i.e. the semiotics i’ll get into further down).
  ↳ most of us on this side of the fandom are already aware of how s/p have changed her overall appearance in recent years (most notably since the finale but evident steadily throughout the anime) and not just in her fashion but in trying to make her much more all-inclusively attractive by conventional standards than she is stated or shown to be in the manga; slimming her, making her facial features more conforming with popular female beauty standards (including the voluptuous lashes and updated hairstyle, among other small yet potent elements). i mean, that is a scary reflection in itself of the society that we live in only valuing a woman based on the beauty image that she can offer to men.

1. “hinata has a bland appearance.”
   
2. “[…]frumpy[…]”
   ↳ meaning: ‘(of a person or their clothes) unfashionable and unstylish in appearance (typically used of a woman).’
3. “[…]reducing the amount of skin she shows.”
   
4. “she’s not too interested in fashion.”
   

without us knowing that they are of course both hinata, the christmas image in question and the below panel of her introduction in part two barely resemble the same character:

moving on, the term ‘male gaze’ is where the semiotics that are present here begin… look at the details, moreover hinata’s passive body language making her the submissive subject in this image; her sheepishly averted gaze, raised shoulders (slightly hunched and coming forward; tense, nervous, hiding), her creased eyebrows showing discomfort and her flushed cheeks, etc. she shares the last feature with hanabi but analyse the vital difference between them: hanabi is looking right at the viewer, upper body covered; hinata is being looked at, she is on display.

this is building off of the work of an extremely noteworthy scholar in this very field, laura mulvey – the woman behind this research of ‘the male gaze’. 

hinata is a prime example of mulvey’s work, which is essentially the concept that women are depicted from a masculine and heterosexual point of view; presented as objects of male pleasure. hinata’s visual role, as mulvey would argue, is to cater to that heterosexual male viewer – i.e. shonen’s primary demographic after all. mulvey states that there is an “active male” and “passive female” within media; “women as image, man as bearer of the look”. seem familiar? it is evident from this singular image alone! as a female role, mulvey would find that hinata’s character is “displayed as a sexual object”; her appearance “coded for strong visual and erotic impact”. i mean, like i said, this can all be applied to this one image alone!

honestly, this industry can be disgusting… what they have collectively done to hinata’s character is appalling, and yet her fans (mostly the fans that these producers have created through such work, mind you) defend these practices because of how indoctrinated our society is by this very type of content. this relates to another quote of mulvey’s: “as an advanced representation system, [the media] poses questions about the ways the unconscious (formed by the dominant order) structures ways of seeing and pleasure in looking.” basically, we unconsciously – or so we think, as it is actually the product of the dominant order’s ideologies – make us code “subconscious” meaning in what we see.

i’ll finish this with another quote of hers to consider in relation to hinata’s portrayal, (as stated) mostly outside of kishimoto’s work in imagery like this: “[women in media produced by men/male-dominanted industries] exist in a state of suspended animation, without depth or context, withdrawn from any meaning other than the message imprinted by their clothes, stance and gestures.” with how used to it we are, this may not look like much upon first glance. sure, a sigh of annoyance at their favouritism and sexualisation maybe? but this very type of imagery is indicative of much more; it implicitly acts as one of the very tools for endorsing the imposed patriarchal, misogynistic ideology.