The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

Japan and the Western World
Critics of the G&L subculture, including the Lolita phenomenon especially
if observing the movement in regard to surface values and aesthetics, might
judge it as a distilled version of Gothic sensibilities and as merely mimicking
Western notions and motivations. Certainly there is a strong element of
Western Gothic in the Japanese movement. For example, Mana formally
proscribes the profiles of what Lolita and male Aristocrats “should be” as
such:
The company literature states that the ideal Elegant Gothic Lolita should be
slender with empty, seductive eyes and five feet four. She should like listening to
French Gothic music and reading European children’s literature, live in a manor
and enjoy going for walks, shopping, visiting galleries and listening to classical
concerts. The Elegant Gothic Aristocrat should be slim, five feet eight with slit
eyes in whose sad pupils insanity sleeps. He should live in an old castle, listen to
symphonic gothic black metal, read children’s gothic horror mysteries, enjoy going
for walks in the night and painting. 16
In regard to appearance, while Mana’s specifications are relevant to a
generally smaller Asian physique, the wider connections to notions of
European Gothic are evident.
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