Why This Poem Works
Examining "Ode to the Sailor Moon Transformation Sequence" from Rita Mookerjee's book, False Offering
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Why This Poem Works: “Ode to the Sailor Moon Transformation Sequence” by Rita Mookerjee
When I was about ten years old I fell in love with the movie The Ten Commandments. It wasn’t religious fervor. It wasn’t a desire to study ancient history. It was due to one simple factor - the dresses. I was in love with Anne Baxter’s gauzy, pale turquoise, nile-colored dresses, not to mention her eye-liner, the flowers she wore in her hair, and the jewelry around her neck and head.
I would try to make similar dresses out of sheets, use costume jewelry to adorn myself, and went outside to pick vines full of morning glories to pretend they were lillies of the Nile and strewn them in my hair. I looked nothing like Anne Baxter. Nothing like a Mycenean or Egyptian.
What I was trying to do was costume myself like a princess, trying to transform my clothes, and my world into something else. It’s a very archetypal kind of thing for all people, but especially girls to do, to try to change themselves and their world, by changing their clothes.
When I read Rita Mookerjee’s book, False Offering, this poem of hers really struck a chord.
Ode to the Sailor Moon Transformation Sequence
To catch the anime block on TV, I would rush
home from 1st grade. I would clench my fists
the bus driver took too long turning onto Cherry
Hill Road because there were new villains—like
a half plant, half woman with vine arms, obscene
and flailing but what I wanted to see most was
Serena’s transformation sequence, the apparition
of costume like battle armor meeting ballet.
To follow along, I took a chopstick and painted it pink
tied a hair ribbon to its end. I’d pirouette and arabesque with my makeshift wand, though the chopstick, unjeweled and wooden, left something to be desired.
I decided that this was what religion looked like.
It starts in her fingernails. Serena shouts
something and her nails glitter with power.
Then a crystal brooch shoots satin ribbons
all around her body, which is without curves
but still a little sexy in silhouette. At the time,
sexy wasn’t of interest to me. I was onto something
cosmic, something in the particles of light flecking
the air around Serena, making her look saintlike
in her silence while her dress takes shape.
Her eyes closed, her lashes fanned out across
her cheeks. The bodice ribbons shimmer
to become a Japanese schoolgirl uniform.
I understand now why this looks so nautical, why
she is a sailor, because the Japanese loved the clothes
of royal French youth sailing with their families
in the 19th century which would later prove to be quite
a formative time for both fashion and fetish culture.
Here in 1996, Serena’s hands wear long white gloves,
the ripple of her skirt shines blue as she tosses
her hair back; she’s almost dressed. This might just be why I like to dress slowly. My mom would scream that school wasn’t for fashion, that I needed to eat breakfast, that I was going to miss the bus if I didn’t choose an outfit
but I wanted my skirt to ripple and my earrings to light up to show that I too was ready to
battle my enemies with a combination of
lunar brute force and angelic grace.
I abandoned the second part, but 23 years later, I still dress slowly, stroking my dresses, stacking three or four rings on one finger. They don’t
turn into weapons but they look pretty cool.
Two opals at the top gleam pink and green against my skin. Though Serena wears a choker, I keep it subtle with my favorite goddesses on yellow gold chains. I wait for one to speak to me from my throat; she never does.
Why This Poem Works
What I like about this poem, and so many of Mookerjee’s poems, is how elaborate it is. It has a seemingly simple subject - this transformation sequence, but unpacks from it issues of history, travel, sexuality, religion, gender, sexuality, sociology, fashion and psychological growth and change, just for starters.
There are a lot of social influences at work in this poem. Firstly, it is fairly typical in most movies to see characters, specifically women, try to fit into society better, by getting a make-over. In fiction we call this “dressing the part,” where a character tries to change themselves by changing their outfit. You see it in so many rom-coms. In more male dominated stories, the character usually doesn’t change costume but instead gets an object that helps them fight a demon, like a sword. For women though, it’s usually a dress or a tube of lipstick.
Female Archetypes of Power
It’s so interesting that Mookerjee couples “battle armor” with “ballet.” In many instances women are taught that their outfits are a kind of battle armor, but their battle isn’t to kill others, it’s to attract attention, or maybe outdo another woman in competition for attention. It’s a very different way of gaining status, but it is still a way of gaining status. So battle armor is balletic. The fingernails glitter with power.
But what kind of power is it? It’s the power not just to be beautiful or attract attention, but the power to change yourself and to choose your own identity.
The title of the poem is not “Sailor Moon,” but rather “Ode to the Sailor Moon Transformation Sequence.” It emphasizes the transformation process itself. This ability to transform is religious, because it gives the character the ability to hone and honor her own powers, to take ownership of her body, to decide her own fate, to decide what it is she stands for.
Fetish Culture vs. Authenticity
But this transformation points to a greater social issue. As the speaker notes, the Japanese, who created Sailor Moon, were following their own fetish for what they saw of Frech Sailors and French school children. The women are trying to look more like sailors and specifically, European sailors. While the speaker is looking for her own power, she’s also trying to copy someone else’s idea of what power is, Sailor Moon’s, who in turn is copying the French sailors. So there is an element of inauthenticity too. The first grade version of the speaker is making her own choices, but also not making her own choices. She’s being influenced by others’ choices without fully realizig it.
Perhaps that’s why, at the end of the poem, the speaker notes she has changed her “costume,” though she is still intentional about the costuming itself. She says she has abandoned her desire for “angelic grace,” but does try to keep her “lunar fierceness.” What’s more is that she is now wearing a goddess on a chain around her neck. Whereas before, the younger version of the speaker tried to mimic Sailor Moon, the older version of herself is wearing jewelry that indicates more about her own upbringing, her own religious values. It shows the speaker is still taking ownership and claiming power by dressing in a way that is conscientious, and thoughtful, but it is also more authentic.
This can indicate that she has found a truer version of herself, and yet, there is that turn at the end. She expects the goddess to speak, but the goddess never does. What can that point to in the poem?
The poem comes from the book, False Offering, which explores themes of religion and illusion, trickery and snake-oil salesmenship. It explores the way people are often misled while looking for the divine. In this poem the speaker seems to be on a quest for such religious power through changing her costume. Yet, while she is able to change some things, like her costume, she can’t achieve the full transformation a saint or a Sailor Moon can. She changes her outward appearance to reflect her own values, to show that she honors herself, but this costuming falls short of a promise made by religion or t.v. shows.
The Limits of Fantasy and Religion
In my childhood days of making costumes and putting flowers in my hair I realize what I really wanted was to become a princess, to ride on a barge down the Nile, to be able to give commands and have all of Egypt obey me. No matter what costume I made or wore, it was always just a fantasy. Reading Mookerjee’s poem I’m left with both a feeling of triumph that the speaker of the poem is able to transform herself and claim her power, but also a feeling of disappointment in realizing that the great magical transformations we were fed as children were just illusions. That none of us is going to put on a costume and turn into a super hero. No necklace we buy is going to speak to us. No sailor costume will turn us into Sailor Moon.
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