Howl's Moving Castle and the Power of Mindset
As we continue to celebrate our heritage, including the ups and downs of our communities landing on American soil, it’s also important that we honor the future of Asian Pacific Islander Desi Americans (APIDAs) by ensuring that we cultivate skills to improve our mental health. May is not only a reminder to honor our roots for APIDA Heritage Month; it is also Mental Health Awareness Month. While celebrating our heritage and history, we must also prioritize mindfulness and our well-being. With the tragic events highlighting the racism and xenophobia from the COVID-19 pandemic and the mass shooting of eight people, including six Asian women in Atlanta, maintaining our mental health is more important now than ever. In 2019, more than 2.9 million Asian Americans reported living with mental illness. It is also estimated that Asian Americans are three times less likely to seek treatment for their mental illness when compared to other racial communities, which can be attributed to a variety of barriers (i.e.,lack of education, preconceived cultural norms and values, the ‘model minority myth’ and more). Many APIDAs can feel shame or even lost when addressing their well-being because of generational differences in their families and views of mental health. To address this, APIDAs could work on skills to regulate their emotional states. One skill to improve your mental well-being this month is the practice of strengthening your mindset.
Your mindset is the way you view yourself or how you view your identity. Your personal beliefs and thinking patterns inform your mindset and can change over time depending on your experiences. With your mindset, you can challenge and even empower yourself. According to Dr. Carol Dweck, there are two types of mindsets: the growth and fixed mindsets. The fixed mindset is an outlook on life where specific traits are predetermined and are indicators of success. On the other hand, the growth mindset is about the journey. There is room for failure because the effort along the way strengthens the individual. The temporary failures are seen as learning opportunities and necessary steps in building skill sets. It is through the power of the growth mindset that you have the ability to push outside your comfort zone and gain a better understanding of your identity. Oftentimes, you can cycle between the two mindsets. However, there are benefits to improving your mental health and aligning with the growth mindset, as can be seen in the Studio Ghibli movie, Howl’s Moving Castle.
The film, adapted from a British novel of the same name, follows Sophie Hatter, the daughter of a hat shop owner. After returning home from visiting her sister and encountering the charismatic wizard Howl, Sophie is cursed and her physical appearance is transformed into the 90-year-old version of herself. She accepts her fate as an older adult, running away to the Wastes. From there, she settles herself in Howl’s castle as his cleaning lady and integrates into her new life. While Sophie is looped into Howl’s hijinks, such as helping him slither out of his military duties, she learns that Howl is also under a curse. Together, Howl and Sophie support and help each other break their curses.
Author’s Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional and am writing this with an APIDA perspective of mental health The following analysis is written for entertainment purposes and is not intended to diagnose or treat mental health ailments. Please seek professional help for any concerns you have around your emotional and mental well-being. The author, blog, and organization disclaim liability for any damage, injury, or mishap that may occur from engaging in ideas from this post.
At the beginning of the film, Sophie holds onto a fixed mindset. She does not think much of herself, especially in terms of her physical appearance. As she made her way to the bakery, Sophie was hardly the focal point of the scene. She blends into the large masses of people celebrating the day’s events. Her fixed mindset is further highlighted by her sister’s question, “Are you going to spend the rest of your life in [the hat] shop?” To which Sophie replied, “It meant so much to Papa. Besides, I’m the eldest.” In this scene, we see that her sister does not believe that Sophie is passionate about a career in hat making. Sophie holds onto a limited belief that her life is set for her. She believes she must follow in the footsteps of her father in order to carry on the family business and legacy, regardless of her personal desires. However, the filmmakers signal to the audience that Sophie is on the path towards a growth mindset because in these scenes, Sophie’s dress is the color green, which can be an indicator of growth.
After the Witch of the Waste cursed Sophie, she left her home and hat shop with a growth mindset. Sophie traveled into the Waste to find a new life for herself. In her sojourn, Sophie does not cower in fear as she showed previously on her walk to her sister’s bakery and even rejected the help and attention from a young man as she departed her hometown. In the scene where Sophie eats her lunch, she decided that she needed a walking stick. The shot closes in on Sophie’s facial features when she attempted to pull out a stick in the bush, suggesting that Sophie is finally focusing on herself and not on the external pressures of the world. Here, Sophie said, “Never underestimate Grandma Sophie," hinting that she found a stronger sense of confidence in herself. Her blue dress, which symbolizes security and stability, provides further evidence for her newfound growth mindset.
Sophie fluctuates between the two mindsets, much like people in everyday life, throughout the film. The audience first sees this during Howl’s green goo tantrum. As Howl screamed in torment about his hair, Sophie remarked that Howl’s hair color can be dyed again and that mishap is not a big deal. She acknowledged that mistakes happen and that anyone can move on from there, which is her growth mindset. As Howl continued to agonize over his hair, Sophie’s thoughts focused again on physical appearance. She yelled at Howl, saying, “I’ve never once been beautiful!” and ran out of the castle to cry in the rain. Here, the audience gets a wide shot of Sophie’s back. Her once-blue dress turns gray, demonstrating her lack of confidence. When she goes back into the castle after a good cry, Sophie’s dress dries up and turns back to blue. Sophie picks herself up right after a bump in the road and back to her growth mindset.
In her adventures with Howl and her found family, Sophie is not the same woman lost in crowds of people. At the end of the film, the audience finds Sophie at the top of the castle, flying through the clouds. She has much shorter hair, symbolizing that she is closing a chapter in her life and starting a different one. Sophie is cheerful and energized in her yellow dress. The film closes with Sophie as a complex person, who can take on the world with her newfound mindset. No longer is Sophie just a hat maker, she is confident and accepts her identity as a fierce woman. Her possibilities and career options are now endless, because she can travel anywhere in her and Howl’s flying castle.
Howl’s Moving Castle follows Sophie as she elevates her personal life. She nurtures a growth mindset, which allows her to cultivate self-confidence and self-love. Just as Sophie was able to benefit from a growth mindset, you as an individual can too. It is through a growth mindset that you can develop skills to enhance your mental well-being. With this type of mindset, you can learn more about your identity. You get a chance to explore what does and does not work in your mental health journey. If you can encourage yourself, loved ones, fellow APIDAs, and allies to adopt the growth mindset, we can build upon the perseverance of our APIDA ancestors and honor their hard work in the future together.
Interested in improving your mindset? Check out these resources to jumpstart your journey: