Conflicting Views of Homosexuality Among the Mainstream Films and Gay “Pink”
Films of Japan
A thesis presented to
the faculty of
the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University
In partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Arts
Sho Ogawa
August 2008 2 This thesis titled
Conflicting Views of Homosexuality Among the Mainstream Films and Gay “Pink”
Films of Japan
by
SHO OGAWA
has been approved for
the School of Film
and the College of Fine Arts by
Adam Knee
Assistant Professor of Film
Charles A. McWeeny
Dean, College of Fine Arts
3 Abstract
OGAWA, SHO, M.A., August 2008, Film Scholarship
Conflicting Views of Homosexuality Among the Mainstream Films and Gay “Pink”
Films of Japan (88 pp.)
Director of Thesis: Adam Knee
This thesis will examine the representation of homosexuality in Japanese films through analyzing gay “pink” films, which are soft-core porn films exhibited in specialized theaters, alongside mainstream films featuring gay characters, to highlight ideological differences between the two. Each of the chapters will focus on a certain theme common to both the mainstream films and the gay “pink” films. The first chapter will be centered on gay characters‟ relations with the familial structure, the second chapter will examine the representation of homosexual desires in homosocial organizations, and the third chapter will analyze how the mainstream films foster female spectators‟ identification with gay characters, while the gay “pink” film excludes female identification. It will be argued that on the whole, the mainstream films suggest an assimilatory sexual politics, representing the inclusion of gay characters and the internalization of homosexuality within the hegemonic culture. The gay “pink” films offer an alternative representation of homosexuality, however, suggesting a separatist politics in part by excluding heterosexuals from the gay characters‟ private relationships.
Approved: ______
Adam Knee
Assistant Professor of Film
4 Acknowledgments
First of all, I would like to thank my committee members, Professor Jennie Klein and Professor Ryan Derosa for their wonderful comments and advice. I would also like to thank my fellow students Hsin-ning Chang, Novia Chen, and Courtney Grimm for providing feedback on my thesis.
Most of all, I would like to thank my thesis advisor Professor Adam Knee for working with me on my thesis, constantly helping me develop ideas and focus my arguments. His help made the writing of this thesis a challenging and pleasurable experience.
5 Table of Contents
Page
Abstract ...... 3
Acknowledgments...... 4
Introduction ...... 6
Chapter 1: The Queer Family and Its Symbolization in Japanese Cinema ...... 14
Chapter 2: Genital Homosexual Desire in Male Homosocial Organizations ...... 37
Chapter 3: Female Spectatorial Identification with Gay Characters ...... 61
Conclusion ...... 79
Works Cited ...... 86
6 Introduction
In the early 1990‟s, there was a rise in the frequency of images of male homosexuality in the Japanese media. Publications ranging from women‟s weeklies, such as Crea and More, to semi-academic journals, such as the art and philosophy magazine
Eureka, published editions with special features on homosexuality. This so-called “gay boom” was also followed by studies on the ways concepts of gender and sexuality function specifically in Japan, studies which rejected “universalizing conceptions of sex and sexuality” in favor of “socio-cultural and historical contextualization” (“Area
Studies” 205). Among these studies were analyses of the representation of male homosexuality in films produced during the “gay boom,” in which homosexuality serves a major role in the narrative. The central aim of this thesis will be to provide a more comprehensive perspective on the representation of male homosexuality in Japanese films than did these earlier studies, in part by broadening the time period covered and the range of films analyzed.
More specifically, this thesis will analyze gay “pink” films alongside mainstream films featuring gay characters to highlight ideological differences between them. Gay
“pink” films are a subgenre of “pink” films, which are soft-core porn films exhibited in specialized theaters. The production of “pink” films started in 1964, and by 1970, the production of “pink” films accounted for half of the films produced in Japan (Anderson and Richie 454). Although the production of “pink” films kept falling throughout the
1970‟s and 1980‟s after the peak of production in 1968, there were still 113 films
(including gay “pink” films) produced during 1995 alone (Fukuma 13). The production of gay “pink” films started during the 1980‟s by Okura and ENK Promotions, followed
7 by the emergence of theaters specializing in gay “pink” films. Straight “pink” films and gay “pink” films are similar in their modes of production, which are characterized by low budget and short (rarely extending beyond a week) production schedule, and some directors, such as Hisayasu Sato or Ikejima Yutaka, occasionally work in both genres.
Gay “pink” films are mostly shown in theaters that specialize in them, which indicates that their market is a primarily gay male audience.
The term “mainstream films” that I use in this thesis does not point exclusively to major studio productions. On the contrary, some of the films that I refer to as mainstream films, such as Hush! (2001), 800 Two Lap Runners (1994), or Sukitomo (2006), would be classified as independently produced films. The term mainstream film will be used to differentiate between films produced for consumption by both gay and straight spectators, and films produced for exhibition in specialized theaters for gay “pink” films.
Thematically, there are in fact similarities between the mainstream gay films and the more marginal gay “pink” films. For example, both the mainstream films and the
“pink” films display an interest in the conflict between homosexuality and family, and the relationship between heterosexual women and gay men. However, despite continuities in their themes and subjects, this thesis will argue, mainstream films and “pink” films differ in their political standpoints. The mainstream films produced during the “gay boom” appear to take an assimilationist position by representing homosexuality to be a part of the hegemonic culture in a variety of ways. For instance, in a group of films about the relation between family and homosexuality, gay characters form a family with heterosexual women, allowing themselves to be assimilated into the heteronormative familial structure. In another group of films, male relationships within homosocial
8 organizations in the hegemonic culture are depicted as being inherently homosexual. In both of these groups of mainstream films, then, homosexuality is not severed from the hegemonic culture, but accepted and internalized.
The “pink” films, on the other hand, resist the assimilatory politics of the mainstream films, and suggest a more radical, separatist politics. In the “pink” films that center their narrative on a forming of a family, the maternal figure is abjected, and the gay characters envision a family that contains only gay men. In a different set of films that center their narrative around a homosocial organization, homosexual desire is represented to reinforce the structure of the organization, but the protagonist is shown to favor a personal homosexual relationship over a relationship linked to the organization.
The gay “pink” films thus suggest separatist politics by representing the gay characters as desiring to exist with minimal relation to the hegemonic society.
There have been three common characteristics to the academic articles that analyze
Japanese films that feature male homosexuality, which I intend to break from in order to provide a closer and broader look at the ideologies of gay Japanese films. Firstly, the films that are analyzed in these studies are mostly produced during or shortly after the
“gay boom” of the 1990‟s. This is problematic in that several significant films featuring male homosexuality were in fact produced after the “gay boom,” including works such as
Taboo (1999) by Nagisa Oshima and Hush! by Ryosuke Hashiguchi. These significant works have unfortunately gone unnoticed by scholars of Japanese concepts of sexuality.
Secondly, most studies on Japanese gay films are centered on an analysis of mainstream films rather than the more culturally marginal “pink” films. Although there have been a significant number of gay “pink” films produced almost exclusively for gay
9 audiences in Japan, these films remain a largely unexplored field. The studies of
Japanese gay films are mostly limited to analyses of the representations of homosexuality in films that are targeted mainly to heterosexual audiences, disregarding images of homosexuality consumed by the gay community, which leads the studies to neglect, in part, representations that constitute what gay spectators perceive as the image of homosexuality.
