MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA
Katedra Anglistiky a Amerikanistiky
Bakalářská diplomová práce
Petra Fišerová
2012 PETRA FIŠEROVÁ
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ARTS
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Petra Fišerová
On the Japanese in American Cinema Bachelor‘s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr.
2012
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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography...... Author’s signature
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Acknowledgement: I would like to thank Dr. Mark Hollstein, whose courses at Kansai Gaidai inspired me to write this thesis.
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC AND METHODOLOGY ...... 6
CHAPTER 1: From the 1860s Onward: Orientalism . . . . . 8
CHAPTER 2: Before 1941: Yellow Peril ...... 12
CHAPTER 3: 1941 – 1945: The Racism of World War II . . . 14
CHAPTER 4: 1945 – the 1970s: Post-War Trends ...... 20
CHAPTER 5: the 1970s – the 1990s : The Rise of Postmodernity
and Corporate Samurais ...... 28
CHAPTER 6: The Brink of Our Century: Japanese Cool . . 36
CHAPTER 7: The Third Millenium: Post-Racial Discourse . . 45
CONCLUSION: ...... 47
BIBLIOGRAPHY: ...... 49
ABSTRACT (English): ...... 54
RESUMÉ (Czech): ...... 55
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INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC AND METHODOLOGY
Why do Americans expect the Japanese to be treacherous yet honorable? How could the production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s allow Mickey Rooney‘s racist portrayal of Mr.
Yunioshi? What are the current stereotypes associated with Japan and the Japanese in
Hollywood? This and more will be clarified on the following pages. With a special focus on the latest generation, ―On the Japanese in American Cinema‖ will list and analyze
Hollywood‘s trends in portraying Japan and the Japanese from the silent era till 2012 and perhaps a few years beyond. The result of the research will be a useful list of stereotypes, their origins and manifestations in individual films. Another objective of this thesis is to raise awareness about the common practice od stereotyping in Hollywood.
The thesis will only research American production full-length films that had a theatre release. There is no space for made-for-TV films, animation, short features, or TV series.
These will be mentioned only if their involvement with the film industry is impossible to disregard. The thesis is based on quantitative research, therefore common features in several films will be considered more essential than a deep analysis of one film.
Each chapter will begin with an introduction into the cultural, social, economic, and foreign relations related conditions in which the film tropes and stereotypes were created.
For the lack of space, the occurence of the same trends and tropes in literature, music and other media will be ignored unless the reference is necessary. After the stereotype is indicated on a number of examples, the effect it has had on American audiences will be discussed. Since some works contain multiple tropes and stereotypes, it is inevitable that some films will be mentioned more than once in various segments of the thesis.
The chapter division of the thesis will follow a fairly loose definition of time periods.
Stereotypes in American cinema take years to develop and often overlap. In order to map them in a well-arranged manner, they will be listed in the time period they influenced the most but their description may include development stages before the assigned time period
6 and resonances that would come after. This loose arrangement is why chapters 1 and 2 overlap almost completely, chapters 6 and 7 overlap in a significant portion, and chapters 4,
5 and 6 share a decade within their boundaries.
The length of the chapters will be in favor of the latest American cinema development. The first five chapters can be even considered a mere reference sheet for putting chapters 6 and 7 into historical context.
Unfortunately, there is no space in the thesis for comparing Japanese and American points of view or media stereotypes. What may seem like favoritism to Japan and the
Japanese, especially in the chapters devoted to war-time and post-war development, is a simple analysis of the way American films portrayed facts and fiction.
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CHAPTER 1: From the 1860s Onward: Orientalism
From the first contact, Americans have been most fascinated and confused about
Japan. Lumping them together with other ‗Oriental‘ nations at first, they expected the
Japanese to be barbaric, mystical, sensual and somehow in direct contact with their ancient
heritage - as was noted by Walt Whitman in 1860 in his ―Broadway Pageant‖ (383).
However, Japan revealed itself to western eyes as a land of utmost contrasts. Heathen
yet civilised, highly cultured, cleaner than most Americans and shockingly polite – the
perplexing combination of Japanese qualities did not go unnoticed by Hollywood. It
manifests in a Japanese character in the 1915 silent film The Cheat. ―Both brutal and
cultivated, wealthy and base, cultured and barbaric, Tori embodies the contradictory
qualities Americans associated with Japan‖ (Marchetti 19).
The more Americans knew about Japan, the more baffled they were. To them, Japan
became the land of paradox, where everything is topsy turvy and no matter how much they
try, it would always be impossible to comprehend. Not for the lack of trying, however.
Over the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, western fascination
with Japanese culture produced a new artistic style: Japonisme. Imitating Japanese art
became a fashionable hobby, even though it did not bring much enlightenment about the
source material.
―East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet‖ became the motto
of approaching Japanese culture and people1. This approach, taken by most westerners in
the 19th century and continuously returning until today, can be called Orientalism as
Edward Said defined it in all three of its meanings: Orientalism as a study of the Orient;
Orientalism as a style of thought that divides the Orient and the Occident into contrasting
1 Nevermind that when Rudyard Kiplin wrote this verse, he concluded it with: ―But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth / When two strong men stand face to face, tho‘ they come from the ends of the earth‖ (141). 8
or opposing worlds; and Orientalism as a western style of dominating the Orient by
creating and controlling the identity of the Orient2.
Though seemingly innocent, Orientalism is a mild form of racism. After all, by
assigning certain qualities to certain peoples, we create racial stereotypes. The first frequent
Hollywood stereotypes about Japan and the Japanese are discussed below.
1.A The Exotic Seducer
One of the highest paid film actors of the silent era and so far the only Asian
American male romantic symbol in Hollywood, Sessue Hayakawa, appeared in over sixty
silent movies between 1914 and 1921. Early Hollywood provided cheap low-brow
entertainment for the working class, including thousands of immigrants, so a foreign lead
actor possibly attracted the viewers‘ sympathy.
Like many romantic leads of the silent era, for example the Italian Rudolph Valentino,
Sessue Hayakawa needed to play a dark, often brutal man with a soft and masochistic side
in order to deliver the desired taboos to the viewers. Foreign origin was the perfect excuse
to create a character of an immoral seducer.
Marchetti argues that because of his ethnicity, ―the effect of Hayakawa on American
women was even more electric than Valentino‘s. It involved fiercer tones of masochism as
well as a latent female urge to experience sex with a beautiful but savage man of another
race‖ (25). Another Hayakawa‘s advantage was that before his characters revealed their
savage urges for seduction, they offered ―a different type of masculinity (soft, effeminate,
yielding, ‗Asian‘) that may displace the banal paternalism [of conventional American
husbands]‖ (Marchetti 20).
Sessue Hayakawa‘s stardom came at the only possible time pre-Second World War
America could have embraced him. Hollywood atmosphere did not allow for another
Japanese actor to become an object of female viewers‘ affection until Cold-War policies
2 See the Bibliography. 9 and later postmodernity changed the film industry. Nevertheless, these changes relate to only several individual films instead of a trend, and even Sessue Hayakawa‘s stardom tends to be forgotten by cultural historians such as Ian Littlewood who says that ―Sex and the oriental male have never added up to anything very romantic in western eyes‖ (181).
1.B: The Noble Savage
The term ‗noble savage‘ refers to idealizing indigenous or less industrialized cultures for their apparent closer connection to the state of nature. A well-known and spread concept since the 18th century, it has been applied to many ethnicities and the Japanese are no exception.
Hand in hand with the belief that noble savages are commendable yet doomed to extinction for their lack of technological progress, a desire to protect Japanese culture appeared. These tendencies, expressed for example by Rudyard Kipling, imagined Japan as an ornament that should be preserved in its current state, forever still like a skansen so that the modern world can develop without losing its ancient beauty.
The noble savage stereotype would experience a strong comeback with post-war occupation and postmodernity.
1.C: First Interracial Love Stories
Sessue Hayakawa‘s exotic lovers might have been a rare occurence in Hollywood history; however, Mary Pickford‘s portrayal of Cho Cho San in Madame Butterfly (1915) started a long tradition of love stories between an American man and a Japanese woman.
Based on John Luther Long‘s 1898 short story of the same name and inspired by the success of Puccini‘s opera adaptation, Madame Butterfly is a silent film about a fifteen-year- old geisha‘s tragic marriage to an American officer who uses her and leaves her. Cho Cho
San is shown as an inferior woman, childish and naïve yet blindly loyal. Mary Pickford, the most popular American actress at the time, refused to act out the Oriental caricature
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Americans expected form a Japanese character, and she thereby made the role easier to sympathise with. In the ending scene, as Cho Cho San gives her child to her husband‘s
American wife and drowns herself in a lake, an intertitle exclaims: ―Could one give up more for love than did little Cho Cho San!‖
Madame Butterfly used its tragic love story as a cautionary tale for American officers stationed in Japan as well as their fiancées and wives at home. In the future, the interracial love story would be used for other topical purposes.
