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Orient Orientalizing Itself Orient Orientalizing Itself The Orient Orientalizing Itself: Japanese Animation and Split Identity In Orientalism, Edward Said claims that, “as much as the West itself, the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West” (5). The complex network of political, economical, academic, cultural, or geographical realities of the Orient called “Orientalism” is a way of coming to terms with the Orient, or to be less geographically specific, the Other. Although Said defines Orientalism to be specifically Franco-British experience in the Arab world, his basic arguments can be applied to the process of Othering in a more general sense. Especially his idea of “representation” plays a central role in the epistemology of Orientalism. Representation, according to Said, can be characterized by exteriority and imaginativeness. Said affirms that “Orientalism is premised upon exteriority, that is, on the fact that the Orientalist, poet or scholar, makes the Orient speak, describes the Orient, renders its mysteries plain for and to the West” (21). In other words, Orientalism assumes that the Orient cannot represent itself: as not being allowed the subject position, the Orient needs both political and linguistic representation by the West. This leads to the second point, the idea that the Orient has little to do with “real” Orient. The Orient, conceived as representation in written texts, is “a presence to the reader by virtue of its having excluded, displaced, made supererogatory any such real thing as ‘the Orient’” (21). Said is not arguing that the true Orient is different from what Orientalists believe to be, but that the Orient is a dubious entity supported by the notion that there are geographical space, indigenous people and the essence of culture, all of which equal the idea, “the Orient.” A problem arises from these characteristics: based on Said’s notion of Orientalism, is that any discussion of Orientalism, whether critical of it or apologetic for it, goes on only in the West, somewhere distant from supposedly “Oriental” indigenous people or culture. In other words, not only construction but deconstruction of the dubious entity “Orient” require the West (the Orient’s agent) to speak for the Orient. Another problem is what Said calls “a triumph of Orientalism” (323) today, the major source of which is no longer Britain or France, but the United States, the democratically totalizing economy power. It means cultural domination on the one hand (“Orientals” educated in the United States repeat the Orientalist cliché), and economic absorption of poor nations on the other (consumerism in the Orient). A simple example Said takes up is “the paradox of an Arab regarding himself as an ‘Arab’ of the sort put out by Hollywood” (325). The Orient, in short, playacts its image as imagined by the West. This is far more problematic than the former form of Orientalism because the subject position of an “Oriental” is now realized only as the subject that (re-)presents itself as the Other before the Western eyes, as imagined by the West: and this Western gaze is what the Oriental subject identifies her/himself. It is disappointing in a sense that Said does not develop his arguments more than the idea that this phenomenon of cultural domination is only the Orient’s adaptation of Western Orientalism. There are more complex power relationships involved in the new Orientalism, and there are also different modes of the Orient’s Orientalization process in connection to cultural differences. In this essay, I take Japan as one form of the cultural representation consumed in the United States and focus on images of Japan (especially of Japanese body) that produce and re-produce themselves as the desirable Other to American eyes. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/k/x/kxs334/academic/manga&anime/orientalism.html (1 of 7) [1/31/2002 9:28:29 PM] Orient Orientalizing Itself It is difficult to determine what are proper examples of Japan’s cultural representation because there may be innumerable versions and modes of Japan as a discursive construct. The two works I am going to examine are Akira (Akira, 1988) and Ghost in the Shell (Kokaku kidotai, 1995). Both are animation films that were produced in Japan but planned to be released in the United States as well. Akira production prepared the original version for release in Japan, and the “international” version dubbed in English. Ghost in the Shell was the very first animation film that was released both in Japan and the United States at the same time. They were unusual in the sense that, among other Japanese animation that prefer non-Japanese (often Western) representation of characters and settings thanks to animation’s fictional character, they used images, music, storylines, characters, and settings (supposedly) peculiar to Japan. The media, animation, is also regarded as a culturally particular form of Japanese culture called “anime.” The