Satchi

[Peter B. High]

Carole and Sharon's invocations of Akutagawa's pre-war suicide as a potential 
context/contrast for considering the significance of Eto's suicide reminds me that we 
can find similar  antecedants to the "Satchi affair" in that period as well. 
Three examples  spring immediately to mind (and off the top of my head, I might 
add--meaning that I may have some of my details muddled). All three examples feature 
prominent women who were pilloried in their era's press as sexual adventuresses (or 
ogresses) and yet, after burning for a time in journalistic perdition, were then 
redeemed by having the nature of their "crimes" transformed into something 
...."allegorical." Exploring these examples might just conceivably provide a 
prognostication as to if and how Satchi will be redeemed for her own "crimes."

The first example is the public uproar and wide commentary on the open "furin" 
relationship between Shimamura Hogetsu and the legendary actress Matsui Sumako at the 
end of the Meiji period. Both were married elsewhere and while for men extramarital 
affairs were de rigeur, for women it was seen as a sacramental desecration challenging 
the very foundations of society. Some time after Hogetsu's death and an unsuccessful 
attempt to keep together the theatre troup she had started with Hogetsu, Sumako 
committed suicide. The conservative press at the time commented that her death was a 
natural atonement for her "sinfulness," but subsequently it became (indeed, has become) 
seen as the affirmation of a brave and true love transcending  social taboo. Both 
Kinugasa and Mizoguchi played on this moral theme in their 1947 films about her.

The second example is the Abe Sada murder incident, which also has received several 
cinematic treatments (at least three, I think), including Oshima's pornographic *Realm 
of the Senses*. Unlike Sumako, Abe had been a "nobody," a hotel maid, before 
accidentally strangling here lover in bed and then making off with his severed penis in 
1938. This last horrific detail, the castration, put her on the front page, and kept 
her in the public eye for months. From early on, the press demonstrated awareness of 
the dual significance of the incident and the its coverage had a distinctly Janus-faced 
quality.On the one hand, the press played up the inevitable fear and repulsion of a 
large section of its male redership. Compounding matters was--as it continues to be--a 
kind of Queen Bee Complex, involving fear of and erotic attraction to the (potentially 
lethal) sexual domination of women--a favorite topic,incidentally, of Shindo Kaneto 
throughout most of the fifties and then of Imamura Shohei in the sixties and seventies. 
Contemporary accounts of Abe's ultimate arrest, meanwhile, introduced the second 
perspective. Standing in the doorway of her hotel hide-away, she meekly surrendered to 
the arresting officers amid a crowd of flashbulb popping reporters. In her hand, still 
carefully wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, was her lover's severed penis. The 
photograph of her kimono-clad figure and bewildered, sad and vulnerable-looking 
expression became a much reprinted icon of the era. Needless to say, the photographs 
were sans the grisly  artifact. Within this other perspective, the Abe incident opened  
the profoundly a-moral dimension of sexual passion to public meditation. Part of the 
problem had to do with the manner in which the press had to report (and thereby publicy 
acknowledge) the "porno"-graphic details, including the titillating issue of finding an 
appropriate expression for "male member." In other words, the sensational impact of the 
scandal came from its revelation, along with the details,  of hithertop repressed 
subject material. Significantly, all of this came amidst the aftermath of the "2-26" 
Incident (the attempted coup-d'etat by young army officers in Feb. 1938)--in an era 
characterized by "thought police" and the repression of public discourse on social and 
political matters. In his book of essays about Abe Sada, the incident and his movie, 
Oshima makes the point that in times of political crisis, the (Japanese) government 
encourages the "liberation" of the sexual as a means of diverting attention from the 
political arena. I am not sure that the government--even that of the thirties--was 
ruled by the kind of monolithic logos Oshima posits or had this kind of immediate 
access to the switches of such subtle  and yet direct psychological/political 
manipulation. However, if we can find such a tendency in history--and I think we 
can--more than likely it was a sudden, independent eruption which took the bureaucratic 
"control" officials by surprise and toward which they intinctively turned a blind eye.