Thirdly, the existing analyses of Japanese films featuring male homosexuality emphasize explicit references to gender and sexuality in the films, and tend to disregard the other discourses permeating the films that can also possibly be connected to the understanding of sexuality. For example, in his analysis of 800 Two Lap Runners (1994),
Hall focuses on the romantic relations of the characters, and ignores the lengthy segments showing the two main characters practicing and competing in an 800 meter race. In the film, running is not merely a subplot, but becomes an important signifier for sexual desire, and is indispensable when talking about the film‟s representation of sexuality. By focusing only on the romantic relationships within the film, Hall fails to take note of the homosexual impulses inherent in the race scenes of the film. Analysis that extracts the meanings of sexuality only from the scenes that can be directly associated with sexuality carries the danger of ignoring sexuality and gender‟s relations to other concepts in the film, and how these relations in turn bear upon the film‟s figurations of sexuality and gender.
I intend to offer a corrective to these three characteristics of existing studies by 1) broadening the time period and context of production of the films selected for analysis and 2) focusing on the representation of central concepts not directly related to sexuality
10 along with the depiction of sexuality in the films. Each chapter of the thesis will include comparative analyses of both mainstream and “pink” films from the 1990‟s “gay boom” up to 2005. The chapters will be organized thematically, and each chapter will focus on a theme that is common to the films from both of these modes of production, utilizing close comparative textual analysis of two representative mainstream films and one “pink” film. By employing this methodology I intend to not only illuminate more clearly the range of depictions of homosexuality in contemporary Japanese cinema, in both mainstream and more marginal works, and both during the “gay boom” and after; but, more importantly, to show how the distinctions which exist between depictions within mainstream films and those within “pink” films point to more fundamental ideological differences among the two modes of production.
My first chapter will compare mainstream and “pink” films that show the conflict between families and gay characters. My emphasis will be on wives and maternal figures in films that show homosexual characters marrying or otherwise creating a family. The films I will be focusing on will be the mainstream films Okoge (1992) and Hush!, and the
“pink” film Konna, Futari (1997). In the chapter, I will demonstrate how in Okoge the gay character is assimilated into a family, in contrast to Konna, Futari, where the homosexual characters plan to create a family, but the woman has no function in it other than procreation. I will argue that Hush!, which was made well after the “gay boom,” occupies a middle ground between the other two films in its depiction of two gay men and one woman forming an awkward collaborative relationship, instead of a family, to create a child. Okoge takes an assimilationist position, Konna Futari suggests a more separatist attitude, and Hush! differs from both films in its ambiguous position, but the
11 three films are similar in their expression of discomfort regarding the traditional family, and their desire to transform it.
In the second chapter, I will compare the representation of homosexual desires in the mainstream films Taboo and 800 Two Lap Runners (1994), and the “pink” film
Mistake (1995). I will demonstrate that the three films are similar in that they find latent homosexuality in male homosocial organizations, but are different in their depiction of the function of homosexuality in homosocial relationships. Taboo and 800 Two Lap
Runners depict homosexuality to be inherent in relationships within homosocial groups and organizations in the hegemonic society, and represent the characters to favor homosexual relationships over other sexual relationships in their private lives. In contrast, in the film Mistake homosexual desire in homosocial organizations is not inherent, but is created and utilized by the organization for the purpose of reinforcing the power relationships of the organization. This stands in negative contrast to the homosexual relationship depicted in the main character‟s private life, which is based on mutual affection and is depicted as an ideal that the main character tries to foster by leaving the homosocial organization. While the mainstream films merely reveal the presence of homosexual relations in the hegemonic society, Mistake tries to find an individualistic alternative to this manifestation of homosexuality.
For the third chapter, I will compare the mechanisms of spectatorial identification in the mainstream films Boys’ Love (2006) and Sukitomo (2006) with that in the gay
“pink” film Naughty Boys (2001). In this chapter, I will first suggest that the two mainstream films work to foster female spectators‟ identification and fantasy by drawing parallels between the films and the women-oriented comic genre yaoi. I will also
12 demonstrate how the film Sukitomo incorporates a female character to function as a stand-in for female spectators. I will then compare these two mainstream films to the
“pink” film Naughty Boys, which diverges from the yaoi comic tendencies that are illustrated in Akiko Mizoguchi‟s essay, “Homophobic Homos, Rapes of Love, and Queer
Lesbians: An Analysis of Recent Yaoi Texts.” In its deviation from the conventions of yaoi narratives and emphasis on elements unique to gay men‟s lives, especially gay sex,
Naughty Boys can be said to have the effect of excluding heterosexual female spectators from identifying with the gay characters. In this chapter, I wish to demonstrate that the gay “pink” films remain critical not only in their narratives of the gay characters rejecting assimilation, but also by denying the identification of the mainstream spectator.
The politics expressed in the mainstream films analyzed in the three chapters can be read as a critique of the representation of homosexuality in other media catering to straight spectators. John Valentine writes that in the case of Japanese television, homosexual characters are “generally represented only where suiting the stereotype of okama (feminine gay man, usually cross-dressing)” (64). The only exceptions are when the gay characters are represented as alien to the hegemonic society (for example, in being foreigners) or are represented as “straight” only to be exposed later in the stereotypical “feminine” guise of the okama (70). The representation of homosexuality in the mainstream films goes against the conventions of Japanese television by representing homosexual characters or homosexual desires to exist within or at least be understandable by the hegemonic culture, rather than representing homosexuality as wholly other.
Although the assimilationist politics of the mainstream films can be read negatively as representing gay characters to be without a distinct community or identity apart from the
13 heteronormative society, it does offer an alternative to the representations of alien homosexual characters on Japanese television.
On the other hand, the gay “pink” films provide an alternative to the representation of homosexuality both on Japanese television and in mainstream films. Similar to the mainstream films, the stereotypical representation of homosexuality on Japanese television does not carry over to homosexual characters in the gay “pink” films, but the gay ”pink” films differ from the mainstream films by representing the gay characters as alienated and separate from the hegemonic culture. The gay “pink” films can be read as expressing a desire to conceptualize a distinct gay community or identity, free from the constrictions of a mainstream worldview.
14 Chapter 1: The Queer Family and Its Symbolization in Japanese Cinema
Family and procreation are reoccurring themes in Japanese films featuring gay characters. The family is the central theme in the narrative in mainstream films such as
Okoge (1992), Slight Fever of a Twenty Year Old (1993), Hush! (2001), and Maison de
Himiko (2005). In gay “pink” films, which are soft-core pornography films produced for screening in gay film theaters, the theme about family and procreation appears in films such as Kamen no Yuwaku (1987), Konna, Futari (1998), and Koisuru Otoko Tachi
(2002). Although the mainstream films and the “pink” films have a shared interest in the theme of the family, the relationship between the gay character(s) and the family as depicted in the mainstream films and in the “pink” films differ greatly. This chapter will compare the concept of family represented in the mainstream films Okoge and Hush!, and the “pink” film Konna, Futari. It will also explore the representations of gay characters in relation to these families, especially focusing on the suggestion of an assimilatory sexual politics in Okoge, the separatist politics of Konna, Futari, and the ambiguous position of
Hush!. The chapter will also discuss how the representation of the relationships between the gay characters and families can be connected to the modes of production and intended spectators of the films.
In Okoge, the gay character Goh is presented as an ideal husband for a woman displaced from the modern nuclear family, and at the end of the film is assimilated into a nuclear family himself. In the process, some attributes of the stereotypical gay man (such as a lack of sexual desire towards women, and a capability for domestic chores) are emphasized, while his sexual object choice is downplayed by not showing his sexual relations, deemphasizing Goh‟s status as a gay man. The plot concerns a heterosexual
15 woman named Sayoko forming a friendship with Goh and Tochi, Goh‟s lover, and eventually living together with Goh and her child, who she had with her violent husband,
Kurihara.
