Porco Rosso is a pig, but Fio is 'just a girl'
Fio is an unreal perception of a young woman, with no input of her real feelings. Similar to the viewpoint of The Virgin Suicides (1993) by Jeffrey Eugenides. Story of 5 sisters committing suicide and only being seen by the men from street across as something beautiful that could have been a beautiful wife, or a best kiss etc…
H.M. is well known for showing in his films reality, even though most of them carry big fantasy aspects. For example, The boy and the heron (2023), where he showcases, as in many of his films, terror of war and lost and complicated feelings. So this is not ‚essay‘ against him, because how else would it be possible to stick to the truth and yet still portrait a male-dominated field as a pilot and aircraft world?
There is an idea throughout all the film of self-inflicted misogyny. Porco Rosso says all middle-aged men are pigs. After he saw his friends who he looked up to as better man going to heaven but still stayed behind, he gained survival guilt, but also a feeling of undeserving to be alive, twisting itself to being not good enough to die with them as a hero, but to live and age. Copying with the habits of the bad man around him, as he saw himself as such. That’s why we barely see the difference between him and the other air pirates, going as far as drinking under one roof and loving the same woman. As a product of his time, and habit of seeing himself as the worst, he also copied the idea of separation of women and men, making him see women as someone apart from his world. He only gives Fio, and the rest, a chance after Fio inflates his ego by reminding him of his heroic youth. To him, that was the time he felt human last. Yet even after he stops seeing Fio only as a ‚woman-child‘, he adds her ability and grown-ishness to seeing her as a woman, with all the pirates doing the same. Making her object to ‚honor fight‘ and a reason to be flustered. That he is a product of his trauma and time, does not give him a free pass, but can give him the benefit of the doubt as he does not act on his outer demeanor, maybe because it's part of his pig ‚mask.‘
As for the final kiss, many use it as the main argument as to why Porco Rosso is gross, but the kiss can also be interpreted as a metaphor. Since Porco had closed swollen eyes and did nothing while being kissed, it was a pure act of impulse from Fio's side (as it should be, otherwise…). Fio in his eyes, was innocent girlhood, different from Gina, a woman who had seen him as he is, and lived through the horrors of war. Even though he loved her, he could not change for her, as he did after Fio showed him affection, because for him, it was a youth and purity showing him he could be seen as good by them.
But the character of Fio is divided from all the rest of the Ghibli woman characters. Despite her dialog at the end, it seems that throughout the movie we only see her through the eyes of Porco Rosso, since her behavior does not carry any real feelings of a woman, in this case almost more child. The same could be said for Gina, a woman waiting, beautiful, faithful, the perfect idea of love interest to Porco Rosso. The kind of woman he would deserve as a Marco, and a woman every pilot would love. While Fio, being compared to the new aircraft, is hard to manage and is wild, answering everything with a smile and endless energy, feeling comfortable as a 17-year-old girl in a group of old grown men trying to hit on her. Even going as far as ‚teasing‘ those around by winking, saying she loves them, talking about her wide hips and undressing. While both women may carry some of those traits, they would for sure also feel different things, such as fear, fury and being uncomfortable. But the story uses them only as surface types of characters despite both being one of the main ‚cast‘.
What do you think?
Posted Mar 4, 2026, 7:24 AM UTC