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CHAPTER 2: Before 1941: Yellow Peril
At the turn of the nineteenth century, Japan expanded both economically and
militarily, casting a shadow over America‘s interest in Asia. As early as 1896, the North
American Review was featuring an article called ―Is Japanese Competition a Myth?‖
In reaction to continuous waves of immigration, re-invigorated nationalism arose in
the USA and inspired Hollywood to produce the extremely controversial yet popular The
Birth of a Nation (1915), a silent film where the Ku Klux Klan are painted as American
heroes protecting white women from savage and sexually aggressive black men. Sessue
Hayakawa‘s violent seducer in The Cheat from the same year was not just an escapist
fantasy - it became a warning3. Between 1908 and 1924 Japanese immigrants, the new
‗yellow peril‘, were forbidden to set foot on American land.
Yellow peril stereotypes included:
2.A: The Infiltrator
In The Cheat, we can barely tell Sessue Hayakawa‘s character Tori apart from other
American gentlemen when he is wearing western clothing. At a party, he chats away with
the gentlemen‘s wives, accepted by them and at first sight feminized and subservient.
However, once Edith faints into his arms with no one else around, he jumps at the chance
and steals a kiss from her. As the film progresses, he reveals his demonic nature, offering to
save Edith from her financial problems if she gives herself to him. She agrees but later
refuses to go through with the deal. Enraged, he attempts to rape her and brands her with a
hot iron shaped into his name before she shoots him.
3 A warning that became mute due to Japanese assistance in World War I. In The Cheat‘s 1918 re-release, the villain‘s ethnicity was changed to Burmese. 12
The message is clear. They are here, walking among us, waiting for their chance to
strike4. Japanese Americans. They are not Americans – they are Japanese. This belief was
the main reason thousands of Japanese American citizens were moved to internment
camps during World War II.
2.B: The Inscrutable
Based on a series of novels, eight features about a Japanese character in service of
international justice, Mr. Moto, were created between 1937 and 1939. Mr. Moto is a spy, a
detective similar to Sherlock Holmes in his wit and talent for disguises, and also a martial
artist. On his missions, he shows the audience exotic places, while himself being an exotic
character.
And yet, despite being the protagonist of every film he is in, he gives off a strange
vibe. ―If I was casting a horror picture, I‘d have him play the murderer,‖ says an American
voice in Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938). Mr. Moto is extremely polite and slightly
effeminate in most scenes, yet surprisingly quick, violent and cunning in every film‘s finale.
These qualities are considered positive (for now) because he is the hero. It is his
inscrutability that makes his viewers uncomfortable. No one can tell what he is thinking or
planning, not even his friends and allies, when he gives them his sly and dicomforting smile.
Inside the yellow peril atmosphere, Japanese etiquette of not burdening others with
one‘s emotions was interpreted as a hidden agenda. These were the first steps to the
stereotype of Japanese treachery, which will be discussed in the next chapter.
4 Such were the suspicions of American citizens who wrote many letters to President Theodore Roosevelt, convincing him that their Japanese American neighbors were spying on public buildings in their towns (Iriye 78-79). 13
CHAPTER 3: 1941 – 1945: The Racism of World War II
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USA entered war with Japan. It was imperative
to convince the non-interventionist nation that sending soldiers to fight on foreign land
was not only necessary, but the righteous thing to do. The reasoning behind waging war
with Japan, as presented in propaganda material, was multiple. While protecting China (and
American interests in China) might not have convinced an average citizen, the other two
certainly could: One, avenging Pearl Harbor, and two, ridding the world of the most
despicable villains, the Japanese.
The PR treatment that the attack on Pearl Harbor was given was considerably
unique. America might have praised Japan for a similar surprise attack on a legitimate
military target during the Russo-Japanese war, but this time, the attack was interpreted as
the worst kind of treachery, a sign of immorality, baseness and as Americans would call it,
‗dirty play‘. Instead of comforting the public, the media presented the tragedy of Pearl
Harbor as an abhorrent offense to American pride and dignity, an open wound that would
never heal unless the Japanese were thoroughly punished.
To paint the picture of the Japanese as an army of demons, simply showing footage
of the massacres in China would suffice. Nevertheless, American propagandists needed
their citizens to feel personally endangered by Japan. That is how the fictional5 Tanaka
Memorial was born. How well spread the news of this Japanese version of Mein Kampf
were shows in films such as Blood on the Sun (1945) and documentaries such as Know Your
Enemy: Japan (1945). To the American public, the Tanaka Memorial was the ultimate proof
that Japan planned to take over the whole world, with the USA second in line after China.
The following list of stereotypes associated with the Japanese shows that the key
element of American propaganda was to dehumanize and demonize the enemy nation,
possibly the whole of it, not just the soldiers (especially when air raid bombings of Japanese
5 ―Most scholars now agree that it was a masterful anti-Japanese hoax‖ (Dower 22). 14 cities and the two atomic bombs came along). ―The dehumanization of the Other contributed immeasurably to the psychological distancing that faciliates killing ‖ (11),
Dower explains.
The secondary objectives of war-time propaganda were many, and some of them contradicting: to awake bravery yet to strike fear in American hearts; to equal fighting with the Japanese to vermin extermination yet to warn against their ‗superman‘ qualities; to paint them as malicious sadistic villains yet to describe them as brainwashed puppets of the emperor. That is why the stereotypes listed below may seem hard to combine with each other. They will be ―subhuman, inhuman, lesser human, superhuman‖ (Dower 9) but as we established, never simply human.
3.A: Yellow Peril Continued: The Treacherous Japanese
The trope of the inscrutable Japanese remained – ―You are always so calm. You never show anything,‖ says Alberta Marlow in Across the Pacific (1942) to a befriended
Japanese – but it is mostly combined with the infiltrator stereotype into a treacherous character. Though difficult to associate with the image of noble savage, especially the honorable samurai, the treacherous stereotype has been stuck in American memory ever since mostly due to two words: Pearl Harbor. ―Over the years Pearl Harbor has become an enduring reference point for Japanese untrustworthiness‖ (167), Littlewood says.
After 1941, the paranoia about Japanese Americans culminated – the mastermind behind a bomb attack on America in Across the Pacific called himself ―a second-generation
Japanese ... born in the good old USA‖ – and films like Little Tokyo, U.S.A. (1942) encouraged the animosity so openly they had to be censored. The plot of Little Tokyo,
U.S.A. led an American detective from a string of murders to a community of Japanese
Americans who feigned patriotism while aiding the attack on Pearl Harbor. Following the yellow peril trend, the film made a special point of second-generation Japanese Americans being truly Japanese and serving as spies for their real homeland.
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It came as no surprise when the government reasoned removing Japanese Americans
into internment camps with not only the protection of the USA from Japanese spies and
terrorrists, but also the protection of Japanese Americans from other Americans.
3.B: Vermin or Cattle at Best
Comparing Japanese army and navy to swarms and herds due to their sense of
collectivism and organized behavior became a tool for diminishing the fear factor in
American soldiers and their families. In fact, in the opening scene of Objective Burma (1945),
it is the Japanese soldier‘s ―fatal mistake ... to neglect the stubborn individuality of his
American enemy‖ (Littlewood 13) when he calls him ‗an American Joe‘. The image of
vermin also justified killing. The phrase ―Jap rat‖ became especially popular during war-
time propaganda.
The concept of the Japanese as vermin would return later in the 1980s.
3C: ‘A Marked Resemblance of Monkeys’
Looking for similarities between the Japanese and apes or monkeys is a trend that
can be traced as far as the first contact in the 1860s6, although it has never been as strong
as it was during World War II. Calling the Japanese ‗monkeys‘ became so common it made
American people believe that the jungle of Pacific islands was their natural habitat (as is
suggested in the opening scene of Objective Burma). In 1996, Ian Littlewood wrote:
How far the image can encroach on people‘s grasp of reality is suggested by
contemporary rumours that the Japanese have accomplished their rapid
advance down the Malay peninsula in 1942 by swinging through the jungle
from tree to tree. In the general fog of ignorance a cartoonist‘s fantasy could
be taken for literal truth. (18)
6 For more information see ―A Marked Resemblance of Monkeys‖, a chapter in Ian Littlewood‘s The Idea of Japan: Western Images, Western Myths. 16
3.D: The Degenerate Homo Sapiens
If propaganda cartoonists did not draw the Japanese as rats or monkeys, they chose
the caricature of a degenerate simpleton with a small forehead (and therefore small brain), a
buck-toothed grin, near-sighted slanted eyes and the rest of the body small-sized so that
said features would be almost all one can see of the pictured person.
Arguments were made to prove the degeneration of the Japanese people – in Capra‘s
Know Your Enemy: Japan, for example, Japanese Warring States period followed by a period
of isolation allegedly caused the nation‘s blood to ‗spoil‘7. ―They‘re degenerate moral idiots,
stinking little savages,‖ is the conclusion of a character in Objective Burma.