The structure of the nuclear family in Okoge displaces women, or provides an ill- fitted position for women at best. The film articulates the displacement of women mainly by drawing parallels between Goh‟s mother and Sayoko, who become representatives of the displaced women in modern society over the course of the narrative. Several of such parallels are drawn between Goh‟s mother and Sayoko in their initial scenes in the narrative. The most evident one is their clothes. Throughout the film, they are the only characters that appear in traditional clothing outside formal occasions. When Goh‟s mother is first introduced in the film, she is wearing a traditional kimono, with blue and white patterns. When Sayoko takes Goh and Tochi home, she changes into a traditional
Japanese garment called a yukata, which is similar to a kimono in its appearance. Another similarity between them is their way of approaching Goh. Both Sayoko and Goh‟s mother try to communicate with Goh in an aggressive manner: Goh‟s mother proposes that she lives with Goh without consulting him, and Sayoko suggests that Goh and Tochi come to her house, and begins to arrange the plans before they have a chance to decline.
However, their most significant similarities are not their appearances and mannerisms, but their lack of any position in the modern nuclear family, a situation the causes of which the narrative clearly details. The scene where Goh‟s mother is introduced begins with her ranting to Goh about the injustice she had to endure at his brother‟s 300 million yen house, which he inherited after their father‟s death. His mother tells him mainly about her daughter-in-law, who takes away the gifts Goh‟s mother bought for her
16 grandchild, and interferes when the mother tries to cook in the kitchen. The key reason the mother left the house becomes clear when she tells Goh that his brother hit her when he eventually found out about her feud with her daughter-in-law. The brother‟s inheritance of the house and his favoring of his wife over his mother show the mother‟s loss of her appropriate position in the family. The disappearance of the patriarchal figure in Goh‟s mother‟s family established a new patriarchal figure that excluded her from his family.
The deep-seated absence of an appropriate patriarchal figure in Sayoko‟s life is indicated through two flashbacks that she has. The first flashback occurs when Sayoko explains about her first foster family while shopping for food with Goh. The flashback consists of still photos showing Sayoko with her foster parents. Sayoko explains that her foster mother was a distant relative, and her foster father was an American news correspondent in Japan, and that she grew up like a princess until the sixth grade, which is when her foster mother died. The second flashback, which consists of moving images in sepia, shows Sayoko living with her new foster family, which is represented as a traditional Japanese family mainly through the interior of the house furnished with traditional screen doors and tatami mats. At the end of the second flashback, Sayoko is kissed during sleep by her new foster father, which ends with Sayoko opening her eyes and straightening up, shouting. Then, the scene changes from sepia to color, and
Sayoko‟s shout and movement in the flashback is carried over by Sayoko in the present, revealing that the flashback was a dream that woke her up. The next shot shows her foster family dining in sepia, signifying that the scene is a flashback. A middle-aged woman scolds her in the scene, saying that the foster father kissed her because he cared for her,
17 and that Sayoko was mixed up for thinking otherwise. Sayoko is silent, and the other children hurl abuses at her, telling her harshly to eat faster and that she is stupid.
Sayoko, like Goh‟s mother, lost her original and, in the film‟s terms, more appropriate father, when her mother died and her father gave her up to a Japanese family.
Although she was assigned to another family, the family is not appropriate to her in two ways. First, the traditional Japanese family is alien to her because of her upbringing in a more westernized family, which is signified by the western doll that Sayoko is grabbing onto. In the flashback scene, a girl in Sayoko‟s new family tries to get rid of the element alien to the traditional family by grabbing Sayoko‟s western doll and throwing it away, but Sayoko picks it up and holds on to it, showing her determination to hold on to the object that makes her belong in another family. The second reason why the traditional family is not appropriate to Sayoko is that she cannot fulfill the role that the patriarch has reserved for her. The father does not treat Sayoko as a child of the family, but as an object of sexual interest, which Sayoko rejects by shouting when he kisses her. Once she rejects the role, the mother scolds her, showing that by rejecting being the object of sexual interest for the father, she has also rejected a position in her family. The continuance of Sayoko‟s sense of displacement can be seen by her movement in the past being carried over to her movement in the present. By having Sayoko in the present continue the movement that Sayoko in the past has made, the film shows that Sayoko in the present retains the sense of displacement that originated in her past.
Sayoko‟s and Goh‟s mother‟s senses of displacement are similar. They each lose the protection and care of one patriarch and are assigned to a new one, but reject the position offered to them by the new patriarch. Goh‟s mother fights with her son‟s wife,
18 and her son beats her for it, showing that Goh‟s mother can only stay in the family if she is obedient to the patriarch‟s wife. Sayoko is offered the position of becoming the sexual partner of the patriarch, but she does not accept that position. Sayoko‟s and Goh‟s mother‟s rejections of the offered positions results in the displacement of them both from the family.
Goh is depicted as offering a safe haven for these displaced women, both of whom suffer because of the potential inequities of the traditional family unit. After being excluded from her other son‟s family, Goh‟s mother escapes to Goh‟s house. In the case of Sayoko, after the flashback of being scolded by the wife, she gets up from her bed and crawls to a faint light coming from between the Japanese screen dividing the rooms. She opens the screen to find Goh and Tochi, who came to Sayoko‟s house because she offered them a place to have sex. The two gay men are sleeping together naked in a room lighted by a warm yellow light. After seeing Goh and Tochi, Sayoko smiles and shuts the screen door. The lighting metaphorically shows that if the displacement from the traditional family situates her in the darkness, then the presence of Goh projects a light in which she can seek refuge.
By showing Goh aid two women from different environments and situations,
Okoge depicts Goh as a universal figure of refuge for displaced women. Goh‟s mother is associated with Japanese traditional objects and spaces, such as kimonos, a Japanese chest, formal Japanese style restaurants, and rice porridge. In contrast, Sayoko is depicted as a westernized woman, who once had an American foster father, dresses in modern western clothing (notwithstanding her aforementioned appearance in traditional clothes at one point in the narrative), furnishes her house with western furniture (the chairs, tables,
19 and chests inside her house), frequents western bars, and drinks milk with her meals.
Thus, by having Goh accept both his mother and Sayoko in his life, the film establishes
Goh as a safe haven that will receive both the new and the old, and the traditional and the modern.
Okoge implies that there are certain characteristics Goh possesses as a gay man which contribute to his being able to serve as a refuge for displaced woman. One example is Goh‟s lack of sexual desire towards the displaced women, which makes it possible for him to have a relationship based on mutual affection rather than heterosexual desire, which is depicted as being disconnected from affection in the film. For example, in the earlier flashback scene, Sayoko‟s stepmother explained the stepfather‟s kiss to come from his affection toward her, but this notion is denied in the next shot, where the father ignores the ongoing conversation completely and sells merchandise to customers in the shop. Another example of heterosexual desire that is devoid of affection is the relationship Sayoko has with Kurihara. Originally, Sayoko‟s plan is to cheer Goh up by making Kurihara his new lover, because Goh was depressed after breaking up with his former lover Tochi. However, Kurihara rapes Sayoko when they are waiting at Sayoko‟s house for Goh to arrive. While he tries to rape her, Kurihara tells her repeatedly that he loves her. However, after Kurihara and Sayoko marry as a result of her pregnancy caused by the rape, Sayoko tells another character in the film that he is “not nice.” The film does not show any form of affection from Kurihara, which gives the impression that Kurihara approached Sayoko out of sexual desire, and not affection. In both the stepfather‟s and
Kurihara‟s relationships with Sayoko, heterosexual desire and assault precede the forming of a heteronormative family and position the woman violently in the family.
