AW: New God by Tsuchiya Yutaka

Tue Feb 29 13:31:30 EST 2000

Dear Gavin

In reading your answer to Janine's  I somehow first agreed with it (if you
hear the story twice, you begin to belief in it). But then I thought about
it just a little bit more. Isn't it it the same here, only that we don't
want to recognize it entirely. I say this because of our European
extreme-rightwingers. The younger generation is extremely attracted by such
people as Haider, Stoiber or Blocher. I don't think its only because of the
extreme right wing politics they preach, but much more because they sell
themselves as anti-establishement (even if they are part of governments) and
winner brands. Two articles (only in german) that I read lastly made me
think even more so:

First (only in german):
Die Labels r?sten sich f?r den Anfang des Jahrtausends mit ihren Adjudanten
zu den neuen Superm?chten. Es geht nicht um Aussehen oder Stil, nat?rlich
auch, aber im Kern geht es um die Frage: Sind Sie Prada? Sind Sie Gucci?
Entweder? Oder!
Der perfekte Gucci-Typ sieht aus wie Popstar Ricky Martin oder J?rg Haider,
ist mit Michelle Hunziker verheiratet und geht abends mit Udo J?rgens, Vera
Dillier oder Thomas Bickel auf ein paar Mojitos ins Z?rcher "Terrasse". Zu
Hause h?rt er Pet Shop Boys, Orgelkonzerte von Bach oder Madonna, glaubt an
die "Vogue", telefoniert mit einem Nokia-Handy und entspannt sich in St.
Moritz oder auf Mallorca.
Der perfekte Prada-Mensch dagegen s?he aus wie Charles Clerc und w?re mit
Hannes Hug oder Danielle Lanz verheiratet, sieht "Arte", liest "Wallpaper",
Baudrillard, Murakami Haruki, geht ebenfalls ins "Terrasse", findet den
Dalai Lama und den Buddhismus attraktiv, mag keine bekennenden Popstars und
h?rt deshalb Massive Attack oder Kruder & Dorfmeister und lebt, also kocht
und pflegt seinen Garten, in Z?rich, Manhattan oder Tokio. Seine Freunde:
Herzog & DeMeuron, Sting und Sabrina Setlur. Handy: Ericsson
aus: KRIEG DER RELIGIONEN: GUCCI GEGEN PRADA von Anne Philippi, Das Magazin
Nr. 08, 26.02. bis 03.03.2000, Tages-Anzeiger (Switzerland)

Second (only in german):
Eine Art zukunftsgerichteter Sozialdarwinismus also?
Ja, und er passt ganz gut zu den modernen hedonistischen Haltungen; die
Burschen sind im Unterschied zu den alten, zugekn?pften Politikern ja total
locker und sinnenfroh, beim Geburtstag von Haider gab es beispielsweise
kostenlosen Viagra-Schnaps. Hierin unterscheiden sie sich von den Nazis,
die, psychologisch gesprochen, auf Triebkontrolle setzten. Das geh?rt zum
Neo-Macho-Programm. Der historische Rahmen ist ja auch v?llig anders als im
Nationalsozialismus. Im Nationalsozialismus gab es die Idee, aufgrund von
wirtschaftlicher Autarkie Imperien zu schaffen mit der Vorherrschaft einer
Rasse ?ber andere, riesige innere M?rkte also, die unabh?ngig vom Weltmarkt
machen. Das ist heute selbstverst?ndlich ganz anders, eine Abkoppelung vom
Markt ist heute nicht denkbar. Es ist letztlich ein markt- und konsumfrohes
Programm, verbunden mit der Freude an der St?rke und am Triumph.

Sie beschreiben ein sehr viriles Programm. Sie selbst haben schon fr?h
empirische Untersuchungen ?ber Haiders W?hlerschaft gemacht. Ist es
tats?chlich so, dass Haider die junge m?nnliche Arbeiterschaft anspricht?
Sicher spricht er junge M?nner an, aber auch junge Frauen. Es gibt einen
Komplex, den wir wissenschaftlich die Dysmorphophobie genannt haben, also
die Angst vor der Missgestaltetheit unseres K?rper; das haben erstmals die
jungen Burschen in der Pubert?t. Diese Dysmorphophobie wird von den Medien
st?ndig gepflegt, die Angst, nicht sch?n, stark oder jung genug zu sein.
Jeder Rechtsextremismus und jeder Rassismus antwortet auf diese ?ngste,
schon alleine durch die rassistische Fantasie, zu den Leuten mit den
sch?neren und besseren K?rpern zu geh?ren. In Haiders Modell erscheint das
modernisiert, in Form des Fitness- und Macho-Kultes, durch den sich junge
und ?ltere M?nner angesprochen f?hlen, aber auch Frauen.
RATTENFAENGER JAGT KINDERSCHAENDER, Ulrike Baureithel im Gespr?ch mit Klaus
Ottomeyer, Die Wochenzeitung Nr. 8 / 24. Februar 2000
http://www.woz.ch/wozhomepage/8j00/AU_8j00.htm

Sorry for the people who can't read german, but it is to much to translate
and also slightly out of topic. The first excerpt shows that Austrian
extreme right-winger Haider is already very near to be treated like a brand
himself and the second shows that Haider is popular because he is an
incarnation of the zeitgeist.

