Princess Mononoke and Gender Roles

During our viewing of Princess Mononoke this week, I saw that gender roles were portrayed as almost the opposite of what we know them to be in most modern day societies.  Arguably the two most important characters in the story, Lady Eboshi and San, are viewed as intelligent, fierce and brave warriors to the people (or animals) who look up to them.  Eboshi holds the women of Iron town in high regard, even more so than the men, having them do the hard labor that men would usually do in our society.  She holds no doubt that the women will be able to defend Iron Town from Lord Asano's assault, entrusting them with rifles and the men with swords.  Clearly, she believes that women are more precise in their skills compared to the men.  Many of the male characters are shown off as goofy and brute-like.  Ashitaka, being an exception to this, is easily able to pass Gonza's loud-mouth barrage when he bends his sword like plastic.  Koroku also serves as a sort of comic relief character, being as all he does is question Ashitaka's decisions and panic like a child throughout their forest trek.  I really enjoyed watching this film and how differently masculinity and femininity were shown when compared to most classical Hollywood films.