20 Heterosexual desire is shown to be the force that subjects Sayoko under the family structure against her will, which leads to negative consequences such as trauma (which can be seen in the flashbacks) and a dysfunctional relationship with her husband. The scene where Sayoko smiles while watching Goh and Tochi having sex after having a flashback of her stepfather molesting her seems to suggest that Sayoko is comfortable with the gay men because their sexual desire is not directed toward her.
The film represents Goh‟s lack of sexual desire toward Sayoko to be what allows them to have a relationship not bound by the obligations that are socially prescribed for the Japanese women‟s roles in existing marital or familial relationships. Jonathan M.
Hall, in his comparison of Japanese women‟s magazines to Okoge, states that the representation in the women‟s magazines “stress a female desire for male intimacy without the social conditions on which that intimacy is offered—as wife or as whore”
(Hall 63). The desire for “male intimacy without the social conditions” is expressed through Goh and Sayoko‟s relationship, which is based only on mutual affection, and is contrasted to the family structure and other social codes that dictate certain behavior and leads to the subjugation of women.
Another characteristic of Goh that represents him as a safe haven for displaced women is his ability to perform the tasks of a wife in a heterosexual family. Goh‟s capability for domestic chores is emphasized through juxtaposition with Sayoko. Goh is the one cooking at Sayoko‟s house, Goh‟s house is immaculate while Sayoko‟s house is a cluttered mess, and Goh holds Sayoko‟s child instead of Sayoko after Sayoko escapes from her own house and reunites with Goh. Goh also takes over the burdensome job of taking care of his parent from his sister-in-law. In the scene where Goh‟s sister and sister-
21 in-law are walking away from Goh‟s mother‟s hospital room, the two women talk about how a “normal” boy would not be able to take care of his mother in the way Goh does, and admit to each other that they are happy Goh is gay. Goh can successfully create a family with Sayoko because he can fulfill the wife‟s tasks in the traditional family that are neglected by modern women such as Sayoko. Goh‟s link to such domestic tasks is emphasized through his contrast to Kurihara, who is described by Sayoko as being unkind and spending time in the bars after their marriage. Goh‟s ability to perform domestic duties establishes him as an ideal partner for a woman such as Sayoko, who cannot or is not willing to perform the duties of a traditional Japanese wife.
The two characteristics, lack of sexual desire, and capability of handling domestic chores, establish Goh as a gay man who can be assimilated in the family as an alternative of the heterosexual patriarch. Goh forms a family structure with Sayoko and her child at the end of the film, when Sayoko runs away with her child from her shotgun marriage with Kurihara, and reunites with Goh who has just lost his mother. However, Goh‟s status as a gay man seems to be downplayed before he is assimilated into his new family.
In its latter half, Okoge de-emphasizes Goh‟s sexuality not only in the public but also the private sphere, downplaying the qualities that differentiate Goh from a heterosexual man.
For example, in the last segment of the film, Goh does not have a gay lover, and Goh‟s former lover. Tochi, only has conversations with Goh without showing a trace of their past romantic rapport. At the end of the film, while Sayoko, Goh, and Sayoko‟s child are walking through Shinjuku Ni-Chome, a gay district in Tokyo, Sayoko finds a man looking at Goh and asks, “Is he your type?” Goh, who is holding Sayoko‟s child, responds by saying “Not really.” Sayoko tells him, “I don‟t mind.” In this scene, Sayoko,
22 Goh, and the child are consistently framed in the center, suggesting the permanency of their relationship. The stable quality of the relationship is emphasized through the contrast to the gay men walking constantly in and out of the frame, lingering only temporarily with Goh‟s new family.
In contrast to Goh, other gay men in the film are not portrayed as assimilable into a family. Other gay characters work in bars or show clubs, where they display their sexuality, making them “too gay” and giving them the appearance of being too sexually active to form a family with Sayoko. In the case of Tochi, he had a normative family with wife and children, but his family fell apart when his wife found out about his relationship with another man. Heterosexuality can subject women in the family structure and torment them, but open homosexuality can disintegrate the family.
In Okoge, Goh creates an alternative family that functions as a safe haven for women who are driven from the heteronormative family. However, only when Goh is domesticated and rendered sexually inactive (thus almost losing his status as a gay man) can he be allowed to create a family. The film‟s downplaying of Goh‟s sexual object- choice at the end of the film can be said to make Goh‟s image similar to the image of homosexuals that humanitarian organizations motivated by assimilatory politics have presented. Nikki Sullivan stated that the humanitarian organizations made the claim that homosexuals are “just like everybody else” and thus do not constitute a threat to normative society (Sullivan 24-25). Goh can only be assimilated into the traditional family structure after his sexuality is downplayed and appears “just like everybody else.”
Okoge takes an assimilationist position, but a gay man can only be assimilated at the expense of having to conform to normality by downplaying his sexuality.
23 Okoge‟s depiction of the gay man and the ideal family can be read as being motivated by its intended audience. Okoge is frequently discussed as a film intended for female spectators. Mark McLelland states that after his viewing of the films Okoge, Kira
Kira Hikaru (1992), and A Touch of Fever (1993), he was surprised that “the audiences watching them seemed to be almost entirely made up of young women,” which later led him to “think that these movies were not, in fact, about gay men at all, but were media fantasies which used the popularity of male homosexuality with young women to increase numbers at the box-office” (McLelland 32). Takashi Otsuka, a gay freelance writer in Japan, wrote in The Gay Toybox [Gei no Omocha Bako], a special volume of the biweekly magazine Takarajima about homosexuality, “the leading role supporting the gay boom are girls who have a great deal of curiosity about gays. Gay men are acting the title role, but are actually only the secondary character” (Otsuka). Released one year after the February 1991 issue of the women‟s fashion magazine Crea, which is often credited for the creation of the “gay boom,” Okoge can be perceived as a film intended mainly for a female audience, rather than a gay or mixed audience. The film caters not to a fantasy of gay men desiring a family, but to women who desire to form a marital relationship with a man with the stereotypical attributes of gayness. Then, the latter half of the film underplaying Goh‟s sexuality seems to reflect not the preference of the society to make the sexual practices of gay men less visible, but the desire to cater to women‟s fantasies of transforming the traditional paternal figure into an asexual man with the stereotypical attributes of a gay man. Okoge can be understood as a film made with the purpose of having an appeal to heterosexual female spectators, by showing the reconfiguration of the
24 traditional family by incorporating a male partner who would not subject the woman by sex, but maintains the family bond by mutual affection.
In contrast to Okoge, in which the gay character is assimilated into a family, the gay “pink” film Konna, Futari appears to take a more separatist stance by showing gay characters striving to create a family with a woman involved only for the function of procreation. However, women are not shown being displaced from the heteronormative family, but rather they ultimately sustain the heteronormative family structure by excluding the gay characters from it. In the narrative of Konna, Futari, Kazuhiko, a gay businessman, impregnates his female colleague Mariko during a one-night stand.
Kazuhiko consults with his gay lover, Junnosuke, a divorcee whose ex-wife does not allow him to see his own child, and they decide to adopt the child Mariko is going to have. However, Mariko receives an offer of marriage from a business executive and therefore chooses to have an abortion. Meanwhile, Junnosuke‟s ex-wife lies to him that their child has died. In these ways, the women frustrate the gay characters‟ efforts to create an alternative family of their own, in which they would serve as the parents of the biological child of one of them.
