Second post: Distance and Objectification: Identity Crises in The Mikado

This second post will explore the ways in which the Japanese, especially the women, are objectified. There is a distance illustrated between the Japanese in this operetta and the English who are in the audience, and this lack of connection is, I believe, harmful to the audience’s experience.


The operetta begins with the stage direction of “Japanese nobles discovered standing and sitting in attitudes suggested by native drawings” (365). The Japanese people aren’t portrayed as true individuals, but as a group of people who are nothing more than Gilbert’s imitation of their illustration on artwork. Their first chorus is as follows:
If you want to know who we are,
We are gentlemen of Japan:
On many a vase and jar –
On many a screen and fan.
We figure in lively paint:
Our attitude’s queer and quaint -
You’re wrong if you think it’s ain’t, oh! (365)
There is an immediate distance created between character and audience as we view the Japanese people not as humans with personality, but only as they have been seen on objects of artwork.


The objectification of the Japanese people was not only directed to the population as a whole, but also more specifically towards women. The dramatis personae list shows three of the four women in the play grouped together with ellipses and identified as, “Three sisters – Wards of Ko-Ko” (364). This is significant, as they are the only characters to not receive their own identification (by contrast, Nanki-Poo receives the specific descriptor of “[the Mikado’s] Son, disguised as a wandering minstrel, and in love with Yum-Yum” (364).
Although I have already discussed the significance of the women’s names, I will mention a few specific points that play an important part here. Yum-Yum, an arguable heroine in the operetta, is desired for marriage by both Ko-Ko and Nanki-Poo, and her character name describes her not with human traits, but that of a dessert, something delicious to be desired and devoured. Pitti-Sing’s name gives the audience no clue whatsoever as to her personality; she is merely a character that can obviously, well, sing well (unexpected and shocking for an operetta). Peep-Bo’s name is significant because, as a reference to Little Bo Peep, it demonstrates the sheep-like quality that women are given in this work. They are grouped together like sheep, and also travel and live like them (the women’s first song together is a trio, “Three little maids from school are we” (377)).


Men in this play, while mildly objectified themselves, treat women like objects. As Ko-Ko is staring after Yum-Yum, he says “To think how entirely my future happiness is wrapped up in that little parcel! Really, it hardly seems worthwhile! Oh, matrimony!” (384). Yum-Yum is nothing but a package to him, a very obvious comparison to an object. In the same scene, he also refers to her as “the most tender-hearted little creature alive” (388). Later still, when telling Nanki-Poo not to turn Yum-Yum against him, he tells him “I’ve educated her to be my wife; she’s been taught to regard me as a wise and good man. Now I shouldn’t like her views on that point disturbed” (388). He speaks of her here as if she has no mind of her own to make up. In a more broad sense, Yum-Yum is also an object in terms of contract. She is the prize for Ko-Ko and Nanki-Poo in their arrangement on who shall marry her in light of laws on capital punishment. At one point, Ko-Ko even shouts “Take her – she’s yours!”, as if she is his to give in the first place. Despite Yum-Yum’s obvious will to marry Nanki-Poo, her views on who shall marry her are inconsequential and disrespected.


Along with this objectivity, women are shown to be vain, painting and accessorizing themselves like objects as well. This is most clearly shown as Yum-Yum is being fawned upon by women as they prepare her for her wedding and she says, “Yes, I am indeed beautiful! Sometimes I sit and wonder, in my artless Japanese way, why it is that I am so much more attractive than anybody else in the whole world. Can this be vanity? No! Nature is lovely and rejoices in her loveliness. I am a child of Nature, and take after my mother” (396). She says it is not vanity, but of course it is; she considers herself as beautiful as nature itself, and the other women encourage this.


The character of Katisha is an obvious exception to these rules, but not in a positive way. She is the only female listed with a descriptor; but, she is not beautiful, kind, or submissive, and as such she lacks the objectivity of other women. She is elderly. She is self-described as bloodthirsty. She tells the townspeople to bow down to her power in her song about being the Mikado’s “daughter-in-law elect” (405). But, she is not a beautifully painted object, and therefore is undesirable. In Gilbert’s illustrated world, women simply cannot win in society – they can be beautiful and objectified, or ugly and undesirable, but there is no middle ground.


Does the distance created by this objectification affect you as a reader/watcher of this operetta? Does it make it more difficult for you to connect to the work as a whole? If you haven’t yet seen the operetta, can you think of a situation in which a similar distance between audience and performers matters?

"Three Little Maids from School Are We." 1885. Photograph. University of Rochester Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Rochester.
Gilbert, William Schwenck, and Ed Glinert. The Savoy Operas: The Complete Gilbert and Sullivan. London: Penguin, 2008.