While all these things are still fresh in my mind I would like to jump right into some of what was mentioned today during the class discussion. Those things of course being some of the psychoanalysis and the repression aspect of this film Godzilla. With this I am also going to make a brief reference back to the first reading that we did when we watched Atomic Café, the article titled Civilian Threat, the Suburban Citadel, and Atomic Age American Women, by Kristina Zarlengo. Moving on, in case you guys missed it, in my broken frame of thought today, I made a statement about a section of the third page in today’s reading,
"After the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, an essentially American military occupation force dismantled and rebuilt the Japanese family and society in such a way as to ensure that Japan could never again become a military threat to the Allies. Reform gave women full legal equality and ended the authority of the clan over the family and the father over adult children. Compulsory education was extended to nine years, further reducing parental influence. So-called reform exceeded what American society would have accepted for itself at the time,indicating that the purpose was more to undermine the patriarchal base of Japanese society than to reform it. (In America, women were being forced out of the workplace in order to make room for returning soldiers cum patriarchs.) For the most part, however,the Japanese cooperated with the Americans, bringing about enormous socioeconomic and political change during the relatively short occupation (1945-52)."
I believe what I had said was, something to the affect of We, (America at the time) moved in on the Japanese and “made them us” and from what you should be able to tell from this excerpt is that we did, well sort of. What happened basically was that we moved in and erased much of the pre-existing institutions of the time in order re-assert our dominance over the Japanese, which I think is easily comparable to a situation such as if a bully was picking on a little kid, and not only did the bully steal the poor kids lunch money, but he gave him an atomic wedgy to boot, no pun intended. So now not only is the poor kid going to hungry all day, his underwear is all stretched out, and he probably has a few uncomfortable brush burns as well, which are going to last a lot long than his hunger. Moving away from this example, the connection that I am trying to draw up, which I’m sure many on you already have is that us bombing Japan, as bad as it was, is like the bully stealing the lunch money, then us moving in and changing everything around as to how it suited us at the time and not the Japanese, is like the wedgy followed by the brush burns. Now, if you asking where Godzilla comes into this scenario, this is it, what I had attempted to say when stating that “we made them us” was that with our occupation of Japan, and the social institutions that we destroyed, we really did make them us, and they, though not much choice was given, accepted that. This is the reason why I think the image of Godzilla, the “big bomb” doubles as being both Japanese and American, at least from the Japanese point of view. I feel that the way the Japanese saw it, was that the American influence being instilled upon the Japanese in such a way could not bring good things, and thus Godzilla, the radiation emitting monster was born, half Japanese and half American.
One of my biggest reasons for coming to this type of thinking would have to be the debate scene in both parts of the movies, as well as the love triangle that developed as a side plot with Emiko. This is also where I am going to mention the reading that was assigned with Atom Cafe. In the Americanized version of Godzilla, the debate is relatively short from what I recall, and much of what they talk about is not translated. In the original Japanese version however, we can see the argument that rages clearly between the male influenced crowd and the female influenced crowd, an argument that is completely cut out from the Americanized version. What they are arguing about, at least as far as my blog is concerned, is of no large importance, but the fact that there is an argument between a male influenced party and a female influenced party, and furthermore that it is completely cut out of the Americanized version is of great importance. If you remember from the reading assigned with Atomic Café, in America at this time there was very much sexual repression being instilled on the people at the time, the nuclear family for example, which included a male dominated family, with the stay at home, sexually submissive wife. So with that in mind, it should be no surprise as to why this argument was cut right out. On the flipped side, this argument being very present in the Japanese version I feel shows very much the apparently American influence of the times, which as I have mentioned did much to destroy Japanese social institutions, the standing of women in society, according to the reading assigned for Godzilla being one of them. This of course would be why we can see a group of women, dominating a group of men in a social debate on how to handle the matter of a giant monster.
As far as the love triangle with Emiko goes, it is in my opinion that this situation in itself is in no way a normal Japanese issue. I feel as though it is a completely American born situation, that the writers put in to show the viewers how the American influence can affect the Japanese way of life on a different level. I do realize that this side story does not hold much weight on the actual story, and that Emiko is not portrayed as a bad person, but I still believe that the Japanese viewers are supposed to see this broken relationship between Emiko and her scientist husband, as well as her involvement with another man, something I feel Americans are so used to seeing that it comes as no big surprise to us. Furthermore, another piece of evidence towards my argument that bad things come from the Americanized Japan, not only big radioactive monsters, but broken and unhappy marriages even. Just to add to that though, and I’m asking you guys directly, am I the only one who was reminded of the mad scientist’s lab from Frankenstein at the scenes inside of Emiko’s husband’s lab? Maybe another cultural reference? Regardless, do you agree? Disagree?