In contrast to Sayoko and Goh‟s mother in Okoge, the women in the “pink” film
Konna, Futari sustain the heteronormative family structure rather than becoming excluded or tormented by it. To establish a family that will also give her a higher social status, Mariko has an abortion and eliminates the possibility of developing kinship with the gay characters. Junnnosuke‟s former wife also chooses to sever her connections with
Junnnosuke in order to remarry with a heterosexual man, which will relieve her from the stigmatizing status of the single mother. The women in Konna, Futari reject relationships
25 and family structures that deviate from the norm to create relationships that would situate them within the norm. As a result, the gay men‟s connection to the possibility of having a family is severed.
In Konna, Futari, the female characters do not view maternity and childbirth as an act motivated solely by the personal desire to have a child. The female characters emphasize the social meanings of maternity and childbirth, which in turn deemphasizes the innate emotional desire to have a child or the joy of raising a child as its motivation.
For example, after Mariko has an abortion, she tells Kazuhiko that when she agreed to give birth to his child for Kazuhiko and Junnosuke, she thought, “normal women won‟t be able to do this.” Mariko‟s remark shows that her motivation to give birth to the child was not because of her desire for a child, but to vocalize a social statement to declare that she will not conform to the norms of society. Her prompt decision in an earlier scene to have an abortion also emphasizes childbearing as a signifier for her relation to the society. After the scene in which Mariko agrees to her superior at her workplace to marry the son of a company executive, we see a shot of Mariko at sunset, singing a Japanese children‟s song. A sign for a maternity clinic follows the shot of Mariko, which implies
Mariko‟s abortion. In this way, the transition from Mariko‟s change in social status as a child bearer for a gay couple to the wife of a man of high status is immediately associated with her abortion. Bearing a child is thus a marker of a certain relationship to society, and, for Mariko, sacrificing the child becomes a means to improve her social status.
Mariko attributes this characteristic not only to herself but women in general. Looking back at her decision to have an abortion, Mariko states that “Women are scary,” which shows that her decision to sacrifice a child to improve her social status is, in her opinion,
26 what any women would decide to do. In the film, women are “scary” in because of their tendency to prioritize their social position over their childrearing.
Junnosuke‟s former wife treats her child as a social symbol with an outlook that is still more unapologetic than Mariko‟s. To sever her connections with her former gay husband, Junnosuke‟s wife tells Junnosuke that his child had died. Junnosuke is shocked by this fact, but he agrees never to contact her again, because his presence will remind her of a past that is too painful for her. However, as soon as Junnosuke hangs up the phone, her new husband comes up to her and asks if what she did was right. She asserts to her new husband that it was indeed the right thing to do, adding that the child will become attached to him more easily this way, and that she already told her child that his biological father was dead. Her “killing” of her child can be seen as a symbolic act similar to Mariko‟s abortion, an act that exploits children by treating them as social symbols for her transformation from a woman connected to an individual outside of the norm, to a woman in a heteronormative family.
Kazuhiko and Junnosuke, in contrast to the women in the film, envision a family that is formed by mutual affection, rather than social restraint or social ambition. This is apparent in childrearing being a joy in itself for the gay men, rather than a means to improve their status in the society. In the film, Junnosuke is shown to buy toys on his son‟s birthday, and later in the film he silently grieves about not being able to meet with his son. For Junnosuke, his desire to meet his son is not motivated by the need to form a family or the need to find a position in the heteronormative society, but by the affection he feels for his son. When the gay couple and Mariko are discussing about what to do with the unborn child, Junnosuke proposes that she give birth to the child so that he can
27 raise the child, and talks about his own son and how he cannot see him. Junnosuke‟s affection for his son is redirected toward the desire to have another child, which means that his desire to have a child is motivated largely by affection. The gay couple‟s conversations are about the practical problems that they have to tackle to have a child, showing that they are only concerned with how they are going to have a child, and not about how the child will affect their social status or change their relationship. This furthers the impression that for the gay couple having a child is a means to itself, unlike
Mariko and Junnnosuke‟s former wife, who are influenced by social pressures and values.
Okoge and Konna, Futari are similar in their envisioning of an ideal family being structured on mutual affection. However, Konna, Futari differs greatly in the treatment of women. In contrast to the family in Okoge, which becomes a safe haven for heterosexual women, the ideal family of Junnosuke and Kazuhiko is devoid of women. In the scene where Mariko and the gay couple sit down to talk about what to do with her pregnancy,
Junnosuke tells Mariko, “If you give birth to the child, we [watashitachi, which means a specific group in that space, in this case Junnosuke and Kazuhiko] will raise the child.”
From when it was proposed, Mariko is excluded from being a part of the unit, and she is given only the function of procreation. Later, after they have decided to have the child,
Mariko asks, “So I am going to be the biological mother. Then who is going to be the mother raising the child?” Kazuhiko points at Junnosuke and replies, “Him.” This scene implies that Junnosuke and Kazuhiko‟s family will be a family based on the heteronormative family structure, with one man fulfilling the paternal role and another man fulfilling the maternal role. This also implies that, since Junnosuke already occupies
28 the maternal role, Mariko cannot be a member of that family. Mariko‟s exclusion from the gay couple‟s family is reaffirmed in a later scene where Mariko asks if she can participate in raising the child, which Kazuhiko rejects by saying, “Well, if our place was larger, we could live together, but…” Mariko is not included in the family the gay couple is envisioning, and her only function in the family is procreation.
In Okoge, the gay character is assimilated into the heteronormative family as an ideal sexually inactive and domesticated husband for the heterosexual woman. In contrast, the ideals of the gay characters in Konna, Futari are separatist, and the portrayals of the women are misogynistic. Mariko‟s abortion and Junnosuke‟s former wife‟s lie represent women as untrustworthy and, for the most part, only concerned about improving their own social position. The film suggests separatist politics by having gay characters use a woman only for procreation and envision creating a family between two gay men, excluding the woman who gave birth to the child. The ending of the film further supports the misogynist and separatist politics implied in the earlier events of the film.
After Kazuhiko is told about the abortion, and Junnosuke is told about his son‟s death,
Kazuhiko goes out cruising and has sex with a stranger, while Junnosuke meets his student and has sex with him. Both sexual encounters evidently take place in hotel rooms, emphasizing their impersonal quality, and both scenes start with the protagonists in a passive state, suggesting their lack of enthusiasm for sex. The women and the social codes of the heteronormative society cause the characters to not only lose their prospective family but also their monogamous relationship, depicting women and the social codes to be pernicious forces for gay men.
