Reflecting on Spirited Away

        A young girl lays in the backseat of a car, holding a bouquet of flowers from her best friend from home. Her parents are in the front seat, driving to their new home. They turn off the main road and begin driving into a forest. They soon arrive at a massive structure with a tunnel leading through it. Her parents are intrigued, though the young girl is terrified. She can sense something off about this building, but she has no idea that it serves as a bridge to the spirit world. She will soon be abandoned by her parents, left alone to find her way through this uncertain and fantastical setting. At ten years old, the same age as this child, I’m both mystified and horrified. 

        I can recall many movies from my childhood that left a lasting impression on me, though few were as powerful as Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. In many ways, I identified with the main character of Chihiro. Not only was she the same age as me, but she was equally full of fear and curiosity. I can remember screaming at her parents to stop eating the food that turns them into pigs during my second viewing, just as scared for them as Chihiro. I remember the fascination I felt as I watched the completely empty town come to life as the sun sets and the spirits awaken. As I re-watched this film many years later, I still experienced the same feelings of astonishment that I felt while watching it as a child.  

        While many parts of the film were entirely familiar to me during my most recent viewing of Spirited Away, there were a number of parts of the film which I hadn’t noticed before. One particular scene stuck out to me as having much more real-world themes than I had recalled. When Chihiro pays a visit to the witch who heads the bathhouse in search of a job, we see the theme of classism come into play through their dialogue. After Yubaba, the witch, refuses to give Chihiro a job, she proceeds to ridicule her parents by saying, “You humans always make a mess of things, like your parents who gobble up the food of the spirits like pigs. They got what they deserved.” Through this dialogue, we see the way humans are viewed in a world dominated by spirits and other fantastical creatures. To a young viewer, this could be their first encounter with the idea of class discrimination.