It should go without saying that the show is saturated with sexual symbols. I doubt I could list them all if I tried. In Utena, it’s rare for a cigar to be just a cigar.
Long and straight things are male. A couple major phallic symbols: The swords; also towers, such as Akio’s tower and the dueling tower. Candles are phallic and also related to light and to fire. See the candle catalog for my struggles to understand them.
Round and curved things are female. A few major female symbols: Roses, apples (they are Eve’s apple), eggs including the egg of the world, and also spaces with prominent entrances. Think of the entrance to Anthy’s greenhouse, and the entrance to the dueling forest with its great stone rose. (The forest gate has a bird for Ohtori Akio when closed; when open a rose for Anthy. It seems to imply that Akio controls access, or that Akio owns the outside while Anthy owns the inside.) Akio’s tower, his symbol, is decorated with roses, Anthy’s symbol.
Student Council entrance. The towering vertical entrance to the Student Council’s platform is a symbol of death and at the same time a tall male symbol (just look at it, and don’t miss the curlicues above the apex of the arch) and a female symbol with an entrance, a rose, and a visual resemblance (look at it again, this time differently!). Together they imply regeneration. Regeneration without change means eternity and is tied to Anthy; regeneration with change is related to revolution and is tied to Utena. Enough themes for one image? The platform outside is at the same time a projecting male symbol, and as the area beyond the entrance it is a vagina; the student council is a sex act in public view—on a theater stage flanked by curtains. This is why creators do not explain the details to their sponsors. The platform points toward the dueling forest, making it a womb... think about that, and compare it to the image of Anthy’s coffin late in the series, as contrasted with the shell of the world. It is Anthy’s womb. The symbols truly don’t stop.
Columns and arches are ubiquitous in Utena’s architecture. Columns are male; arches are female. The closed colonnade, and the interior school corridors, are also vaginas. Some columns stand alone, and some support arches. The symbols of the Academy show the Academy’s values: Men stand alone, or men support women and they fit together into orderly, harmonious structures, all alike. I notice that Akio’s tower stands alone. In the episode 2 picture on the right with Utena and Wakaba, the characters act as columns, and as they swing their arms they briefly make their own arch as they pass under the archway at the entrance to the Academy, flanked by columns including “single” free-standing columns, with the huge columnar tower behind them. The rose emblem above them includes a representation of an engagement ring. In this frame, it looks like part of a wedding ceremony; in the following shot they look like a couple; shortly after Wakaba rides on Utena, consummating the marriage. (Wakaba riding can also stand for Wakaba following Utena’s example.) The message of the column-and-arch architecture clashes with the behavior of the characters. See the discussion of clashes under shadow plays.
Besides that, arches are enclosures to trap or imprison people. Just keep reading. Utena’s and Wakaba’s swinging arms alternately make an arch and an inverted arch—a cage and escape from the cage. See the catalog of hands for more examples. I take it to be a hint of Wakaba’s afterstory.
Anthy’s greenhouse. On the left, an arch encloses Anthy’s greenhouse, which is the same shape. The two are equated by their shapes. The greenhouse is a bird cage, a prison for Anthy and for the students of the Academy. The arch, already a female symbol, also represents imprisonment, being trapped in the system of control. Women are metaphorically imprisoned—and as arches, they participate in imprisoning themselves. In contrast, lone male columns stand free. On the right, Utena stands taller than a background arch, but inside the foreground arch. I can read it two ways. One, she is trapped in the larger system like other women, but she has surpassed some smaller parts of it: She is individualistic and does not understand sex roles—or you could say she is a prince and not entirely a woman. Two, the near arch can stand for the present, when Utena is trapped by illusions. The far arch can stand for the end of the show, when she overcomes the delusion of being a prince and escapes the Academy.
The ring at the top of the greenhouse “to hang it from” is another female symbol. Anthy symbolically depends on Utena, or in other words, Utena in playing a patriarchal prince role contributes to keeping Anthy caged.
For more on Anthy’s greenhouse, which is also a symbol of regeneration like the student council entrance, see coffins and kofuns - the greenhouse and the Academy.
Arches and windows are equated. A window is also a female symbol. The grid of a window is the bars of a cage, a repeated symbol. In the picture, Nanami looks out the window in class while four boys also beside the window do not. Female characters more often look out of windows. (Androgynous Miki counts as female in this metaphor. In episode 6 Miki looks out a window with Utena, and in episode 36 he looks out a window with Juri. In episode 6, Saionji is shown facing a window, but I think not looking out of it. In an exception, in episode 29, boys are drawn to the window to see Shiori pleading with Ruka. Another exception is in episode 30. Episode 21 has a small exception.) Wakaba looking out the window is one of the clues that she will be Utena’s successor. To look out a window is to be trapped by the system of control’s conventional point of view—usually the conventional female point of view.
Duels. See duel symbols for sexual symbols related to duels and swords.
Bells. A bell is round and symbolically female. The bell for attention in Mikage’s unattended office is specifically a breast (see Kanae is a lesbian for an image). A bell with a clapper is a female symbol with a male symbol inside it—to ring a bell is a noisy sex act. Bells at the start and end of duels have have more specific meanings, and the discussion there includes a couple other examples of contest bells.
An Utena princess dress comes with a bell-shaped skirt. I don’t know how intentional it is, but the metaphors work out: A princess’s legs become the clapper of the bell. She is, as it were, permanently fucked. By the metaphor of travel (see the catalog of feet and other symbols - transportation), her legs and feet stand for her freedom and agency: A princess is under male control, and her agency becomes male. She uses any freedom she retains for patriarchal ends. We see it particularly clearly with Anthy. She retains a great deal of agency and makes many decisions, and almost all are for Akio’s benefit. She can occasionally influence events to her benefit, such as by recruiting Utena into the dueling system to get away from Saionji’s violence, but even that is doing Akio’s will.
Nanami’s cowbell is a bell with a clapper, and the bell is a mouth that wears lipstick. The cowbell is oral sex! And because of the lipstick, it seems to be oral sex for the purpose of appearing attractive. The cowbell puts Nanami directly under patriarchal control. Utena removing the cowbell is Utena using patriarchal power to remove patriarchal power; it is a preview of the final showdown.
My secret reason for this article is not to lay out that stuff, though. It’s to bring up my favorite phallic symbol from the series, Touga’s carrot from episode 35 when Touga gives Utena the earrings.
It starts out with “is that a carrot in your pocket, or are you glad to see me?” (Answer: Both.) The carrot is close to his heart... literally and figuratively. Before long, Touga pulls out his carrot and plays with it. The guy has it bad. He puts the carrot on his head to openly declare himself a dickhead, showing us what he is thinking with. With a brain like that, it’s no surprise if he believes he is a unicorn (he does not know that Utena is no longer a virgin). The unicorn is especially clever, and I explain it more in the introduction. In Utena world, it’s all normal and nobody gives it a glance. For me, the surreal humor in the series is way funnier than the slapstick.
The carrot, especially the carrot as unicorn horn, says that Touga sees himself as able to cure Utena’s desire for Akio, by switching her desire to himself. He believes he can purify her and remove her corruption. But Akio has everything under control. In episode 36, Touga does (as it were) touch her with his unicorn horn. It is Utena’s most corrupt act of the series, and cures her desire for Touga. The effect is the diametric opposite of what he expected.
The carrot is orange for one-sided love, and green for Touga’s attempt to control her—he deceives her into riding on his horse as a step of his plot to detach her from Akio and take her for himself. Touga imagines himself competing to own Utena, as all the duelists compete to own the Rose Bride.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 23 November 2021
updated 4 September 2024