29 Konna, Futari was created by ENK Promotions, which is a company that produces, distributes, and exhibits gay porn films, which means that the film was targeted almost exclusively to a gay audience. Konna, Futari‟s less intimate relationship between the gay men and the heterosexual woman compared to Okoge can be associated with the opinions shared by some gay men, who are “not particularly sympathetic towards women,” and “do not regard the invasion of gay space by heterosexual tourists, either male or female, particularly favorably and do not seem to feel the same empathy for straight women as some women do for them” (McLelland 111). The family in Konna,
Futari, that is separated from the society by the exclusion of women and planned with affection between the gay partners and the child as its foundational basis, is then created to cater for gay spectators. However, although Okoge is created to cater for female spectators and Konna, Futari for gay spectators, the two films have similarities in their projection of the ideal family. The films deemphasize the importance of blood relations and family continuity, which is the central concept of Ie, which is the traditional family system of pre-war Japan that has “had a lasting impact throughout the twentieth century”
(Izuhara 19). However, the films also maintain the normative family structure of a couple with a permanent partnership having a child. The two films do not show a breaking down of the family, but show a gay man playing a certain role in the nuclear family, which is the father figure in the case of Okoge, and the maternal figure in the case of Konna,
Futari. By excluding the figure who sustains the family structure by desires other than affection (the paternal figure motivated by heterosexual desire subjugates and incorporates the woman in Okoge, and women reject forming a family with gay characters because of their desire to achieve a higher social status by being included in a
30 normative family with higher status in Konna, Futari), the two films replace the
“network of mutual obligations and responsibilities,” as the force that bonds the traditional family with mutual affection (McLelland 121). The two films in this way reconfigure and recycle the form of the traditional family to give it a new meaning.
The politics suggested in Hush! differ from the assimilationist politics and separatist politics, respectively, expressed in Okoge and Konna, Futari in their ambiguity, which can be associated with the intended audience for Hush! being a mixed audience, and not a female or gay male audience. The film was released in theaters showing mainstream films, but it was also publicized and exhibited in spaces that attract a gay audience, such as the Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and a gay porn theater in Osaka. The intention of the film to reach a wide audience is expressed in the introduction for one of its screenings, which called out “(o)ld or young, man or woman, gay or straight, everyone is welcome” (SIGLO Hush!). Unlike Okoge or Konna, Futari,
Hush! does not project a clear ideal state in the film that would cater to either the female or gay spectator, or clearly express assimilationist or separatist politics. Hush! instead questions the various concepts, blurring the clear distinction between the oppressor and the oppressed, family and kinship, and proper and improper forms of procreation.
Hush! begins with Katsuhiko, a gay man, becoming lovers with Naoya, who is another gay man. Asako, a heterosexual woman who is an outcast because of her promiscuity and mental instability, overhears Katsuhiko and Naoya‟s conversation about their relationship and asks Katsuhiko to have a child with her. Katsuhiko and Naoya are reluctant, but eventually they start planning how they will create and raise the child.
31 In Hush!, the characters are not divided into simple binary positions of oppressor and oppressed. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick wrote that gay theory should pose a question that feminists have often asked, which is “how a variety of forms of oppression intertwine systematically with each other; and especially how the person disabled through one set of oppressions may by the same positioning be enabled through others” (Sedgwick 32). In
Hush!, indeed, characters who are presented as oppressed in certain scenes and contexts are presented as oppressors in others, and vice-versa. This possibility of being either oppressed or oppressor, depending upon the context, is common to most of the characters in the film. Naoya, Kazuhiko‟s lover, has his mother impose gay stereotypes on him and feels oppressed in being misunderstood by his family, but Naoya also becomes an oppressor to Nagata, Kazuhiko‟s stalker, when he perceives her threats to kill herself as hysteria and pulls Kazuhiko away from her to go home, leaving her alone to possibly kill herself. Yoko, Kazuhiko‟s brother‟s wife, is the stereotypical Japanese wife who is subservient to her husband, passively accepting the strictures of family life, but when she encounters Asako, she assertively tells her that her family does not want her “kind of blood.” Thus, the characters in the film are not consistently categorized into binary oppositions of the active oppressor and passive oppressed, but are involved in an intertwining network of oppression where they can be either the oppressor or the oppressed, depending on the context.
In contrast to Okoge or Konna, Futari, in which the relation between sex and procreation was not ostensibly problematized, Hush!, by detailing methods of impregnation besides heterosexual sex, questions the meaning of sex and procreation. In the film, the owner of the pet shop that Naoya is working in is trying to help a woman
32 impregnate her dog, so the dog can give birth to puppies that she could sell. In the scene where the owner and the woman are making the dogs have sex, the two characters hold their dogs, sweating and clearly identifying with them as they help them penetrate and have sex. The film thus suggests how heterosexual sex, even with procreation as its purported objective, is never only about procreation. By showing the owner‟s sexual desire towards the woman and the woman‟s desire for money that the puppies would bring, heterosexual sex is shown to carry excess meanings other than procreation. The woman also makes her daughter sit through and watch the process, which alludes to how heterosexual sex with its complicated set of meanings is often taught and represented as the proper form of procreation and gender relations. The film poses the question of
“proper” sex more clearly in a later scene, where the woman is told that Asako is planning to impregnate herself using a dropper. In the point of view shot of the person who told her, the woman laughs awkwardly, looking around and glancing at the camera, and finally says “How awful.” This reaction raises the question of what is the meaning of procreation and sex. If a method of procreation in which the purpose is only to impregnate is an “awful” method, then what would be the proper method? If heterosexual sex is the proper method for procreation, what exactly makes it “proper”? By leaving these questions unanswered, the film reveals how the relation between procreation and sex is not a simple connection, but a heavily loaded one in social terms.
Unlike Okoge and Konna, Futari, which suggest the idea that the social forces that colonize the imagination of the family are inescapable in the characters‟ lives, Hush! represents the familial unit as temporary and unstable. Goh‟s mother, even after being driven out of her son‟s house, retains the connection between the family by secretly
33 arranging a meeting between Goh and a prospective bride with Goh‟s brother. On the day of the meeting, all of the members of Goh‟s family are present to greet the members of the prospective bride‟s family, implying that Goh‟s mother is still strongly connected with the family unit. Okoge ends with Tochi envying Goh having a child, thus idealizing the formation of the familial unit. In Konna, Futari, the gay couple discusses about the temporary character of gay relationships, which implies that creating a family is a way of making their relationship permanent. The suggestion that having a family (with one gay man as “the mother raising the child”) is an ideal state for the gay couple also functions in creating the fantasy of the permanently stable family. In contrast, families in Hush! are not shown as permanent, stable units. At the end of the film, Kazuhiko grieves about the weakness of family ties after his brother has died, saying, “It‟s kind of sad, my brother was barely in his grave when the relatives came clamoring for the land. Even my sister- in-law, who was so opposed, when it came down to it, signed the contract, took her share, and now she and her daughter moved back home like nothing happened.” Before this scene, the sister-in-law had told Asako that she did not want her blood in the family.
Kazuhiko‟s dialogue, however, emphasizes the superficiality of his sister-in-law‟s earlier defense of her family lineage: The concept of family as an integral unit that can be compromised merely by the intrusion of an outsider (Asako) is undermined when the sister-in-law sells land, the symbol of family lineage, and moves away with her daughter, thus trading in the family symbol for individual freedom. By emphasizing the fragility of the family structure through the sister-in-law‟s actions, the film reveals the concept of a stable and permanent family to be an illusion, and rejects idealizing the familial unit.
34 The film also questions the traditional familial unit through the depiction of a successful alternative social unit formed among Asako, Kazuhiko, and Naoya. The three characters plan to have a child, but they do not envision forming a normative familial unit comprised of a couple in a marriage or marriage-like arrangement with children. The final scene of the film shows that what they are trying to form is not a clearly defined family, but a loosely defined kinship. The scene shows the three characters sitting down to eat nabe, a meal where people sit around a boiling pot and eat directly from it. This is considered to be an informal and usually a family meal, and this informal quality, combined with the seating arrangements, with each character sitting on one side of the table, represents them to be in an intimate relationship that does not fit the definition of the traditional idea of a family. In contrast to Hush!, Konna, Futari excludes the woman by including a scene in which the gay couple faces the woman with cake, the obligatory gift for visiting in Japan, placed between them. The cake signifies the woman as an outsider facing across the table towards a relationship that is impenetrable to her.
