Godzilla

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

Peter offered some great comments on the new and old Godzillas.  I'd like 
to add some comments interspersed between his:

>I 
>must say I largely agree  with Aaron's suggestion that they tend to serve 
>as "trope[s] 
>for defining the national self." 
>  In agreeing, however, I must add the qualification that in dealing with 
>such works 
>as the stream of GODZILLAs (or RAMBO, etc.) we must not try to get a 
>direct "reading" 
>of a national "psyche." They are by nature corrupt and almost infinitely 
>corruptable 
>texts, which provide commentators with free-floating, protean metaphors 
>for social 
>"insights" they probably developed elsewhere.

Peter is very right here and I thank him for providing the Izawa/Tsurumi 
citation.  Part of the reason I focused on discourses on the film instead 
of the discourse of the film is precisely because I think the texts are 
so "corruptible."  As such, they do not reflect any national essence 
unless they are read as such within certain reading formations.  My 
interest is then in how these readings have been formed and changed.  
With regard to reception, Peter asks an interesting question:
 
>  One wonders how many ordinary contemporary Japanese viewers, untutored 
>by Izawa and 
>Tsurumi's analysis, saw the film in this light. 

I wonder if anyone has done any research on the reception of the original 
_Gojira_.  Izawa/Tsurumi offer one form of reception, but were there 
others?

With regard to the new Godzilla, I do think we see the operations of 
certain established reading formations trying to use the film to 
articulate national identity.  Just yesterday, I was watching "Osama no 
buranchi" and noted two very typical responses:

1) The host gave the old celebratory tone: "Isn't great that a Japanese 
star can be given this kind of treatment by Hollywood!"

2) The reporter, in explaining the difference between the old and new 
Godzilla: "The American Godzilla has a body closer to that of Westerners 
since it has long legs."

Anyone seen any other comments like these?

>  A different sort of stab at Godzilla interpretation was taken in in a 
>book called 
>BOKUTACHI NO GOJIRA (the young author's name escapes me for the moment), 
>published 
>about six years ago, which I reviewed in my old YOHAKU ORAI column for 
>Asahi Shimbun 
>Yukan.  

The author is Sato Kenji.

I like Peter's reading of the original _Gojira_ in terms of the 
victimization complex and would like to expand on his last comment:

>One 
>other motif 
>in Godzilla which I will only introduce without developing , is the 
>evolving manner in 
>which the (Japanese) military is depicted. In the original two Godzillas, 
>the Army 
>trundles out a host of cannons and tanks to do battle with the monster. 
>But these are 
>wilted like frail plastic under the fiery breath of G. The police too are 
>helpless and 
>in hysterical disarray. The ones who destroy the monster are the only part 
>of the 
>Japanese Establishment unimpugned by direct war responsibility--civilian 
>scientists. 
>In later Godzillas, we see a return of the heroic and ultimately effective 
>Japanese 
>military. In other monster films--I'm thinking here of anime--we see the 
>emergence of 
>the Monster Destroying Specialist--quasi-military elite units, openly  
>motivated by 
>the same Spirit-ist ethos we find in Pacific War films. In other words, 
>seen as a 
>series, the Godzilla films transform away from anti-military/authority 
>motifs and 
>slowly revalorize Authority and the elite military unit.

I think there are two points that need to be stressed here:

First, that the Godzilla series definitely changes over time.  We all 
know some of the changes: from films aimed at adult audience to mostly 
youth audiences, with a corresponding shift from a complex, monstrous 
Godzilla to Godzilla the friend of children (by the late 60s).  Thus 
while I think Markus is right in asking about the perpetuation of certain 
reading protocols for Godzilla (they are real historical phenomena and 
are part of the larger text "Godzilla":

>Peter's take on Godzilla was really interesting. I have a question about
>the teisetsu, though. Considering how widely spread it has become, even if
>the films are "garbled" doesn't this teisetsu become a reading protocol? In
>turn, does it become a framework for sequel production throughout the
>permutations you point to? In short, can we dismiss it so easily? 

to relate this to the production situation also demands we relate 
Godzilla to other discourses in production.  The primary one and one 
closest to _Gojira_ is Toho tokusatsu film.  There I do think one sees, 
as Peter notes with Godzilla, an increasing move to revalorize authority 
and the military elite.  In fact, I think the central text here is 
_Kaitei gunkan_ (1963) in which the Earth must call on a former Imperial 
Navy ship and its technology to save the day.  Looking at that film and 
many others in which the Japanese (even in the guise of the world defense 
force) military saves the day, I get the impression that many of the Toho 
tokusatsu films are fantasies about Japan winning WWII (the fact that 
such fantasies are still common in video games and book fiction confirms 
the depth and longevity of such fantasies).  These discourses I think 
influence the later Godzilla and undermine their status as a pure 
expression of horror and anxiety about nuclear war.

Aaron Gerow
YNU
I