The need for such caricatures had little to do with historical sciences – it simply
served to ridicule the race. Its most famous reappearance would be Mickey Rooney‘s
character of a Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). Wearing makeup that
distorted his features, including prosthetic buck teeth and thick glasses, speaking in a
humiliating accent and behaving as slapstick comedy relief, Mickey Rooney‘s Mr. Yunioshi
was the typical war-time caricature as made by Dr. Seuss or Disney or Warner Bros. or any
other propagandist. What was then considered a funny way of playing Japanese is now the
infamous, World War II referencing racist part of the film that viewers try to forget in
order to appreciate Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
3.E: Japanese Clone Wars
From a Caucasian perspective, we often hear that Asians look very similar to each
other. American propaganda took this idea even further in order to claim that the Japanese
resemble ―photographic prints off the same negative‖ (Know Your Enemy: Japan). Showing a
clip of a steel bar being hammered in a forge, Capra‘s film elaborated that the Japanese are
born extremely similar and then made exactly the same by being brainwashed with the
7 Naturally, to prevent any comparisons, American history had to be romanticized by the propaganda. 17
emperor‘s fanatic ideology. Surely it must be easier to kill empty-headed men who are mere
copies of one another than to take the life of a real human.
3.F: Robots and Supermen
Japanese stereotypes changed with the development of the Pacific War.
The American Army‘s Infantry Journal warned its readers against thinking of the
Japanese as ‗a buck-toothed, near-sighted, pint-sized monkey‘ and suggested
that a more accurate image might be ‗a robot-like creature‘. It was a prophetic
shift of clichés. (Littlewood 49)
An example can be seen in the wrestling match scene from Behind the Rising Sun
(1943) where an American boxer is sent to fight a tall, broad-shouldered Japanese (played
in yellowface). Using an unidentifiable ‗Japanese wrestling style‘, the enemy delivers kicks
below the waist and karate-like chops on the neck with the intention of killing. Hits
cushioned with boxer gloves do not seem to harm him as he continues to attack over and
over with uncanny self-discipline and only one directive on his mind: destroying his enemy.
In the end, he is defeated by American perseverance and ‗good old‘ American boxing.
3.G: The Holy War Concept
Studying World War II propaganda, a distinction between American opinions on
Germans and the Japanese becomes visible. It is rather ‗the Nazis‘ than Germans that
Americans are fighting8 (Dower 34). In the case of the Japanese enemy, the propaganda is
much stronger, and as a direct response, the opinions on the Japanese are more intense:
Dower says that because of the ―uncommonly treacherous and savage‖ stereotype, ―the
Japanese were more despised than the Germans‖ (33). The war with the Japanese was ―a
holy war‖ (Dower 7), a racial war not unsimilar to that with Native Americans. It was not
only the soldiers, it was the whole nation, the whole race that needed to be defeated.
8 After all, a good deal of founding American families have German origins. 18
―Wipe ‘em out, I say. Wipe ‘em out,‖ is the final decision of a character in Objective Burma. It was believed that ―Japan provoked war, and did so because of the peculiarities of its own history, culture, and collective psychology‖ (Dower 29). It was in their blood. The only solution was either complete extermination or what Dower called a psychological purge, which should go as follows:
[G]reat destruction and suffering should be inflicted upon Japan not simply as
punishment, or because this was essential to win the war, but rather because
only by turning Japan‘s cities into ashes could the Japanese people as a whole
be purged of their fanatic, militaristic sense of national and racial destiny. (56)
These ways of thinking justified the slaughter bombings and the two nuclear attacks perfectly. As a matter of fact, in a December 1945 poll among American citizens, only 5 percent of respondents opposed the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while 22.7 % expressed a wish that the United States had had the opportunity to use ―many more of them [atomic bombs] before Japan had a chance to surrender‖ (Fortune 305). A sentiment that the nuclear attacks were not only fully deserved, but not enough of a punishment, appeared – major at first, as you can see on the Fortune poll, then dying away, but never disappearing completely.
―Remember Pearl Harbor – keep ‘em dying,‖ was what the U.S. Marines used to say during the war. I was studying in Japan during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and what I found on international internet forums like Youtube and Deviantart, among thousands of
Americans showing support, were dozens of Americans, older but also of my own age, quoting ―Remember Pearl Harbor‖ and professing that the tragedy was well deserved. This sense of Pearl Harbor as unfinished business, as a sore unhealed wound, as a cause for an eternal grudge against the Japanese, is a direct result of American propaganda.
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CHAPTER 4: 1945 – the 1970s: Post-War Trends
World War II was followed by Cold War and as soon as 1950, with the beginning of
Korean War, the USA was allies with Japan again. American occupation of Japan was cut short with the exception of Okinawa military bases. A strong anti-racist movement entered
Hollywood not only to introduce Japan as an ally, but also to compensate for the bad reputation that the American Japanese community was given. Light-hearted comedies where interracial friendships and romance were encouraged were shot in Japan.
Post-war cinema dealt with the theme of World War II in several stages: the immediate which was cut off very soon and yet resonated in individual films until the
1960s; the influenced which came with Korean and Cold war; the distanced which I would say went as far as the mid-1990s; and the revisited which arrived with postmodernity.
Different themes were dealt with in respective stages as will be pointed out in the list of stereotypes below.
While war-time Japan was viewed as a brutal masculine power, post-war Japan became the opposite in American eyes. Japan itself changed its image into a nation of beautiful petite women and peaceful artists in order to invite international trade and communication. Much attention was paid to Japanese women, especially geishas, in post- war American cinema.
4:A: The Post-War Japanese Villain
A natural response of the film industry to the war would be to create a trend of
Japanese villains. Due to the cold-war development, however, this trend was rather hesitant in its assertion. The ―mainly a twentieth-century creation‖ of the Japanese villain whose sexuality was taken from oriental mysteriousness to sadism and other fetishes (Littlewood
170) was barely even present in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), one of the very few war films from the period with the Japanese as pure villains. However, a surprising slip of
20 reserve was a children‘s movie The Daydreamer (1966), where the villain mole, not unsimilar to a rat, does not only bear Japanese features, but is also voiced with Sessue Hayakawa‘s heavy Japanese accent.
4.B: Applying a Humanistic Approach
The most popular type of war-themed cinema took war not as an international military conflict, but as an extreme form of setting that challenges humanity and brings out existencial questions. ―They did not live... They existed,‖ says the opening title of King Rat
(1965), a film based on a James Clavell book about a prisoner camp in Singapore. There are almost no Japanese characters present in the story and when they are, they do not show outstanding cruelty or enjoyment over the protagonists‘ suffering; much like in Steven
Spielberg‘s Empire of the Sun (1987). The portrayal of survival is the main message of both these films.
In Hell in the Pacific (1968), Toshiro Mifune plays not only a major character – he makes up a half of the film‘s cast. His character is not as savage as propaganda would have him, nor as noble as japanophiles would have liked. He is human. Set as an isolated conflict on a Pacific island during World War II, Hell in the Pacific tells the story of an American and a Japanese soldier who fight at first but never kill each other, and eventully join forces in order to build a raft.
The humanistic approach also offered a certain amount of sympathy for the defeated
Japan. The state of post-war Tokyo is discussed but never shown in its entirety in Tokyo Joe
(1949), Joe Butterfly (1957), and A Girl Named Tamiko (1962). When Joe Butterfly describes the process of rebuliding houses with the help of family and neighbors, the Americans remember their own community and Joe Butterfly concludes: ―Ah sō. People same all over.‖
To emphasize the humanity of both Americans and the Japanese, Joe Butterfly uses yellow peril and propaganda stereotypes with a twist: the Japanese Joe is a sneaky servile
21 black-marketeer who tricks others for a living, but he does so in order to bring business to poor districts. ―It‘s bad times in Japan, sergeant. Man who follow righteous way sometimes watches children starve,‖ he explains. In another scene, an American character literally calls someone ―inscrutable Japanese,‖ however, it is meant well as it is addressed to a giggling girl he feels attracted to.
In order to enable the audience to identify with the film‘s protagonist while delivering a humanistic message, most Japan-themed films of the post-war era share a pattern: The lead character is an American man who has little sympathy for the Japanese.
Gradually, as he is introduced to the culture and the people, he finds respect and compassion in himself, and often enters into a relationship with a Japanese woman. This pattern can be seen in Three Stripes in the Sun (1955), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956),
Joe Butterfly (1957), Sayonara (1957), The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958), and Cry for Happy
(1961).
4.C: The Anti-Racist Agenda
Special attention was given to Japanese Americans in post-war Hollywood. A film about the U.S. 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit in U.S. Military history, where Japanese Americans served, was made in 1951, called Go for Broke.
Californians‘ prejudice about first-generation Japanese immigrants and interracial marriage were confronted in the 1952 Japanese War Bride. Hate crime committed on an American
Japanese was revealed in the climax of a noir thriller Bad Day at Black Rock (1955).