The relationship between the three main characters in Hush! is similar to what
Judith Butler explains to be relationships that constitute a “breakdown” of traditional kinship. The characters‟ relationship in Hush! fits the definition of the relationship explained by Butler in its calling “into question the distinguishability of kinship from community” with their loosely defined kinship and displacing “the central place of biological and sexual relations” by not centering the relationship around a monogamous couple (37). By representing the characters‟ relationship, which does not conform to the traditional idea of the family, to be a successful one, the relationship in Hush! can be said to question and constitute the “breakdown” of the idea of traditional kinship.
35 The tendency of Hush! to question and destabilize concepts rather than projecting ideals is furthered by its formal qualities. The frequent use of long takes with long shots clearly differentiates Hush! from Okoge and Konna, Futari, which use shorter takes and adhere to the classical Hollywood style more closely than does Hush!. The use of long takes with long shots in Hush! rejects identification or overt emotional involvement with a single character. For example, the scene where Kazuhiko starts crying while walking along a river with Asako and Naoya is shot in a long take in long shot.
Instead of cutting to a close up of Kazuhiko or other characters, the scene keeps the three characters distant from the camera, with the characters looking sideways or away from the camera. The lack of a cut that will give a better vantage point on the actions of a particular character, and the lack of close ups in the scene, show the film‟s rejection of directing the spectator‟s attention to a single character to identify with, and of excessively dramatizing the scene. Like the politics of Hush!, the formal strategies of the film do not favor the vantage point of the female character or the gay male character, but keep the film‟s preference ambiguous by maintaining a distance from the characters.
Okoge and Konna, Futari differ in their intended audiences and the depiction of the position of gay men, but are similar in their locating the oppressive force in one figure of the traditional family. They both locate the source of oppression in the figure that sustains the traditional family, and exclude the figure to construct or envision an ideal family, but while Okoge suggests an assimilatory politics by downplaying the sexuality of the gay character and replacing him with the traditional paternal figure, Konna, Futari embodies a separatist politics by distancing the gay men from women, who are shown to function to maintain the traditional family structure. Hush! differs in the depiction of the position of
36 the gay man in relation to family and society. Hush!, instead of rebelling against oppression and the traditional family, questions what generates oppression, and what constructs the traditional family. Instead of reconfiguring the traditional family or envisioning the traditional family with a difference, it shows a relationship that holds the potential to break down the concept of the normative family structure. The difference of the politics in the three films can be associated with the intended spectators for the films.
Okoge‟s depiction of a gay man‟s intimate relationship with a heterosexual woman can be associated with its being catered toward a female audience, and Konna, Futari‟s separatist politics can be associated with its intended audience being primarily gay men.
The ambiguous politics of Hush! can be seen as a result of the film being catered toward a mixed audience of heterosexual and straight spectators. However, although the three films raised here vary in their modes of representation, intended spectators, and gay men‟s and women‟s relation to the society, the three films can be said to be similar in their expression of a sense of discomfort or anxiety toward the traditional family bound by responsibility and obligations, and are also similar in proposing mutual affection as a solution for that anxiety and discomfort. The gay man, in these three films with the family as its central theme, becomes a catalyst for changing familial relations.
37 Chapter 2: Genital Homosexual Desire in Male Homosocial Organizations
The first chapter of this thesis examined the assimilatory politics of Okoge, the separatist politics of Konna, Futari, and the ambiguous politics of Hush! through analyzing the relationship between the gay character and the familial unit. The chapter also examined the relation between the politics of the films and the mode of production and intended spectators of each of the films. This second chapter will discuss and compare the politics expressed in the mainstream films 800 Two Lap Runners (1994) and
Taboo (1999), and the gay “pink” film Mistake (1995), through comparing the relation of homosocial relationships and homosexual relationships in the films. The homosociality within the organizations represented in these three films is directly linked to homosexuality, and thus deviates from common understandings of the term
“homosocial.” For example, the term is described by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick as pointing to “social bonds between persons of the same sex” that are “obviously meant to be distinguished from „homosexual‟” (Sedgwick 1). Sedgwick further notes the continuum between male homosexual and male homosocial relationships is radically disrupted because of the obligatory heterosexuality built into the patriarchal structure, and because of the homophobia that is a necessary consequence of the obligatory heterosexuality
(Sedgwick 2-3). The homosocial organizations depicted in the films analyzed in this chapter are unique in the sense that the continuum between the homosexual and the homosocial is not disrupted, but clearly visible.
The homosocial relationships presented in the films of this chapter differ from those analyzed in previous works on the representations of homosocial relationships such as Sedgwick‟s, by presenting “genital homosexual desire,” which is the desire to have a
38 physical relationship, as being inherent in homosocial relationships. Sedgwick‟s book
Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire analyzes the latent homosexual desire in the homosocial relationships in nineteenth-century English literature, but those works do not involve the explicit articulation of genital homosexual desire evident in the films analyzed here. In a more modern context, Justin Wyatt has found “a significant point of connection between the homosocial and homosexual” in the film Swingers, but again the connection he finds is an affinity between the structures of the two kinds of male relationships, rather than the connection between homosocial relationships and genital homosexual desire (62). The central focus of these studies were on revealing the latent continuity between homosexual and homosocial relationships, but since that continuity is not latent but apparently visible in the films analyzed in this chapter, the focus of this chapter will be on the qualities that are attributed to homosexuality when the connection between homosexuality and homosociality are brought to the foreground.
The first section of this chapter will discuss how the mainstream film 800 Two Lap
Runners establishes a connection between homosexuality and homosociality through the relationship of two runners, and represents homosocial and homosexual relationships to be more desirable than heterosexual relationships. The second section will examine the representation of homosexuality in the mainstream film Taboo. This section will focus on how Taboo represents homosexual desire to be stronger than heterosexual desire, and how homosexual desire precedes and becomes the foundation for homosocial organizations. The third section will also discuss the similarities in the depiction of homosexuality and homosocial organizations between Taboo and 800 Two Lap Runners.
39 The final section will analyze the gay “pink” film Mistake and how the film creates a discontinuity between genital homosexual desire in the homosocial sphere and the personal sphere, separating minoritized personal homosexual relationships from universal homosocial relationships. Finally, the differences in the representation of homosexuality and homosociality between Mistake and the other two films will be discussed, with an emphasis on the difference of the function of homosexuality in the homosocial relationships represented in the three films, and how those differences can be associated with the modes of production of the films.
800 Two Lap Runners, a film made during the “gay boom” by the director Ryuichi
Hiroki, contrasts heterosexual relationships outside the track field, which are fraught with restrictions and taboos, with the relationships between male contenders on the track, which are depicted to have fewer restrictions and allow the expression or liberation of primal desires. The film is centered on two male characters, who are Hirose, a high school track runner developing a relationship with Yamaguchi, a girl who had a relationship with Hirose‟s former lover Aihara, and Nakazawa, who is competing against
Hirose and is in love with a female high school hurdler named Ida.
Yet while 800 Two Lap Runners does allow the characters to express their desires in heterosexual relationships outside the track field, in most cases it shows their relationships ending in dissatisfaction due to the restrictions and taboos that function outside of the track field. The most apparent example of the restrictions in those relationships is the exclusive quality of the monogamous heterosexual relationship.
