Film in the Hinterlands

[Lori Hitchcock]

I have also been reading with interest the discussions on the Eiga Arts
"incident" and conservatism in the countryside; while I cannot claim much
in the way of knowledge of general patterns of film reception in rural
Japan, it seems as though characterizing any one population as politically
one thing or another runs the risk of overgeneralization, and ultimately
confounds our attempts to understand what goes on - politically,
societally - at the local levels of a nation.  In my own case, the Tottori
town where I lived was an almost absurdly politically divided town, in
which the mayoral race, in particular, has consistently pitted neighbors
against one another since the long-time LDP mayor was ousted in 1991.
While the LDP still remains strong in town (I was actually brought along
on a town-hall field trip to see the Shimane hometown of former PM
Takeshita), their political hegemony is not as uncontested as it might
otherwise appear.

In terms of film reception, I would just mention, as an example, the film
appreciation class I "taught" at the local community center; among the
members was one of the two Communist party town council members, and her
participation, in particular, kept our discussions lively and heated.  I
can only speculate what would have happened had the same Eiga Arts
programme been shown to this group (I'm very sure that I would also have
been asked to retype my - JET - contract), but I believe that the group
would have been open to at least a discussion of the issues raised
therein.  Of course, the consequences of my showing such a programme, as a
foreigner, and of a local citizen doing the same thing might also have
been completely different, which itself suggests the necessity of looking
at such instances of film reception at the micro, rather than macro,
level.

Please forgive my ramblings...

Lori Hitchcock