Mizu's spectacles, and the levels of her disguise
In drafting some more Blue Eye Samurai meta posts, I find myself writing out the comparisons between what Mizu can and cannot hide about herself, and how that affects how she moves through the world.
Like, I get the jokes about Mizu's glasses, if only color contacts had existed back then, etc. etc., and I think (hope) that most viewers don't take the glasses jokes seriously, as in "I don't care about the suspension of disbelief because BES is a cartoon." But I wanted to write these thoughts out anyway without burying them in a text post about something else.
I think the points I'm going to lay out here are viewed very differently by different people, so please feel free to add to this post, reply, or put your thoughts in the tags!
Not only do Mizu's glasses not actually help her that much, there's surely more to Mizu's mixed race appearance than just the color of her eyes.
In my view, this was pointed out in episode 1:
I'm willing to bet most of us were expecting young Taigen to say "blue eyes," not "ROUND eyes."
Obviously this is still about Mizu's eyes, but not even spectacles can hide their shape.
I don't think the show is obligated to point out everything about Mizu's face that isn't quite as Japanese as the people around her expect. Though the creators have said that they specifically designed Mizu - and her clothes - to read both as "white" and as "Japanese," as well as both male and female. I think there's more about Mizu's features that read as "white" than just her eyes.
This is where my own headcanons start entering the picture, but it's my impression that people can just tell that Mizu looks different, whether or not they can put a finger on exactly how.
There's the little girl who looks at Mizu and then hides on the way into Kyoto:
When there's more to your face you'd like to cover up than just your eyes, big hats are a big help!
By the way, most of these examples have to come from the first half of the season, since by the second half, either Mizu is too preoccupied with fighting henchmen, or everyone Mizu is facing knows who she is already, and she therefore has no reason to hide her mixed race identity.
It's worth mentioning that the mere fact that Mizu has to hide multiple aspects of her identity - her mixed race and her sex - results in her having to choose clothes that really, really cover her up, which doesn't win her any favors either:
(Zatoichi reference, anyone?)
If it were as easy as, for example, tying her glasses to her head and wa-lah, nobody would ever know she was half-white - then (1) Mizu would've just done that long ago, and (2) Mizu wouldn't be so on guard and on tenterhooks 100% of the time the way she's depicted in the show, even when her glasses are on.
Her spectacles sure don't help her in the brothel, which is full of observant women who are trying to seduce her, meaning they get good long looks at her:
Mizu never takes her glasses off, but they still send a woman to her who has light eyes, thinking that must be what will interest a blue-eyed man:
No wonder Mizu gets mad after this, lol
So Mizu never takes her spectacles off in the brothel, it's dimly lit inside, and the women can still tell that she has blue eyes. I'm getting the sense that Mizu putting on her spectacles isn't a guarantee that people suddenly can't tell that she looks different.
And yet no one spots that she's female.
Mizu can hide her breasts, can wear her hair in the right style, can hide what's between her legs, can walk and talk and behave like a man - and she's been doing it for almost her entire life, to the point that not only is she very good at it, but the threat of being found out as female is deadly, but isn't presented in the show as omnipresent.
Let me explain.
She threatens Ringo for nearly saying the word "girl" out loud, because while she's constantly ostracized for being mixed race, being a woman traveling without a chaperone, carrying a sword, and disguised as a man will get her killed or flogged or arrested or some combination of these things.
But in addition, it's been drilled into her since she was a child that if she is discovered as female, the combination of her being mixed race and female will identify her as someone extremely specific, someone known to some bad people, and she will be killed:
I think of it as Mizu thinking to herself, "Being found out as mixed race means I'm treated badly. Being found out as mixed race and a woman means I'm dead."
Mizu's hair is cut as a child. But she isn't made to wear a big hat, or cover her eyes somehow, or anything like that. Because hiding her sex is a more successful endeavor than hiding her race.
Ringo finds out she's female by accident, but once Mizu accepts the fact that he won't rat her out, she relaxes pretty early on in the season. Because the threat of being found out as female is mitigated pretty much 99.9%, since Mizu has gotten so good at being a man. And also, because most of the time, people see what they want to see. Even if Mizu's face makes her stand out as "not 100% Japanese," no one in the world of BES looks at Mizu's clothes, her bearing, her sword, hears her voice, and will ever in a million years conclude that she is a woman, because expectations around gender roles in the Edo period were so rigid and so widely enforced.
One detail that proved this to me is after the Four Fangs fight:
Ringo takes off Mizu's clothes so he can stitch her up, then leaves her clothes off even after he's done. He doesn't even throw her cloak over her as a blanket or anything. There's a little a straw (pallet?) as a divider there on the left, but anyone could just peek around it and see Mizu and her chest bindings. (I think it's mostly there as a windbreaker.)
