Hikikomori

[Jonathan M. Hall]

Dear All,

Anne's commentary here captures tremendously well the critical work  
of a very necessary film.  I'd suggest starting with Tsuchiya's work,  
too.  If one looks more broadly at the phenomenon of youth isolation  
and its relation to technology, I think popular films such as Iwai  
Shunji's ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU and Kurosawa Kiyoshi's PULSE also  
become relevant.

Jonathan

-----
Jonathan M. Hall
Japanese Film, Media, and Modern Literature
Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature / Film & Media Studies

320 Humanities Instructional Building
UC Irvine, Irvine CA 92697-2651 USA
office: 1-949-824-9778
fax: 1-949-824-1992

Co-Chair, Queer Caucus, Society for Cinema and Media Studies



On Mar 23, 2007, at 5:38 PM, anne mcknight wrote:

> Tsuchiya Yûtaku's film/video _Peep "TV" Show_ has an interesting
> hikikomori character.
>
> The character is featured in one of the film's "cinéma verité"
> sequences, when the character, a college age-ish boy, directly faces
> the camera and speaks, a bit emotionally, in defense of himself,
> responding to what he sees as unfair typing by pop sociology writers
> and academics. These are writers who typically see hikikomori as a
> kind of sad-sack failure to engage with reality in more conventional,
> less mediated ways. This character is skeptical of the glee with which
> the term is often applied, and treats it quite clinically himself.
>
> While the advocates of "sociologising" are not named in the film, the
> very judgemental tone and their quick typing of hikikomori as a
> "social problem" resonate with writers such as sociologist Miyadai
> Shinji, who has many publications speaking and diagnosing the
> unconscious of hikikomori. Other such sequences in _P"TV"S_ include a
> female sex worker of a similar age, who also speaks her mind in the
> face of sociologising stereotype, and a salaryman who is about to
> explode out of anger at the sentimental rituals devoted to nationalist
> war memory as August 15 approaches, in the film.
>
> I think the three are linked because each snaps at a certain point,
> and has an outburst directed, in cinéma verité form. The roles that
> antagonise them are different--the boy who "doesn't want to grow up,"
> the girl who "sells her body" yet makes more money as a "health
> worker" than in a respectable job, the salaryman who "takes things too
> seriously."
>
> I use all these scare quotes just to indicate how critical the film
> is, in general, of social typing, and how the mysteries of social
> types fuel media hysteria about various crises in the film--from 9/11
> and its relation to Tokyo, to the crisis of boys who stay in their
> rooms.
>
> Amazon now carries the film, so you can get your hands on it pretty  
> easily.
>
> Anne
>
> On 23/03/07, Rob Smith <robixsmash at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I apologize if this has been brought up before I joined the list,  
>> but I was
>> wondering if anyone could offer a list of Japanese films about  
>> hikikomori
>> (that have English subtitles, of course), whether as the main plot  
>> or as a
>> subplot.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> --
>> -rob
>> http://www.robixsmash.com/
>

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