The Crimson Kimono (1959) was somewhat different than the rest. It portrays an ideal world where Japanese Americans feel, behave and are perceived as undoubtedly American.
―She was raised in Japan... So we‘d never agree on anything‖ Joe Kojaku reveals his
American values. ―It is not normal to keep my feelings bottled up,‖ he utters in another scene. There is basically no racism in The Crimson Kimono, except for one occasion. Finding himself on the winning side of a love triangle, Joe Kojaku sees envy and perhaps hate in his
22 long-time partner‘s eyes and interprets it as racism. ―I never felt this in the army and the police ... For the first time, I feel different ... I was born here, I‘m American, but down deep, what am I?‖ The accusation of racism turns out to be caused by Joe Kojaku‘s identity crisis.
The Crimson Kimono brought back the Japanese man who ultimately ‗gets the girl‘ in a film. The less successful version of this story element can be seen in Bridge to the Sun (1961) where the man dies in the end, and A Majority of One (1961) where the climax establishes friendship instead of romance.
Nevertheless, the topic of Japanese American imprisonment in internment camps during World War II would still have to wait for its feature film. Much like with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hollywood was not ready to face that part of American history yet.
4.D: Pleading the Fifth on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
This time, the trend discussed is a lack of a trend. There has been no attempt in
Hollywood so far to picture the tragic fate of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. There have been books, especially John Hersey‘s Hiroshima. There have been discussions about the Atomic
Age and a periodically returning anti-nuclear mood, ―[b]ut nowhere in American cinema do we see one victim of the bomb, one burning corpse, one person dying of radiation, one deformed child‖ (Bergan n.pag.).
Two films made soon after the war referred to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or as a matter of fact, just Hiroshima. In The Beginning Or the End (1947), a docudrama about the
Manhattan Project, we see the destruction of the first city from afar while ―the sanguine message of the movie is that America can be trusted to use this new weapon for universal good‖ (Bergan n.pag.). Above and Beyond (1952), a film about the life of the pilot who dropped ‗Little Boy,‘ ―seemed more concerned with the effects it had on the pilot's relationship with his wife‖ (Bergan n.pag.). In Empire of the Sun (1987), set in China, the bomb is reduced to a beautiful visual effect in the sky that, as the lead character later finds
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out, ended the war. As Bergan concluded, despite its fondness of tragedy, blood and gore,
American cinema has never tried to find a story in Hiroshima and Nagasaki‘s bombings.
If there was ever a Hollywood attempt to deal with any possible guilt over Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, it would be in films like The Barbarian and the Geisha (1957), where John
Wayne portrayed the first American ambassador to Japan not as the representative of the
country that forced Japan to open to America under an unequal trading contract, but as a
good-hearted man who helped the poor and uneducated Japanese ‗city villagers‘.
The reluctance to acknowledge this chapter of American history stands behind the
creation of a modern myth: By saying only ―Hiroshima‖ and not ―Hiroshima and
Nagasaki,‖ an unspoken image of only one atomic bomb being dropped on only one city
appears in our minds9.
4.E: Attempts at Historical Objectivity
Another wave of war-themed films (the distanced) came with the 1970s; this one
focused on dramatizing true events with a certain amount of historical objectivity while at
the same time maintaining the celebration of American victory10. Whereas in Tora! Tora!
Tora! (1970) the USA is on the losing side, and in Midway (1976) American navy wins a
battle, both share the same stereotype: the honorable Japanese leader who tips his hat to
his enemy. ―They sacrifice themselves like samurai, these Americans,‖ says the Japanese
vice admiral in Midway while the admiral who led the attack on Pearl Harbor has a long
speech on American virtues in Tora! Tora! Tora! :
9 This is reflected in film as well. When American internment camps were at last confronted in a feature film, Come See the Paradise (1990), the narrating character ended her story with a moving monologue: ―On August 6, they dropped a bomb on Hiroshima. It was a big bomb. They called it the atomic bomb. In nine tiny seconds, two hundred thousand people were killed. It had to be the end. No one could endure more.‖ However, instead of ‗dropping the other shoe‘ and telling her daughter about Nagasaki, the mother finished her story as if there was nothing more to say. As if the Nagasaki bombing never existed. 10 However, there are moments in both films that do not serve to celebrate the victorious nation of the U.S.A. For example, in Midway, a female Japanese American character complains: ―Damn it, I'm an American! What makes us different from German Americans or Italian Americans?‖ and her white American love interest‘s response is: ―Pearl Harbor... I guess.‖ 24
I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible
resolve ... Many misinformed Japanese believe that America is a nation
divided ... and that Americans are only interested in enjoying a life of luxury,
and are spiritually and morally corrupt. But that is a great mistake. If war
becomes inevitable, America would be the most formidable foe that we have
ever fought. I've lived in Washington and studied at Harvard, so I know that
the Americans are a proud and just people.
4.F: The Flawless Femininity of Geishas
The combination of post-war feminized Japan and the arrival of the Feminist
Movement drew American filmmakers‘ attention to Japan‘s concept of femininity. Japanese women were portrayed in Hollywood as the feminine ideal – gentle, beautiful, and satisfied with their gender role. After all, as a character in Joe Butterfly says, ―Japanese women do not argue.‖ The epitome of such perfect woman was a geisha.
In American eyes, geishas were fragile, submissive creatures unable to resist the charm of white men. ―I was sent to spy upon you... now I am ready to become whatever you want,‖ says Ando to John Wayne‘s character in The Barbarian and the Geisha. At the same time, geishas are supposed to be loyal and virtuous or as the protagonist of Cry for
Happy (1961) called them, ―ladies of quality.‖ They are allegedly selfless and completely focused on pleasing their men: ―Making a man happy is not a business with you, it‘s an art,‖ is another observation of American soldiers in Cry for Happy. Another named geisha quality is the absolute femininity with no hints of masculine ambition and their content with their station: ―There‘s something about you geishas ... It‘s a dignity, or a pride.‖
Geishas and Japanese women in general were therefore easily objectifiable in
American cinema, as is showcased in movie posters where Japanese female characters wear revealing dresses (Tokyo After Dark, 1959) or only a towel (House of Bamboo, 1955, and A
Girl Named Tamiko, 1962), or their kimonos are somehow unbound in order to show more
25 skin (Sayonara, 1957, and The Barbarian and the Geisha, 1958). The poses they find themselves in are at the white man‘s feet (The Barbarian and the Geisha), assisting white men in their baths (Cry for Happy), or being grabbed from behind by the Americans who are diving in to kiss their necks (Sayonara and A Girl Named Tamiko).
A commentary on female emancipation was provided directly in My Geisha (1962) and indirectly in Sayonara (1957). The lead character of My Geisha, played by Shirley
MacLaine, is a successful actress whose husband lives in her shadow. By following him to
Japan and pretending to be a geisha, she discovers that her dominant behavior makes her husband unhappy and she learns how to be more ‗feminine‘. In Sayonara, Marlon Brando‘s love interest is the star of an all-female musical theatre, an actress who plays both male and female roles and who is surrounded by her fans every time she leaves her house, dressed in a modern pantsuit. It is only after Brando ‗tames‘ her, after they start meeting in the privacy of a home, with her dressed up in full kimono attire just for him and begging for his affection, that their relationship deserves a happy ending.
The trend of glorifying Japanese women for American audience became so apparent that it was commented on by Jerry Lewis in The Geisha Boy (1958): ―Wow! I‘d like to chop chopsticks with her anytime! I can see why Marlon Brando dug this place.‖
4.G: The Exotic Opportunity
Japan as a filming location for Hollywood was the most accessible in the 1950s and the 1960s. Between 1949 and 1967, over a dozen American major features were filmed in
Japan. The almost orientalist use of Japan as an exotic backdrop can be oserved in The
House of Bamboo (1955), Stopover Tokyo (1957), Escapade in Japan (1957), The Geisha Boy (1958),
The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962), or Walk, Don’t Run (1966). Being shot in Japan was the main attraction that set these films apart from other B pictures. The trailer to The House of
Bamboo announces: ―The magic cameras of CinemaScope go to Japan for the first time to capture thrills never filmed before! The wonders of Fujiyama; seething, swarming modern
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Tokio; the backstreets and waterways where mystery and intrigue lurk.‖ Escapade in Japan is a film about a lost American child who travels around the beauties of Kansai, visiting geishas and temples and the Nara town park before climbing on top of a pagoda and finding his parents. The film could have been set anywhere, but it was Japan that sold it.
