The Cove

[Aaron Gerow]

The Asahi reports this morning that two more theaters have decided not  
to show The Cove: Cinemart Roppongi and Cinemart Shinsaibashi (in  
Osaka). Both are owned by SPO, which gave as the reason, "The chances  
this would cause problems for customers and neighbors has increased."  
Both are theaters that buckled under to right-wing pressure and  
decided not to show Yasukuni.

The article says that 26 theaters signed up to show The Cove, but the  
distributor has been keeping the list secret for fear of  
demonstrations. Now 3 of those have decided not to show the film.

As for Mark's question, the reason always given in these cases is that  
they fear "gomeiwaku o kakeru." A Nihonjinron argument would be that  
this is the way Japanese are--they always are concerned about what the  
neighbors think and do not want to cause trouble--but I think it is as  
much an economic reason as any. Especially in today's Japanese film  
industry, where you see 10 companies collaborating to make one film,  
there are few companies that are truly independent: they all have  
economic ties to someone or another and are dependent on maintaining  
good relations with those companies. There are not many who want to  
risk those relations even if you might get one hit movie. One must  
also ask about the presence of the yakuza in the film industry, one  
that was quite pervasive for a long time, especially in exhibition.  
People don't talk about it much nowadays, but if the yakuza are still  
involved, this could explain another influence on these theaters since  
most of the right-wing groups have yakuza ties.


Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
site: www.aarongerow.com