And Taigen is right there, but he doesn't give a shit:
Opinions probably vary hugely on this, but my impression is that because the show doesn't make any kind of deal about Taigen being in the room with Mizu here, my guess is that Mizu isn't in any danger of Taigen thinking she's female. Even when I watched the show for the first time, I assumed that Taigen had seen Mizu out of her clothes here, and that he thought nothing of it.
Eat your heart out, Li Shang (Mulan 1998). I actually do think that this scene is a direct and purposeful side-eye to that movie, lol
There's obviously some nuance to how "severe" being mixed race is compared to how "severe" being a woman is for Mizu:
After all, Swordfather can't bear to listen to Mizu confess to being a woman.
So a Japanese man can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants in BES. A Japanese woman has limited options: marriage, religion, or a brothel. A mixed-race man is an eyesore in this story. A mixed-race woman is a death sentence.
May as well eliminate the female aspect, and do what you can about the mixed-race aspect. Because that's just realistic.
Meaning Mizu can avoid the strictures Edo society places on women. But she can't avoid the repercussions that come with being mixed race. And I truly don't think that it's just because "there's no brown contacts yet."
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Bruce: *sees a motorcade come up on his right* *ignores*
Timmy in the back eying the group suspiciously: ….
*tapping on glass*
Dick: B, there’s someone tapping on my side.
Bruce: Don’t roll the window down they could be-
Dick: *already rolling the window down* *GASP* ROMMEY?! ROMMEY! ROMMEY!!
A 45 yr old grizzled man with a smoker’s voice, nicknamed Rommey by Dick: heya Dickie, how it’s going kiddo.
Dick: ROMMEY IM SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU AGAIN!
Another motorbiker with a full claw scar down his face: what about the rest of us, kid? Forget about us?
Dick: MANES! DERRICKA! IZZY!!
Derrick-I take down mercenaries for fun but let a kid I like call me DERRICKA-Rolan: You little shit, why’d we not hear from you after you fucked off to neverland huh?!
Isabella-what? Someone went missing? I had nothing to do with it, it’s total coincidence that I hated him-Hodges: Maybe he doesn’t like us, Der. That right, Dickie?
Dick: *flabbergasted* No!! It’s a long story! After I left I ran out of gas and then some girl crashed into my bike and sent it flying off the cliff but I dove off it first and then I had to walk to the nearest motel on bare feet because I gave her my shoes and then I met this half bear half man and I’ll be pleased to tell you that it was a beary bearable encounter once he got his bearings hahahahaha- *progressively climbing out of the car as the story goes on*
Bruce: Dick! Get back in the car! *having one hand on the steering wheel and grabbing the back of his shirt with the other to keep his wayward son from falling out*
Dick: Wait- *accidently twisting too far and nearly braining himself on the speeding asphalt*
Rommey: DICK!
Bruce: DICK!
Rommey, Derricka, Izzy, and Manes: *grabbing the front half to prevent Dick from becoming like two-face*
Bruce: *letting go of the wheel to grab Dick’s bottom half for the same reason*
Tim: *high pitched screaming from the back* DICK! Tₕₑ Wₕₑₑₗ! ₜₕₑ Wₕₑₑₗ!!!
Bruce: *struggling to pull his son in while the motorcade struggles to pull him out to sit on a bike thus leading to Dick hanging in limbo out the window of a car going 80mph on a freeway* GRAB THE WHEEL TIM
Tim: *sacrificing a few ribs on the edge of the front car seat* IM TRYING! I CANT REACH THE CRUISE CONTROL AND DONT LEAN BACK AND OH MY GOD SIGN POST! SIGN POST! THE POST! THE POSSSTTTTT!!!
Dick, Bruce, Tim, and motorcade: *furious screaming and shouting and panicking*
*2 hours later*
*Arriving at the manor*
Jason: damn what happened to you lot, you look like you went through hell and back.
Bruce and Tim: *drained, pale-faced, messy, sweating, and heaving*
Dick: *a curl of hair falling elegantly into his shining eyes* I just had the time of my life, Jay!
Jason who is well acquainted with Dick’s “Time of the life”s: ah. My condolences.
Tim: Never again. *flopping on the ground and cater-pilling his way up the stairs*
Damian: Father, this is such disgraceful attire! Fix yourself at once, mother would be embarrassed by such a visage! What in holy reincarnation have you been doing?!
Bruce: Never again, Dick.
Dick: it’s nothing Dami, they were just helping me.
Damian: Father, I am ashamed of you. Why must you devolve to such a state when you assist Grayson, he is perfectly capable of extraordinary feats without your input. I suggest you refrain from interfering with his success again.
Bruce:
Bruce: Damian, you-
Dick: Bruce. *smiling pleasantly*
Jason: *immediately sneaking off*
Bruce’s life momentarily flashing before his eyes: …..nothing. Go finish your homework. *trudging off to whine to Alfred about how no one’s gonna believe him*
Dick: *sincerely* what a great day! 😊
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