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CHAPTER 5: The 1970s – the 1990s : The Rise of
Postmodernity and Corporate Samurais
Soon after the picture of an allied-again Japan was promoted in the media, a new reason to be wary of the Land of the Rising Sun appeared. As soon as 1970, Japan‘s G.N.P. ranked third in the world behind the USA and the Soviet Union. Japanese companies expanded, building factories on American land and buying trademarks that had been connected to Americanness so far. Probably the most significant of these purchases was that of the Rockefeller Center by Mitsubishi in 1985. Another wave of anti-Japanese feelings was awakened. Typical newspaper headlines concerning Japanese competition around 1971 and 1972 were: ―Japan, Incorporated,‖ ―Japan‘s Drive to Outstrip the United
States,‖ ―Toward the Japanese Century,‖ ―Peril: The New Protectionism,‖ and ―Pearl
Harbor in Reverse.‖ Reactions to the success of Japanese car industry were patriotic slogans like ―drive American‖ and the news about the Rockefeller Center in 1985 were worded for example like this: ―The Japs capture Rockefeller Center‖ (National Review).
―Is Japan Out to Get Us?‖ Robert B. Reich named his article in Times (1992) as a response to the number of non-fiction and fiction books that demonized Japan and the
Japanese similarly to war-time propaganda. And why the Wolrd War II references?
Littlewood explains the way American mentality worked at the time:
To have been relegated to the status of an underdeveloped country is a reversal
of the natural order of things which cries out for redress. The persistent
imagery of warfare acts partly as a rallying cry but it also reformulates a
situation in terms which favor our chances of ultimate victory. The war may
begin with Pearl Harbor, but it ends with Hiroshima. (202)
However, whilst anti-Japanese feelings were rising in many working and proud
Americans, a much more numerous trend appeared and shook Hollywood: the ninja craze
28 and other postmodern tendencies. Further details are clarified in the following list of stereotypes associated with the Japanese from the 1970s till the 1990s.
5.A: Corporate Samurais – the Way of the World
Simply showing Japanese investors and share-holders in the USA became a film trope in the 1980s and the 1990s. In the opening scene of The Player (1992), a group of sponsors from Sony is led around a film studio by a man who keeps promising them satisfactory product placement. Later in the film, there is an authentic karaoke bar in
Pasadena, California, visited by native Japanese men in suits who are obviously in America only for business. In Taking Care of Business (1990), Jim Belushi‘s character switches places with an extremely rich man whose employer turns out being Japanese.
Science fiction noticed the change as well. Some futuristic narratives were inspired by theories such as Hudson Institute‘s Herman Kahn‘s that ―it would not be surprising if the
21st century turned out to be the Japanese century‖ (―Toward the Japanese Century‖ n.pag.).
Back to the Future Part II (1989) and RoboCop 3 (1993) both show American future as owned by Japanese companies.
While stating the obvious with no apparent malice, these films usually use humor to elevate the fact that American citizens would have a Japanese overlord (employer). In most cases, Japanese business customs (excessive bowing, golf or tennis meetings, sitting arrangements) and a thick Japanese accent serve as comic relief. A whole film set around such joke was Gung Ho (1986). What appears to be a comedy about a cultural clash of
Japanese superiors and American employers that ends with both sides learning something from each other ―is, in fact, a celebration of American culture‖ (Littlewood 54). While
American characters have faults that are typically human, Japanese characters are bound by their culture to unnatural efficiency and self-restraint. The resolution of the film comes when the Americans agree to work more and the Japanese are taught how to be properly
29 human: ―Our friends, our family should be our life. We have things we can learn from
Americans.‖
The same treatment of the cultural clash trope can be detected in Mr. Baseball (1992), a sports film with Tom Selleck set in Japan.
5.B: Corporate Samurais – the Peril Returns
Films that presented Japan‘s economic influence in America as an enemy‘s invasion were a part of a sentiment called ‗Japan bashing‘ by Robert C. Angel (then the president of the Japan Economic Institute). Many yellow peril stereotypes returned into Hollywood, especially the ones of untrustworthiness, sneakiness and ‗dirty play‘. In Rising Sun (1993) and Ulterior Motives (1993), Japanese businessmen show what has been assumed with ―well- orchestrated complaints about underhand business practices‖ (Littlewood 167) in real-life
America: that they use espionage, bribery, blackmail and lies on a daily basis. The treacherous stereotype, subconsciously still connected to the name of Pearl Harbor, was back in its full force. Even films clearly appreciative of Japanese culture worded the nation‘s greatest qualities as ―strong and cunning‖ (American Yakuza, 1993).
The constant war references transferred from journalism into film industry as well.
The very first shot of Rising Sun is that of a mass of ants fading into the red sun of the
Japanese flag – hence, the vermin parallel is established. Later on, emphasis is put on inscrutable faces of Japanese buisnessmen and an indirect comparison to robots without value or personality is given. The Japanese characters prove that they have been sent from
Tokyo to achieve domination over America. It is also discovered that a son of one of the wealthy businessmen, played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, is a perverted fiend who buys
American women in order to use them for his twisted desires. The war-inspired idea of a sadist villain is finalized. The book that Rising Sun is based on has a very fitting epigraph:
‗Business is war,‘ presented as an old Japanese saying.
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It was certainly no accident that in 1980, a film about time-travelling in order to stop the attack on Pearl Harbor was made. The Final Countdown replays the event of December 7,
1941, detail after detail, adding to the image of dirty-playing Japanese when it has Japanese air-fighters shoot at pilots who ejected from their crafts. The Final Countdown serves as a very blatant example of equating Japanese economic competition with war-time hostility and painting the metaphor of war-like development of the conflict.
5.C: The Cultural Challenger
Expanding the trend of liberal, racially tolerant Hollywood, a number of films comparing Japanese and American culture on equal grounds appeared between the 1970s and the 1990s. Some of these films used the samurai theme: Both Scott Glenn and
Christopher Lambert undergo samurai training and consequently join the samurai side in
The Challenge (1982) and The Hunted (1995) respectively. Yet surprisingly, most of the films in this category were dedicated to Japanese gangsters – the yakuza.
In the opening intertitle, The Yakuza (1974) explains that Japanese gangsters have a history of honorable crime. As the film unfolds, a visiting American mafia member realizes his inferiority to Japanese gangsters with their conceptions of obligation and responsibility
(kept respectfully in Japanese instead of being translated). The lead characters are so-called
‗strange stragers,‘ Americans who have no problems adapting to Japanese culture and in fact prefer it. By the end, the protagonist forms a deep friendship with a Japanese ex- gangster, but they cut off their little fingers instead of saying sorry to each other and they say goodbye with a deep bow instead of a hug. The Japanese are never americanized in The
Yakuza – what happens is quite the opposite.
While Black Rain (1989) starts with ominous Japanese dialogue with no subtitles and a smirking sadist Japanese gangster, what follows is a careful discovery of Japanese culture.
The sadist character is revealed as a shame to his yakuza family. The yakuza boss‘s motivation to crash American economy turns out being revenge for the bombing of
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Hiroshima. Jabs are taken at America when the black rain that contaminated Hiroshima survivors is described as well as the destroyed state of post-war Japan and current
‗inferiority‘ of American industry: ―You [Americans] are good only for music and movies; we make the machines, we keep the piece.‖ No double standard is imposed on the plot device of learning from each other‘s ways. The Japanese police are crippled by bureaucracy whereas the American police are crippled by corruption – and so the Japanese character learns something about hands-on policework while Michael Douglas‘s character re- discovers his honor.
Yet another comparison of Japanese and Italian mafia is provided in American Yakuza
(1993). The Italian concept of blood family pales in comparison to Japanese adpoted family bound by intense respect and selfless loyalty. While in Black Rain, the contrast of American individualism and Japanese collectivism is discussed, American Yakuza explains the stark difference of Japanese private and public sphere as compared to America. The protagonist, played by Viggo Mortensen, seems almost unamerican with his detached and silent attitude.
―Words are pretty much overrated anyway,‖ he says, making a good impression on a high- ranked mafia member, Shuji. It is after he gains Shuji‘s trust, is embraced by the yakuza and takes a Japanese lover that the viewers discover his true identity as a spy for the FBI.
Ashamed for his betrayal of the honorable gangster, he redeems himself by joining Shuji on a suicidal revenge mission. In American Yakuza, it is the Italian American mafia that ‗plays dirty‘ by massacring yakuza members with their families and the American law inforcement that does nothing to stop them. After avenging his clan, Shuji dies in the protagonist‘s arms, fondled and carried by the American as if he was his own brother or a love interest.
Another part of the cultural challenge presented in these films is interracial romance, a common theme for The Yakuza, The Challenge, American Yakuza, and The Hunted, always involving an American man and a Japanese woman.
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5.D: The Ninja Craze
When it comes to Japanese themes in American film history, ninja movies are by far the most numerous category. Between 1980 and 2000, over 45 rather big-budgeted films were produced with ninjas as their central theme. ―He must be watching too many ninja movies,‖ a character quips at the end of Pray for Death which was released already in 1985.