The third "case" is that  of the actress Okada Yoshiko, who "defected" to the Soviet 
Union that same year. Since it had strong political overtones, the authorities of the 
time made sure that little more than the bare details of the incident reached the 
public. On January 3, 1938, stage and screen favorite Okada crossed the border on 
Karafuto (Sakhalin) into Soviet teritory in the company of her lover, left-wing 
dramatist Sugimoto Kenkichi. To this day, the issue of "Why Did She Do It?" continues 
to intrigue Japanese film and social historians (in fact, recent years have seen the  a 
modest "Okada Yoshiko" boom, with the publication of articles and even a few books 
about her). From the beginning of her stage career in the pre-Quake era of the 
twenties, Yoshiko had developed a reputation for herself as a "flaming woman" who took 
new bed partners before discarding old husbands. The press' discovery of her in one of 
her "love nests" with an illicit paramour led to a much-publicized cancellation of her 
contract with one film coimpany and her being temporarily banned from appearances in 
other pictures. Still, she managed to continue a prominent stage and screen career 
despite the pungent smell of sexual scandal which persistently surrounded her. Okada's
"defection" therefore came as a major shock/sensation and dominated the press during 
the entire 1938 New Years season. Thereafter, however, the subject was allowed to lapse 
into obscurity--in terms of direct press treatment, in any case. Reading various film 
articles and round-table discussions of the era one gets the impression that the 
incident had struck deep into the sensibilities of the film community (and presumably 
the "public mind" as well). Oblique references to the incident (such as references to 
"the one who ran away") tended to emerge for years afterward.
In probing the psychological effect of the Okada/Sugimoto defection, one need only 
recall the oft-invoked cliche of the era--"Japan has no Switzerland"--meaning that 
since there was no convenient foreign country capable of providing political asylum, 
one had best stay at home, cope, and where necessary compromise and collaborate. While 
the official line was that Okada had violated the sacred national boundary and had 
engaged in an act of treason, one gets the feeling that in the popular mind her act had 
stirred a certain amount of envy and even "respect"--this, despite the fact that even 
today social and film historians regularly refer to it as an act of "folly."The first 
in-depth treatment of the incident was done by Kishi Matsuo in his 1960s volume NIHON 
EIGAJIN-DEN, where the defection is explained (away) as the result of sexual 
infatuation. Okada had no political opinions, Kishi holds, and it was a spur of the 
moment decision, apparently an act of "affirmation" of the opinions of her lover. As 
far as I know, Okada herself has never really explained the reason for her defection. 
Therefore, unlike either Matsui Sumako or Abe Sada, the enduring meaning of the Okada 
Yoshiko incident has remained inchoate--reflected perhaps in the fact that there have 
appeared no Okada Yoshiko movies.
In the late 1980s, the prelude period to Okada's much-publicized nostalgic journey home 
from the USSR was characterized by an outpouring of sentimentalism and "forgiveness." 
Part of it was clearly the sense of closure implied by her return after so many years 
to the homeland. The defection was coming full circle, the final development in an 
incident spanning the fifty years of the wartime and postwar eras. Now, ten years on, 
however, one gets the feeling that it also marked the beginning of the present era in 
which significant sectors of Japan are unilaterally "forgiving" and absolving the 
wartime generation for excesses on the opposite side of the political spectrum. 

The element linking the "heroines" of the three incidents was the unselfconsciousness 
with which they transgressed the boundaries which hemmed in other, more ordinary women 
of their era. In the cases of Matsui Sumako and Okada Yoshiko, at least, we see the 
peculiar phenomenon of women of great daring, talent and audacity positioning 
themselves in opposition to a male-dominant social context and thrusting upon that 
society the responsibility of finding a means to accomodate them. In all three 
instances, too, we see how flexibly and subtly Japanese society can move  to create a 
space to accomodate such unique individuals and their iconoclasm.  All three ultimately 
achieved acceptance and even a certain amount of esteem from their contemporaries and 
their posterity. The rule seems to be that truly outrageous individuals, as long as 
they have the perseverence to tough it out, will eventually be awarded a  niche--often 
a prominent one--of their own. This quality is equally apparent today, as in the case 
of Mikawa Ken'ichi, who is regularly featured as "one of the women" in panel discussion 
shows today, neatly eliding all (or most) references to his/her real identity as a 
transvestite male.

Although the phrase seems now to have gone out of currency, "pushy" and/or unattractive 
upper-middle aged women were were for a time regularly referred to as "obatarion"--a 
uniqely Japanese neologism compounded from "oba" (aunt) and the title of the cult 
horror movie *Battalion* in which dead flesh is revived v (via a gas, was it?). The 
almost violent disgust implied in the phrase continues to be reflected in such tv ads 
as the one in which a young man  recoils in horror as he is about to acidentally kiss 
one of these "obatarion." A couple of years ago, Tonneruzu tv star Ishibashi Takaaki 
(whom I heartily detest) was almost embroiled in a law suit when he lured another such 
woman out on stage dressed only in bra and panties and then began to revile her for her 
ugly body. This is the hostile context in which Nomura "Satchi" emerged  as a 
sharp-tongued, admittedly talentless "tarento." For a time, this brassy (and, frankly, 
utterly UTTERLY unattractive) woman seemed successful in her out bid to stake out her 
own niche in the brutal world of "geinokai" television. Somehow, by pushing her own 
"obatarion" pugnacity into the face of viewers and fellow-panelists alike, she actually 
gained a certain amount of authority--MORAL authority, as shown in the shows where she 
appeared as a panmelist lecturing frivolous young couples on the errors of their ways. 
As in the case of the three women depicted above, the oppressive walls of social 
opprobrium seemed to be moving back to accomodate this one outrageous "exception." Such 
as we now see was not to be the case.

The  ingredient to be found in the cases of three pre-war woman but missing in that of 
Satchi was catastrophe, tragedy, the completely unremediable screw-up. They had to 
descend into the cauldron of infamy and then be resurrected, not through their own 
efforts but through a reinterpretation (or universalization) of the significance of 
their folly. Even Mikawa Ken'ichi had to drop into oblivion before being resurrected as 
a "lovable" sage of popular tv. 
Well, Satchi now has her seemingly unremediable screw-up. (As I write this, late night 
television is reporting that her case has now come out onto the floor of the Diet!) 
Satchi herself alternates between silence and defiance, just the right attitude to 
stimulate the pundits. Will she be consigned forever to popular odium? Somehow I think 
not. The dramatic structure seems to be in place for some sort of reversal--although 
just how this would be achieved I have no idea. The game is afoot. Or, to use another 
metaphor, the concentrics are spreading out across the surface of national 
consciousness. We must wait and watch to see what they ultimately configure.

Peter B. High
Nagoya University