point here is that these films were obviously produced in expectation of American audience (for ambiguously “international” purpose), to sell them the images of Japan. Some people may think that Japanese culture has other forms of “art” that have been well-treated in the United States compared to such a low pop-culture like anime, but the fact is that those typically Japanese cultural representations such as samurai, Kabuki, Noh, and Zen, are “dead” cultures lost in the beautiful past, along with the big waves of modernization. Regarding the 19th-century Orientalist paintings, Linda Nochlin points out that the Orient is depicted as the precious remnants of disappearing civilization that needs to be reserved by the West (since Orientals are ignorant of art). On the basis of Nochlin’s discussion of the imaginary Orient, it is important that the exteriority of Orientalism is not only spatial formation of us (outside) and them (inside), but also historicization of the present and the past. While “the present” indicates continuous progress toward a higher form of civilization, of which the United States has enjoyed leadership, the past is objectified into reservable exhibitions, and thus obtains the value of a work of art because of its “purity,” i.e., alienation from political, social and cultural contexts. It is in this sense that I would like to examine contemporary culture, which hardly escapes political implications of “our” time and place. Film reviews of these films clearly show the way Japanese pop-culture should be treated in the United States. Both Akira and Ghost are celebrated because of their high achievements in animation technology, especially visual effects and music, while most reviews warn that the contents are highly violent, incomplete, and too corporeal (in both senses of “sexual” and “bodily”). A Washington Post writer, Richard Harrington, calls Akira “a visceral example of the future of animation.” Roger Ebert writes in Chicago Sun-Times that “this particular film is too complex and murky to reach a large audience […]. But I enjoyed its visuals, its evocative soundtrack (including a suite for percussion and heavy breathing), and its ideas.” These remarks seem to express two contradictory but intertwined indications of Japan. On the one hand, Japan is a technologically and economically leading country. This is a condition that differentiates Japan’s case from typical Orientalist fantasy of the 19th- to mid-20th century colonization period. The concept of technology and economy somehow secures the idea that the content of the culture (if technology and economy are only its exterior forms) belongs to the lower structure of society. On the other hand, Japan has beautiful and exotic art traditions: these are limited to supposedly apolitical modes of “art.” The most significant in this Orientalization process of Japan, like many other images of the Orient, is the combination of “visual” and “corporeal.” The Oriental bodies serve the interested spectators http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/k/x/kxs334/academic/manga&anime/orientalism.html (2 of 7) [1/31/2002 9:28:30 PM] Orient Orientalizing Itself of the West. Akira is set in Neo-Tokyo in 2019, 31 years after World War III. The rebuilt city, looking like an animated "Blade Runner" prototype, is under military rule, though packs of motorcycle-riding cyberpunks race through the streets. One pack, led by Kaneda, becomes the main focus of the movie. One of Kaneda's pals, Tetsuo, comes to be captured by the mysterious military-scientific coalition that rules Neo-Tokyo. Soon, Tetsuo's powers grow out of control and he becomes the focus of a battle between oppressive authorities and the coalition of an underground resistance group, Kaneda's gang and a trio of fellow psychics terrified that he will unleash "Akira" and once more destroy the world. As Tetsuo totally loses his control over his powers, the three psychics awaken Akira’s powers and cause a gigantic explosion that absorbs Tetsuo and the whole city. In short, this film employs a typical Armageddon plot. In addition to this relatively superficial summary, I would like to add its cultural contexts. The images of both the explosion in WWIII and its repetition in 2019 mirror the atomic bombs dropped in Japan in 1945. Accordingly, the psycho-kinetic powers developed by scientists and militarists imply nuclear power, as a member of the revolution coalition says that everyone has the power (=Akira) more or less. The image of the resistance group comes from the New Leftist movement in the 60s and 70s. The Olympic site under construction, where the whole battle takes place, and also where “Akira” was sealed, is a “failed” version of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, for which Japan made flat-out efforts to show its full recovery from the defeat in WWII and its national pride (not in the imperial/military way this time, but in a “democratic”/cultural way).
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