Whether heroes or villains, ninjas were perceived as dark characters with special skills that bordered on and often crossed over to superpowers. Though most famous for being undetectable spies and silent thieves, American films preferred their ninjas to be assassins who solved their problems with loud action. Every film ninja has absolved long years of traditional ninjutsu training that he is sworn to secrecy about. Hollywood has been trying to transfer this fascinating idea of ancient and mysterious heritage onto an American protagonist from the very beginning of the ninja craze, starting with the success of Enter the
Ninja (1981) and culminating with the American Ninja franchise(five films between 1985 and
1993). Even Chuck Norris got to be a ‗white ninja‘ in The Octagon (1980).
When there were no Caucasian martial artists at hand, Asian actors were instead. The most famous ninja actor was Shō Kosugi. Having had played ninjas in minor roles before,
Kosugi was given lead roles as a ninja in Pray for Death (1985), Revenge of the Ninja (1983),
Ninja 3: The Domination (1984), and Nine Deaths of the Ninja (1985), to which the trailer announces: ―Shō Kosugi, ninja master – ninja warrior – ninja terror – is now a ninja vigilante.‖
Pray for Death establishes the protagonist‘s nationality as purely Japanese without hesitation. Leaving his ninja training behind, he moves to America with his family in order to start a new business. Yet when his wife is killed by American gangsters and the police proves incompetent, he decides to take justice into his own hands. Questioning the way
Americans interpret one of their most important values, freedom, he exclaims in his thick accent: ―If we‘re all free to do what we like, I‘m free to make sure those animals do not go
33 unpunished!‖ Much like other film superheroes, Shō Kosugi‘s character has a training montage (replaced with shintō meditation and the forging of a katana). Covered in ninja armor except for the eyes, he goes into battle shrouded with Japanese imagery and comes out the winner, the new American superhero.
Ninjas could make film enemies as well, whether put against samurais as in The
Hunted (1995), against police force as in Red Sun Rising (1994) and Rage of Honor (1987), or, as was most usual, against the ‗good‘ ninjas. From dozens of mindless footmen (the
American Ninja franchise) to immortal dark sorcerers (Red Sun Rising), the ninja theme could provide villains of any kind.
The limits to the theme‘s versatility were furthermore expanded in the 1990s when in order to succeed, ninja-centered films were combined with other profitable genres.
Comedies and children‘s films featuring ninjas were made, for example Beverly Hills Ninja
(1997), 3 Ninjas (1992) and its three sequels (1994-1998), and three live action Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles films (1990-1993). On the other end of the spectrum, ninjas were sexualised in Crying Freeman (1995) and later in Ninja Assassin (2009).
Though targeted on teenage boys, the ninja craze influenced the whole of American society. It provided Japanese superheroes for children to look up to; it backlit Japanese culture in a positive way and it turned one of the yellow peril stereotypes – sneakiness – into an admirable trait.
5.E: The Rise of Postmodernity: Other Narratives
Japanese martial arts were brought to American attention as a part of the 1980s and
1990s sports movie trend. Aside from ninja action movies, another popular pattern appeared: the Karate Kid pattern. Karate Kid (1984) is an old Hollywood underdog narrative about a boy who works hard in order to change his life, except this time, with the help of an old wise Japanese teacher and with the finale being a karate championship. Though simple in story and hardly believable in the martial arts department, Karate Kid gained
34 immense popularity and triggered a whole genre of sports movies with a similar pattern – for example Sidekicks (1992) and Showdown (1993). Three Karate Kid sequels came out between 1986 and 1994, followed by a remake in 2010 that moved both the martial arts and the mentor to China but still kept the legendary name, Karate Kid.
One trope that branched out of its own category is that of a Japanese mentor, a
‗sensei‘, which began to appear in other action films as well as outside the whole genre. The two actors that would be most likely cast as senseis were Pat Morita and Mako. In the span of five years, Mako played the sensei in The Perfect Weapon (1991), Sidekicks (1992), Red Sun
Rising (1994), Highlander III: The Sorcerer (1994), A Dangerous Place (1995), and Balance of Power
(1996).
Another popular postmodern narrative was and still is ‗the buddy cop‘ film with one lead character white and the other of color. The most famous example may be the Lethal
Weapon films; however, Japanese Americans were written into the mix as well. Action stars
Brandon Lee, Shō Kosugi, Don ‗The Dragon‘ Wilson, and Sonny Chiba were cast as
Japanese or Japanese American cop buddies in Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), Rage of Honor
(1987), Red Sun Rising (1994), and Immortal Combat (1995) respectively. Their characters often had a love interest which further contributed to the sexualization of (presumably)
Japanese men in Hollywood.
Other postmodern stereotypes, though mostly developed in the 1980s and the 1990s, will be discussed along with postmodernity in general in the next chapter.
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CHAPTER 6: The Brink of Our Century: Japanese Cool
As Japan‘s Bubble Economy deflated in the 1990s, the threat of corporate samurais had disappeared and all that remained in American films were small mentions of Japanese investors and share-holders. Early into the twenty-first century, not much has changed in
Hollywood‘s attitude towards Japan that would have nothing to do with postmodernity.
Postmodernity revives old (orientalist) trends and revisits history (and sometimes rewrites it). Postmodernity uses foreign themes in order to create diversity and puts emphasis on globalization and multiculturalism, offering a niche to non-mainstream points of view. Postmodernity elevates popculture to the status of culture‘s representative, bringing recognition to genre films (such as horror films, crime films, comic-book narratives and animation), so that a B film is not a pejorative term anymore. And most importantly, rather than creating completely new content, postmodernity prefers recreations using unforeseen combinations of elements, techniques, viewpoints, plots, and genres. This method of using whatever is convenient from an already existing culture resembles Japan itself and its history of absorbing Korean, Chinese, and later American culture for its own benefit. This method also describes the working process of Quentin
Tarantino. See the list of cinema tropes below for more details.
6.A: The Decline of the Ninja Craze
The sports movie and action film genres have been redefined in the 21st century.
Overshadowed by continental Asian production, American martial arts films have moved to homegrown disciplines like boxing, wrestling and street-fighting. Ninja films still appear:
Ninja (2009) follows the ‗white ninja‘ trope while Ninja Assassin (2009) sexualizes the protagonist and The Warrior's Way (2010) combines the genre with the Western. The more frequent martial arts films with Japanese influence are, however, game franchise adaptations. These shall be further described in segment ―6.D: Japanese Cool.‖
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Several things remained in 21st century American culture that remind us of the ninja craze, one being the token sensei character, with Karate Kid‘s Mr. Miyagi and samurai- inspired jedi master Yoda as universal cultural references. The word ‗ninja‘ itself has oversaturated the media so much it can be now used as a verb as well. Another aftereffect of the ninja craze is the way samurai swords have been integrated into American action films.
Established as ―a sacred object‖ and a tool of justice in The Yakuza (1974), and as the perfect kind of weapon in The Perfect Weapon (1991), the katana became a very popular prop in American cinema. Used by many an American actor in films with the ‗white ninja‘ narrative, it came as no surprise when it was held by Caucasians over the years. In the early
21st century, katanas are wielded by non-Japanese characters in American movies
Equilibrium (2002), the Blade trilogy (1999, 2002, 2004), The Last Samurai (2003), The Matrix
Reloaded (2003), Kill Bill (2003 and 2004), Batman Begins (2005), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010),
Machete (2010), The Warrior’s Way (2010), Kick-Ass (2010), Sucker Punch (2011), and others.
Yet at the same time, the katana rarely ever loses its samurai symbolism and its ‗cool‘.
―THE weapon. The weapon of honor. If I‘m gonna go down there and save my enemy, it‘ll be with the Weapon of Honor‖ (n.pag.), Tarantino explains the legendary use of a katana in
Pulp Fiction (1994). His fascination with samurai swords was only carried on to his other project, Kill Bill, a two-part film where people carry katanas instead of guns. A special story arc is dedicated to the master who forges the protagonist‘s sword. In Kill Bill, as well as in the Blade trilogy, the katana is more than just a weapon, it almost becomes a film character.
6.B: Orientalism Revived
Lost in Translation (2003) is a one-of-a-kind film. After it received much praise from the critics, a wave of controversy rose concerning its portrayal of Japan and the Japanese.
One of the reviewers complained:
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There is no scene where the Japanese are afforded a shred of dignity. [The
viewers are left] laughing at these small, yellow people and their funny ways,
[who are] desperately aping the western lifestyle without knowledge of its real
meaning ... [Sofia Coppola] portrays the contemporary Japanese as ridiculous
people who have lost contact with their own culture ... shoe-horning every
possible caricature of modern Japan into her movie. (Day, n.pag.)
However, others recurred: ―The inaccessibility of Japan functions as an extension of the alienation and loneliness Bob and Charlotte feel in their personal lives‖ (Paik, n.pag.). In order to isolate the lead characters from their surroundings, Coppola used a very old perception of Japan – the orientalist ―East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.‖ Having updated the portrayal of Japan with urban Tokyo scenery, crazy talkshows and karaoke nightlife, Coppola maintained the idea that this culture is impossible to understand by Americans. Japan in Lost in Translation is no less topsy turvy than Lewis
Carroll‘s Wonderland or Gilbert and Sullivan‘s Town of Titipu.
