Surely. To take just one example, girls' body changes tend to get more comments than boys', impacting their understanding of themselves. It's a sexist and heterosexist society everywhere we go, so it is to be expected that girls are more eroticized than boys. I'm trying to complicate the question somewhat, though.
>I don't know _Macho Dancer_ though, what's that?
Take a look at this site: <http://us.imdb.com/Title?Macho+Dancer+(1988)>. Lawrence Chua's summary in PlanetOut/PopcornQ says the following:
"In the landscape of Lino Brocka's Macho Dancer, sexual agency is inseparable from economic necessity. The film follows the travails of Pol (Allan Paule), a young man from the provinces who migrates to Manila after his American GI sugar daddy leaves and cuts off his family's sole source of income. After finding work as a go-go boy and male prostitute, Pol meets his mentor, Noel (Daniel Fernando). Their camaraderie lapses into shower dances and porn videos as Pol becomes enmeshed in Noel's search for his sister, who has been abducted to work in a brothel. When Noel is killed, Pol avenges his friend's murder and eventually returns to the countryside alone.
Using the conventions of equatorial melodrama, Brocka has tried to infuse the story with a harsh materialist read on the nature of human relations and love. But ultimately it's hampered by his inability to subvert the conventions of the melodrama. The audience is implicated in the voyeurism of sex tourists but never asked to interrogate their own position in relation to what's unfolding on screen."
And what about _Star Maps_ (Dir. Miguel Arteta. 1997)? The character of Brandon (played by Brendan Sexton III) in _Welcome to the Dollhouse_ (Dir. Todd Solondz. 1995)? _The Reflecting Skin_ (Dir. Phillip Ridley. 1990)? _Stand by Me_ (Dir. Rob Reiner. Writ. Stephen King. 1986) and anything with River Phoenix in it? Ulysses in _Erendira_ (Dir. Ruy Guerra. 1983)? _Hécate_ (Dir. Daniel Schmid. 1981)? Oh yes, Thomas Mann's _Death in Venice_ and Luchino Visconti's movie of the same title (1971), in which Bjorn Andersen plays the young boy Aschenbach (played by Dirk Bogarde) longs for? _Wild Child_ (Dir. Truffaut. 1969) and also Jean Itard's memoirs upon which it is based?
>>In the context of Japan, if you read classic works of 'shoujo manga' by
>>Yamagishi Ryoko, Hagio Moto, Yoshida Akimi, etc., you'll see that the
>>(homo)eroticization of adolescent male bodies is a point of departure for
>>the (fantasy) work of girl culture.
>Well I've mostly read/worked with Takeuchu Naoko's stuff, where the girl's
>body is far more important than the boy's, although I'm interested in Ramna
>1/2 as well, which is rather different. There are others as well, but I'm
>trying to stay focused on something widely available in translation, which
>is one of the reasons why Sailormoon & Co.
Sadly I don't know any of the stuff you mention. If possible, brush up your Japanese and try and read Hagio Moto's _Thoma no Shinzo_ & _Poe no Ichizoku_, Yamagishi Ryoko's _Hiizuru Tokoro no Tenshi_, Yoshida Akimi's _Banana Fish_, _The California Story_, & _Kissho Ten-nyo_, Oshima Yumiko's _Bananabread Pudding_, Takemiya Keiko's _Kaze to Ki no Uta_, and Akisato Wakuni's _Nemureru Mori no Binan_. Also, check out Hashimoto Osamu's commentary on shoujo manga _Hanasaku Otometachi no Kimpira Gobo_. [In fact, Hashimoto is an interesting writer/critic apart from shoujo manga. He writes in girl-speak to disrupt grammar, sex/gender/sexuality regimes, etc.] Articles by Fujimoto Yukari as well.
How about Yoshimoto Banana? Her novel _Kitchen_ has been translated in English.
You'd probably like Ueno Chizuko (a feminist sociologist), but she does women, not girls.
>I think, to be more direct about my interest, that both Anglophone girl
>culture and studies of global girl culture appropriate and construct
>'oriental' objects as an alien yet familiar pop which can explain 'Western
>girlhood' in a range of different ways, but always necessitating a
>presumption that girlhood is translatable across cultures.
OK, except that the term 'global girl culture' sounds strange, in that it doesn't seem to have an objective reference in reality.
>how Anglophone ideas of girlhood permeate global markets
You mean white American ones, because when I was in Japan, I don't think I saw any Australian film about girls, except Peter Weir's _Picnic at Hanging Rock_ (1975), and I _am_ a movie buff! Can't remember seeing/reading anything about girl culture from the English-speaking Caribbean, Canada (except in Margaret Atwood novels & stories), India (except in Satyajit Ray films), etc. either. On the other hand, I saw lots of French girls, for instance, in Eric Rohmer films.
Yoshie