I am coming back to New God. I also saw it in Yamagata and most young people
there responded emotionally, subjectively (they understood the girl's
aspirations) and not intellectually, objectively (the topic wasn't the
extreme right wing in Japan today). They didn't bother with the politics,
because they weren't really interested in it. (The filmmaker seemed not
really interested in it either).
 In a way they reacted to it as the protagonists did to politics in the
film - and as establishement politics works mostly in the so-called first
world these days. Politicians use words and it doesn't mean much. You vote
but it doesn't change that much. Economics shape the world. That economics
is still politics, goes mostly unreflected - and that's the great threat.

To change the brand (the political party) seems therefore something
possible - in a way you know that it doesn't change that much and on the
other way you also would like it to change (even for the worst). This
perverse feeling is expressed at the beginning of New God. The girl wants to
feel alive again in this chloroformed society.

In this regard the attraction of the extreme right wing functions like a
horrormovie, it's seems scarier then it is  -  because it's just another
brand.

I explain: the kick of a horrormovie is to feel your guts - to feel alive to
keep it simple. But because it is a movie, you are protected. In New God,
the right wing fascination works the same way - the protagonists feel more
alive being right wingers (being radical punks; affirming their "alien"
status) and at the same time they are convinced that they will not change
Japan. All the right wing manga fantasies (like "Silent Service" by
Kawaguchi Kaiji, a manga who came up in the discussion that followed the
screening) haven't either.

That this kind of perverse-attraction-with-airbag (the airbag being that
every party in power works more or less the same as all the others) is
extremely dangerous - because it states that ongoing history of the first
world will ever remain the same, a somewhat boring, but stable consumer
democracy nonhistory, -  is obvious.

In Austria a new chapter has been opened now - it will tell us a lot about
new gods and what extreme right wing politics are about today. Let's just
hope that resistance will not fade away. So far the civil society in Austria
is not to blame, it seems more awake and healty then Sch?ssel and Haider
probably ever thought.

Best regards
Roger

P.S.: I also send this email to the Nyon Film Festival (1 to 7 of May 2000)
and his director Jean Perret. Jean Perret was in Yamagata to see "New God"
and it will therefore probably be screened in Nyon.
They are expecting this year:
The Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase with her contemplative documentaries,
but also Temirbek Birnazarov, Matsue Tetsuaki, Johan van der Keuken, Wu
Wengua, James Felter, Hans-Dieter Grabe, Lucie Lambert, Manfred Neuwirth,...

Find more informations at:
http://www.visionsdureel.ch/

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
[mailto:owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu]Im Auftrag von
GavinRees at aol.com
Gesendet: Dienstag, 29. Februar 2000 12:41
An: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Betreff: Re: New God in Berlin

In a message dated 29/2/00 5:08:05 am, Janine wrote:

<< In his report Tsuchiya quotes one spectator who
said something to the effect that changing from the political right to
the left rather seemed like switching the brand of ones car. That sounds
like a very accurate metaphor to me. Right or left becomes a decision
made according to the simple question of what (in this case emotional)
reward does one get from belonging to (read: consuming) this or that
group. So then, where's the difference between an ideology and a car
when both are treated as a consumer article that you either throw away
after use or resale it by taking part in a documentary?>>

I saw the New God in Yamagata, and in a predominantly Japanese audience. I
am
not surprised in Berlin that somebody made the point that ideology seemed to
be reduced to consumer choice. The situations in the film: ultra-nationalist
punk meets left wing intellectual, gets bored with fascist sugar daddy,
hangs
out with the red army, then falls in love,  have the kind of comic madness
about them that smacks of a British advertising campaign, or a very ironic
British caper movie.   Nothing appears real or deeply lived.

The thing is, though,  history in Japan isn"t deeply lived, and digested in
the way it is in some where like Germany. Japanese history teaching in
schools has to be amongst the most selective and incompetent in the
indusialised world, perhaps even as bad as English teaching there.
Impressions and storys from the past come to most teenagers in a garbled
distorted fashion. If they arrive at all,  they appear like heavily
retouched
or romanticised photos, thema for manga.  I think the strength of the New
God
is that it catches this. The  characters are searching for identity when
everything appears false, when ideologies have been reduced to brands. They
are aware of losing something. One of the difficulties they face in the film
is not knowing how to articulate those ideas purely with reference to
themselves. They try and define who they are through the groups around them,
but become lost in the realisation that Japan as a national identity, be it
left or right, can"t shoulder all, or even most of, the burden of defining
them as individuals. (My suspicion is that because that Japanese people tend
to be brought up as group orientated, is that when there are individual
crises of identity, that they more readily use the nation as a metaphor for
this than other communities. Though, of course, all do to some extent.)  At
the heart of the film there is  a deep confusion and loneliness.

To get back to the point I suspect it is hard for  a German audience to
understand that in Japan ideleologies really do feel a little like brands,
or
fashion  choices, even if people devote themselves to them with an all
consuming energy. You can't translate the categories in a simple linear way.

Gavin