Postmodernity revived nostalgic sentiments about pre-industrialist cultures as well.
The Last Samurai (2003) and Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) are ardent tributes to idealized old
Japan and its traditions. Naturally, taking liberties with not only history, but the whole spirit of Japanese culture while pretending authenticity is the modus operandi in both films.
―From the opening voiceover and title to the final scene, The Last Samurai is a historical disaster,‖ (Dressner n.pag.). It is a story about a man disappointed in the civilization based on Native American blood, who finds honor again in Japan. However, it is the fact that he is accepted in the village, considered a Japanese warrior worthy of fighting on Katsumoto‘s side, that he takes on the armor of the man he killed and starts a romance with his widow, that makes me doubt that the creators understood the Japanese context of honor right. A more authentic tribute to samurai vallues is ironically Ghost Dog:
38
The Way of the Samurai (1999), a story of an African American mafia hitman that reads bushidō poetry.
―I suspect that the more you know about Japan and movies, the less you will enjoy
Memoirs of a Geisha‖ (n.pag.), Roger Ebert summed up the film where three out of three main geisha roles are played by actresses of Chinese origin and most of the scenes are shot in California. The film feels Far-Eastern and exotic, but never truly Japanese, which is quite an accomplishment for a story about geishas, the living treasuries of old Japanese culture.
The reason The Last Samurai and Memoirs of a Geisha were made with such high budgets and big names was that the postmodern sensitivity was calling for a romantic depiction of exotic noble savages who continue their ancient culture with wisdom and elegance. ―These [ninja] clans are, what, one thousand years old? They probably don‘t change a lot,‖ says a character in Ninja Assassin (2009) – and she turns out being right.
6.C: History Revisited
World War II never stopped being a popular theme in Hollywood. The latest war movies have been focusing on the war in Europe except for three features: Pearl Harbor
(2001), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) and Only the Brave (2006). Having little ambition besides making money, Michael Bay‘s Pearl Harbor left little impact on the industry, whereas Clint
Eastwood surprised the critics with two war films recreating the same historical event from two points of view; the Japanese version Letters from Iwo Jima being considered the superior film.
More recognition was given to Japanese American soldiers in Only the Brave (2006).
Furthermore, a blank page of Japanese American history was filled when David
Gutterson‘s novel Snow Falling on Cedars was filmed in 1999. On the background of a tragic interracial love story, a picture of post-war American racism stands out and takes all the attention. ―Because he‘s a Jap. As simple as that ... They train as kids, you know, to kill, with sticks ... Look into his eyes. Consider his face,‖ are some of the opinions voiced by
39 proud American characters. With enough distance from the period in question, the filmmakers dared portray American prejudice against Japanese Americans in all its hypocrisy. And yet, the film ended on a compassionate note when it described racial prejudice as being as hard to shake or unlearn as the love of the two main characters.
In Battleship (2012), the Japanese participate in a naval excercise with an American fleet. The readopted Japanese naval flag, which still evokes negative feelings in some parts of the world, is shown with no negative implication.
6.D: Japanese Cool
The ninja craze is not the only reason Japanese themes became popular in postmodern Hollywood. In the late 1990‘s, Japan became more of a ―cultural superpower ... than an economic one‖ (McGray 45), exporting its traditional and popular culture as a new soft power article. ―Japan‘s growing cultural presence has created a mighty engine of national cool‖ (45), says McGray, and even Tokyo‘s Diplomatic Bluebook 2006 notes:
―Japanese culture is currently attracting attention around the world as ‗Cool Japan‘‖
(―Diplomatic Bluebook 2006‖ 208).
Hollywood‘s reaction to Japan as a cultural superpower is rather silent: While small- scale references to anything Japanese appear in dozens of films and remakes of successful
Japanese narratives are made, only few films tackle Japanese popculture directly. The first major feature, Tokyo Pop, was made already in 1988; and the other prominent films are
Tarantino‘s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Vol. 2. (2004):
[I]t has something to do with the new image that Japan is transporting as
trendy ... Unlike its contemporaries, Kill Bill Vol. 1 makes no attempt to convey
a ‗real‘ Japan. It is a pastiche, a dense layering of hip Japan-inflected references,
not an attempt at verisimilitude. (Rich n.pag.)
A unique blend of American noir film and Japanese bunraku and origami aesthetics is presented in Bunraku (2010) where, next to big American names like Josh Hartnett,
40
Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore, one of the lead roles is played by Japanese superstar
Gackt. His samurai character is forever connected to a popcultural reference.
As for minor mentions of Japanese themes in films, they became common in
Hollywood, functioning as a cool factor for the characters, plots or settings. Characters with Japan-related skills were automatically considered interesting, trendy or in a villain‘s case, ambitious on an international level.
This is why In Charlie’s Angels (2000), the evil businessman Corwin enjoys Japanese massages and Japan-themed parties and at the same time, one of the Angels speaks fluent
Japanese. In the franchise-rebooting Batman Begins (2005), Batman learns ninjutsu skills and strategies; Violet, the extremely ambitious child from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), has mastered judo by an early age; and Lara Croft practices kendo in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
(2001).
And why not set the whole film in Japan, even though it does not matter to the plot?
The 2006 adaptation of As You Like It is set in old Japan, making the play somehow more hip and interesting. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) takes the American protagonist to Tokyo where high schoolers wear cool and sexy outfits and drive cool and expensively pimped cars. A randomly generated action sequence set in ancient and magical
Japan appears in Sucker Punch (2011).
The greatest and yet most subtle recognition of Japan as a cultural superpower is the number of remakes Hollywood has attempted at Japanese narratives. It started with The
Magnificent Seven (1960), the famous Western adaptation of Kurosawa‘s Seven Samurai (1954).
Then came the video/PC game franchises: Mortal Kombat (1995) and its sequel (1997), Street
Fighter (1994), Double Dragon (1994), and in another wave, the Resident Evil franchise (2002,
2004, 2007, and 2010), DOA: Dead or Alive (2006), Silent Hill (2006), Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009), The King of Fighters (2010), and Tekken (2010). The trend continues as in
2012, a Silent Hill sequel and another Resident Evil installment are coming to theatres.
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Another genre overtaken by Japanese narratives is the horror. American horror scene looked desperate by 2000 – it seemed nothing could scare the viewers anymore until the remakes of Japanese horror films entered the market: The Ring (2002,) and its sequel (2005), The Grudge 1 and 2 (2004 and 2006), Dark Water (2005), Pulse (2006), One
Missed Call (2008)... Viewers were shaking in their seats again, admiring Japanese ‗twisted minds‘.
Some inspiration was indirect as well. When it comes to futuristic theories and cyberpunk philosophies, the Japanese offer many deep and detailed ideas in their anime and manga. The pioneers of the genre, Ghost In the Shell (a franchise started in 1989) and
Paprika (2006) became the undeniable inspiration for The Matrix trilogy (1999, 2003 and
2003) and Inception (2010).
Whether being ‗cool‘ for bringing the Japanese take on stories or simply for being
Japanese, the inspiration in Japan‘s popculture has become a very strong trend in
Hollywood.
6.E: Token Japanese Characters
A subcategory of Japanese cool are token characters, i.e. characters that have been created simply for the sake of adding color to the cast. Token characters have their own segment in this thesis not only because they are the most frequent of postmodern Japanese elements, but also because aside postmodern aesthetics, token Japanese characters reflect the factual multiculturalism of the USA.
Token Japanese characters have been established with Star Trek‘s Hikaru Sulu (the show began in 1966, the first film was released in 1979) as portrayed by George Takei. Sulu was one of the heroes and as such he defied the stereotype of an unemotional inscrutable
Japanese. More Japanese token characters can be seen in Aloha Summer (1988) and Pacific
Heights (1990).
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A different approach is taken with two Japanese characters in Mystery Train (1989),
where their mentality and behavior are important parts of the plot. The Japanese in Mystery
Train are there to represent their part of the world and their take on human culture. The
same approach is taken in Babel (2006), The Cabin in the Woods (2011), and in television
series Heroes (2006 – 2010).
To simply add some flavor and a ‗cool‘ factor, 21st century token Japanese characters
appear in 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Bulletproof Monk (2003), Hostel (2005), The Condemned (2007),
Hannibal Rising (2007), War (2007), Thor (2011), and many more. A special category would
be one or few Japanese characters in a whitewashed story (for whitewashing, see the next
chapter): DOA: Dead or Alive (2006), Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009) and Tekken (2010).
Surprisingly, almost none of these characters are antagonists. Sega in The Condemned
is the only villanous one, and that is probably because The Condemned is a tribute to the
Japanese film Battle Royale (2000)11. Instead of a villanous Japanese, there are two other
stereotypes among 21st century Japanese characters in American cinema: the silent assassin
and the honorable ally.
