Gender as Performance/Butler
In the movie Your Name, when the protagonists Mitsuha and Taki change gender, so does their behavior; for example, whenever Mitsuha wakes up in Taki's body, she adopts his way of speaking, his behavior, and posture while in turn having a genuine curiosity about his body and also includes behaviors from her own body. The same happens with Taki when she changes bodies with Mitsuha, who, despite being a boy, adopts behaviors considered 'feminine' demonstrating that 'feminine' and 'masculine' behaviors/behaviors are not something that is born with, but behaviors that are learned. Both are curious about each other and about themselves. This shows gender trouble because it evidences Butler's theory that gender is not a fixed identity but rather a fragile idea built by external factors, it shows the idea that we have 'established' of gender as something 'unstable'. Not only that, throughout the film, while swapping, they both get into difficult problems/situations while in each other's bodies, and are forced to follow social expectations – at least at first – as if they have to fit into some norm, heteronormativity as Butler's theory maintains. Your Name demonstrates that gender is not something innate but rather established by society, a restriction created by the expectations and ideologies pre-established by another. It's a movie that shows stereotypes (like when Taki is made fun of for acting a little feminine) and then breaks stereotypes (the people around the protagonists, their friends and family, accept them and also when each one improves the other's lives)
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