[KineJapan] Macaroni westerns--the name and the claim

[Anne McKnight]

Hi everyone~

I’m looking for some context for the term “macaroni western.” I think many people know that it is the way that the discussions of “Spaghetti westerns” were localized into Japan. I have read in various places that the phrase was coined  somewhere in a discussion between popular film critic/editor Yodogawa Nagaharu (淀川長治) and the seibu-geki critic Fukazawa Tetsuya (深沢哲也), around 1965. I think they were a bit offended at the ripoff of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo even in the (Japanese) title of 『荒野の用心棒』 and thought of the "macaroni" bit as a way to be a bit pointed about that critique. (Perhaps someone older than me, who knew Tokyo in the 60s can confirm, but I think spaghetti was not generally known, and as an insult “spaghetti” didn’t have a shomin-teki punch, whereas macaroni had the advantage of being an actual referent, having a presence in the deli delight of the macaroni salad.) To complicate matters more, Yogodawa is also reported saying 「スパゲッティでは細くて貧弱そうだ」, which I think is a crack about the thinness and general minginess of spaghetti, and also about the derivative nature of Leone's ripoff of Yojimbo, resulting in the claim against Leone. (Not long after, the macaroni western boom would happen on tv, but Fukuzawa/Yodogawa’s opinion, as much as the genre name, remains interesting to me…)

I’m trying to track the history/travels of this phrase, along with the cultural politics of macaroni versus spaghetti. When I think of a story like “American Hijiki,” which came out in 1967, the cultural politics on nutrition, nationalism, theft etc. are intriguing...

I think typically the switch to “macaroni" is interpreted as “in Japanese it is easier to pronounce macaroni, so that’s why,” but I am not sure. Nagahara, of course, had a very long televisual career—so I wonder if this conversation took place on TV, on the show he regularly hosted, 『日曜洋画劇場』or another show. I am not finding anything in print. And Yodogawa was HUGE on tv (you can see a bunch of his clips on YouTube). Has anyone run across discussion of a broadcast date or taidan venue and date in which macaroni westerns feature?

Anyway, further attempts to overthink along with me this conceptual translation of B-kyu cuisine and genre film into the macaroni western would be much appreciated—!

Thanks!

Anne 
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