The first mixes the ex-propaganda qualities of inscrutability, lack of human
compassion and robot-like killing skills with the cult of honor, creating an utterly ‗cool‘
antihero. To add to the mystery, these characters are not necessarily mute but silent. The
vampire hunter Snowman in Blade II (2002); the brainwashed adversary Lady Deathstrike in
X2 (2003); the Old Town prostitutes‘ protector Miho in Sin City (2005); the ‗ninja soldier‘
Snake Eyes in G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009); and the yakuza member in Predators (2010) –
none of these character ever speak, not even to curse in Japanese and barely ever to yelp or
groan during their fight scenes. They fight like superhumans, always in control, never
11 As for the most famous Asian American villain actor from the 1990s onwards, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who portrays Japanese characters as often as Chinese or other Asians, an argument can be made that he was typecasted simply because his features look intimidating, similarly to those of Willem Dafoe, and not because of his ethnicity. 43 betraying their emotions, always elegant, dignified even in their death scenes, cool from the first till the last film frame.
The second stereotype makes the Japanese more human, leaving only one quality more important than their self-preservation: honor. Antagonizing any previous belief in
Japanese treacherousness, the honorable ally would rather die than betray the protagonist.
(From the silent assassins mentioned above, four out of five make honorable allies.)
Inception’s (2010) Mr. Saito is a rich businessman who joins the man he hired on an incredibly dangerous journey into the subconscious. It is an overused plot twist that the employer betrays the heroes at the end; however, even though Mr. Saito died in one level of the dream and spent decades in the torturous ‗limbo‘, he keeps his word and delivers every part of the reward. I believe that the ‗betraying boss‘ trope did not even cross the creating team‘s minds because the boss was Japanese.
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CHAPTER 7: The Third Millenium: Post-Racial Discourse
Post-Racial Discourse is the supposed atmosphere in current-day USA. It is the assumption that racism has been overcome and all that is left are individual opinions that, if racist, are not supported by the society. ―There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there‘s the United States of America‖ (Obama n.pag.) said the President in a 2004 speech. Post-racial America is, according to many scholars, a modern myth.
In current-day Hollywood, the idea of post-racial discourse is being constantly challenged by film critics and reviewers. One of the issues that has been brought up recently is that of whitewashing – that is, changing the original ethnicity of a character to
Caucasian in hope of pandering to mainstream viewers. Lately, very vocal responses to cast announcements of films 21 (2008), and The Last Airbender (2010), have been noticed. Both casts were in their original narrative (a book by Ben Mezrich and an animated TV series) fully Asian or Asian American, but were completely whitewashed.
Another version of complete whitewashing is when a whole story is taken from
Japan and moved to America, as were Japanese horror remakes or for example Godzilla
(1998) and Speed Racer (2008). Partial whitewashing of Japanese characters can be observed in Dragonball Evolution (2009), DOA: Dead or Alive (2006), Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009), The
King of Fighters (2010), Tekken (2010), and other films based on Japanese animation or game franchises. This leads to confusing situations where characters with Japanese names,
Japanese family members or Japanese clan members are without any rational explanation
Caucasian. The remaining Japanese characters then become a part of token background.
Despite the controversy, said filmmaking policies are still continuing. Future
Hollywood projects include an adaptation of a Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill with
Tom Cruise in the lead role; the Japanese legend of 47 Ronin is currently in postproduction
45 with Keanu Reeves as the only non-Japanese ronin in the cast; and adaptations of animes
Cowboy Bebop and Akira are being planned, allegedly with an all-white cast.
Yet probably the most alarming issue that Japanese and Asian characters in general are met with in Hollywood is yellowface. Much like blackface, yellowface has been connected to some famous names over the years. Mary Pickford, Peter Lorre, Harold
Huber, J. Carrol Naish, Marlon Brando, Robert Armstrong, Ricardo Montalbán, Mickey
Rooney, Alec Guinness – all these prominent actors underwent make-up changes in order to become ‗scotchtape Japanese‘ at some point in their lives. This was before the mid-
1960s. The tradition survived, if only transformed: actors of mixed ethnicity (Only the Brave), other Asian ethnicity (Memoirs of a Geisha and Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift) or Caucasian actors with distantly Asian features (The King of Fighters) are being used instead.
While blackface has become a taboo, basically any other play on ethnicity is allowed in Hollywood: the Hispanics play Arabs, Swedes play the Roma, Hawaiians play Native
Americans, Italians play Egyptians, the Chinese play the Japanese, the Japanese play the
Chinese... Post-racial discourse comes down to these questions: where does transcending an ethnicity ends and disregarding and mistreating begins? Is it better to keep the character
Japanese and have it portrayed by a non-Japanese or is it better to whitewash it? Why is
American audience not expected to accept a Japanese lead character anyway? And from the other point of view, if a Japanese actor emphasizes his or her ethnicity, is it not like wearing yellowface of one‘s own minority? Where is the line between colorful multiculturalism and the melted grey inside a melting pot?
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CONCLUSION
This thesis has listed the ways Japan and the Japanese have been portrayed in
American cinema in various time periods. The summary of the list would sound as follows:
After the first contact, American orientalists imagined Japan as a land of noble savages and incomprehensible contradictions. For a short time in the silent film era,
Japanese men became sensual seducers while Japanese women were established as exploitable maidens. After being branded as the new yellow peril, the Japanese were seen as incrutable people trying to infiltrate America. In the Wolrd War II film propaganda, the
Japanese were dehumanized when described as degenerate, brainwashed, compulsive traitors, and equaled to vermin, monkeys and robots. Japan was perceived as the craddle of evil that deserved and in fact needed to be punished, preferrably by total obliteration.
After the war, Hollywood embraced anti-racist and humanist sensibilities and presented Japan as a place where exotic and romantic cross-cultural encounters happen.
Japanese women were showcased as the ideal of femininity. Japanese Americans were ackowledged as true Americans. By the 1970s, Japan became an economic competitor again.
For the following two decades, Japanese businessmen were either portrayed as funny- looking financial authorities or as war-like enemies. To oppose the latter, several yakuza films presented the Japanese as human beings with an admirable sense of honor. In the
1980s, Japan became popular especially among teenage males as the ninja craze began, followed by the Karate Kid genre and other posmodern tropes.
At the end of the 20th and in the beginning of the 21st century, some Japanese themes integrated into Hollywood‘s action genre so well they are now considered a part of
American culture. Token Japanese characters became common across all genres. Due to postmodern influences, an admiring view on Japanese cool coexists in American cinema next to revived orientalist notions. The Japanese are cool, modern, original, and at the same time ancient, traditional and mystical. As we enter the third millenium, racial stereotypes
47 created about the Japanese are brought to our awareness. The conclusion of this thesis takes the form of a question: Where is the line between a harmful racial stereotype, a colorful expression of individual minority and a repressed post-multicultural grey?
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ABSTRACT
―On the Japanese in American Cinema‖ aims to reasearch and compile Hollywood stereotypes about Japan and the Japanese into a coherent list, analyzing each stereotype on the background of Japanese-American social, cultural, economic and political contact.
The thesis spans across American cinema history from the silent era, through World
War II propaganda, over the anti-racist 1960s down to postmodernity, with special attention applied to the latest Hollywood generation. Over the time, Japanese-American political relations have transformed immensely as well as the approach to each other‘s culture, and the thesis shows how exactly were these changes reflected in American film.
After listing the past and the existing tropes, trends and stereotypes, the thesis discusses the possible validity of post-racial discourse and its effect on Hollywood‘s representation of minorities and foreign cultures. Faced with the common practices of whitewashing and yellowface, the thesis attempts to predict the ‗post-racial‘ development in
American cinema. However, among certain types of portrayals of Japan and the Japanese, it is met with difficulty to discern racism and exaggerated multiculturalism.
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RESUMÉ
Účelem této diplomové práce je průzkum a následné vytvoření přehledného katalogu hollywoodských stereotypů ohledně Japonska a Japonců. Každý stereotyp je analyzován v kontextu japonsko-amerických mezinárodních vztahů, společenských, ekonomických a kulturních výměn své doby.
Téma diplomové práce obsáhne historii americké kinematografie od němého filmu přes válečnou propagandu a liberální šedesátá léta po postmodernismus. Politické a kulturní vztahy mezi Amerikou a Japonskem procházely v těchto obdobích z extrému do extrému, což se odráželo i v americkém filmovém průmyslu. Zvláštní pozornost je věnována poslední generaci hollywoodských filmů.
Na závěr katalogu stereotypů se tato diplomová práce pozastavuje nad obrazem
Spojených států jakožto země, ve které byl rasismus vyřešen již minulou generací, a zpochybňuje oprávněnost této představy. Při posuzování některých současných stereotypů naráží na problematiku rasismu v pestrém multikulturním prostředí oproti rasismu v šedi post-multikulturalismu.
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