PM Yoshida's "sports, screen and sex"

[Jasper Sharp]

I do know that rising prominence of the 3 S's was of some concern to conservative nationalists during the late 1920s and early 1930s, as a threat to national polity. Cinema, particularly Hollywood with its relatively loose moral code, was seen as introducing foreign customers, loan words and morales during this period, as well as foreign influenced "ero guro nansensu" pulp literature such as that produced by Edogawa Rampo. Sport was also seen as an example of mass popular culture.Darrell William Davis' book Picturing Japaneseness mentions, on pg 57, a Japan Times article from November 24th 1929 entitled "The Three Dangerous S's: Sports, Screen and Sex" (remember all three would have been spelt and pronounced in its transliterated katakana form, literally spelling out their "foreign-ness"), which I think is where the term first appeared.In Yutaka Tsuchiya's 1999 documentary The New God, the 3 S's are invoked again in the lyrics of one of the songs by Karin Amemiya's group The New Revolutionary Truth to pour scorn on the modern Japanese's "American-inspired" propensity for mindless consumerism. So Yoshida's policy was one to encourage "democratization" and economic growth through encouraging spending - not too dissimilar to one desperate British Prime Minister's attempts at the moment to get us out of recession!Hope this helps,jasperMidnight Eye
www.midnighteye.com> Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:27:55 +0100> From: eigagogo at free.fr> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu> Subject: PM Yoshida's "sports, screen and sex"> > Dear all,> > While browsing through the informative Abe Sada wikipage, i found a mention> about PM Yoshida Shigeru's "sports, screen and sex" policy:> '... Wishing to divert public attention from politics, and criticism of the> occupying authorities, the Yoshida government openly encouraged a "3-S" policy--> "sports, screen and sex"> > As it features words 'screen & sex', i was wondering whether this policy had an> effect on the rise of erotic-themed movies production? By the way, when was this> policy applied  (1949 ..54?), did it interfere with the occupying authorities> own policy (in something similar as the jidai-geki ban)?> > I doubt it proved to be of any significant importance movie-wise .. but maybe> some interesting historical facts can emerge?> > > > > Regards,> > Martin
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