Characters are shown to experience dissatisfaction or be harmed emotionally in their heterosexual relationships because the monogamous quality of their relationship limits
40 the people that are involved in it, resulting in an exclusion of a third character from that relationship.
The exclusion caused by monogamous relationships is brought to the foreground in the latter half of the film, where Hirose and Ida have sex. Hirose, after stripping Ida of her skirt, massages her feet, calling out the name of each muscle in the legs. Hirose‟s action invoking his status as a track runner gives the impression that sex with Ida for him is more of an extension of the homosocial relationships on the track field, rather than a monogamous heterosexual relationship, which can also be associated with Hirose‟s successful sex with her, since Hirose has experienced one sexual relationship with another male track runner but failed to have heterosexual sex with Yamaguchi. Hirose‟s perception of his relationship with Ida as a homosocial relationship rather than a heterosexual one is confirmed after they have sex, where Hirose gets up from the bed saying, “Why don‟t we call up Nakazawa and have him come here?” Ida asks him if he is really going to have him come over, and Hirose tells her that the three of them can have fun. After Hirose exits the frame, Ida keeps her unsatisfied and confused expression, but smiles and laughs as the sound of Hirose dialing the phone is heard. Hirose‟s invitation of
Nakazawa, a male track runner, shows that he considers his relationship with Ida to be not a monogamous heterosexual relationship but a homosocial relationship, which
Nakazawa can be involved in. The monogamous heterosexual relationship restricts the number of its members, which is expressed by Ida‟s initial disapproval of inviting
Nakazawa, but in contrast, once Hirose perceives the relationship as being analogous to a homosocial relationship, it does not restrict the number of the members involved, and does not produce any excluded subjects.
41 The social codes that restrict heterosexual relationships are also evident in how male promiscuity and female promiscuity are differently perceived by the characters.
Female characters in the film perceive female promiscuity as a negative quality. In the scene where Nao kisses Hirose, she tries to lower Hirose‟s opinion about Yamaguchi by implying that Yamaguchi is able to manipulate Hirose because she has had “many relationships.” In contrast to female characters, men being promiscuous are not condemned. Although Nakazawa is shown to have many relationships with women, that does not ruin his reputation within the film. For example, the first sequence of the film starts with him having sex with a marginal character in the film, and later, when the same girl tells him that she might date a man who is not good at sex, he suggests that he can keep having sex with her, which is perceived positively by the girl. In the sequence where
Nao calls Nakazawa, he tries to guess her voice, saying the names of several girls without any success, but Nao tells him her name without any bitterness. The difference in how promiscuity is perceived between men and women is brought up in the scene at the later half of the film, where Nakazawa expresses his affection to Ida. Ida reacts to Nakazawa coldly, and after he asks her several times if anything‟s wrong, she harshly states, “I slept with Hirose. Are you happy now? Go home” and walks away. Nakazawa runs to keep up with her, and she tells him loudly “I slept with him,” which he responds to by saying,
“That? I do that a lot, too.” In the sequence, Yamaguchi expresses her sleeping with
Hirose as a negative quality that she thinks will repel Nakazawa. In contrast, Nakazawa supports her by comparing her to him, showing that promiscuity, when the subject considered is a male, is not a degrading quality. The imbalance between how male and
42 female promiscuity is judged emphasizes how heterosexual relationships are bound by social codes, and how the codes differ in the level of restrictiveness for each gender.
The social restrictions that dictate heterosexual couples‟ relationships are also emphasized through the characters‟ clothing and the use of space. The clothing that the characters wear while they are having sex expresses the persistence of social restrictions even during sex. In most heterosexual sex scenes, the characters keep wearing their school uniforms, which can generally signify information such as locality of residence, social standing, class, and intellectuality. For example, in the scene where Ida and Hirose have sex, they both remain almost fully clothed, although there is no apparent reason
(such as lack of time, shyness about exposing themselves, or a fetish toward school uniforms) for keeping their clothes on. The clothing of the characters during heterosexual sex contrasts with the homosexual interaction depicted in the film between Hirose and his former lover Aihara, where they are both fully naked. By not stripping the uniforms that signify the characters‟ status in society, the film can be read to be showing that heterosexual sex is heavily coded with social meanings, and the characters do not get stripped of their social statuses while having heterosexual sex. This is further suggested by the nature of the personal spaces where heterosexual sex occurs. The small, claustrophobic quality of the personal spaces is emphasized through their contrast with the clear, open space of the track field where homosocial relationships develop. The claustrophobic quality of the personal spaces emphasizes the impression that the characters are restricted in their heterosexual relationships.
In contrast to heterosexuality, which is depicted as fraught with taboos and restrictions and associated with private spaces, homosexuality is depicted as free of social
43 restrictions and is associated with public spaces. These qualities are associated with homosexuality mainly through its connection to the track field, where the characters are free from the restrictions dictating heterosexual relationships.
The connection between homosexuality and track is established early in the film, through showing the relationship of Hirose with Aihara, Hirose‟s former lover. The first time Hirose is shown to be running in the film, after he finishes running around the track, he sits down and watches Aihara run toward the audience stand. There is a shot reverse- shot between Hirose and Aihara, and after Aihara sits down on the stand, he disappears, suggesting that the image of Aihara was Hirose‟s memory invoked by the track field. In a later scene, a homosexual relationship with Aihara is suggested by showing Hirose imagining Aihara holding his hand from behind while he is taking a shower in the locker room after track practice. The relationship between him and Aihara is confirmed later, when Yamaguchi tells him after their first unsuccessful attempt to have sex that Hirose is only able to have sex with men, and also that she envied him since Aihara told her that he had better sex with Hirose. By visually implying Hirose and Aihara‟s relationship through Hirose‟s hallucinations in track-related spaces rather than personal space, homosexuality is associated with track and competitive running. Through this association, homosexuality is also depicted to be occurring in an open, public space in contrast to the private, claustrophobic space associated with heterosexuality.
The openness and lack of restriction in the track field is highlighted in the sequence where Hirose, Ida, and Nakazawa sneak out in the night during a track runners‟ camp.
The three characters walk on the track field and lie down on the lawn. The first several lines of dialogue associate the openness of the track field with freedom from restrictions.
44 Hirose‟s comments about the lack of buildings to block the view in the field can be read to express the track field as a space that is free from social restrictions. Then, Hirose tells them that the field during night is also nice, because it is sacred, and Ida tells Hirose and Nakazawa that she feels like she is going to melt and disappear inside it. The shared experience of the largeness of the sky and the last two comments by Hirose and
Yamaguchi show the field as a space where the individual self can be lost by melting and disappearing. This is emphasized by the cinematography of the scene, which shows the three characters in an extreme long shot in a long take, which de-emphasizes their individual differences. By deemphasizing the characters‟ differences and by having the characters talk about similar experiences, the scene shows that the track field can create a collective experience where the borderlines of individual identity are blurred. The track field is thus depicted as a space where social restrictions do not apply, and where the characters can experience the same experience regardless of difference in gender and identity.
These qualities are confirmed in the next scene, which shows the three characters swimming in a pool naked. Ida‟s short hair and her body being hidden by the water downplay the difference of the gender of the characters efficiently. When the three characters stop swimming, Hirose looks toward the pool and says “Men‟s breaststroke.
Finals,” which illuminates the fact that in the homosocial space of sports competition,
Ida‟s gender is considered as male, rather than female. Since Ida is considered as “male,” the relationship between the three characters can be said to be a quasi-homosocial relationship. The characters then swim to the center of the pool and splash water on each other, further eliminating the difference between them by the layer of water in front of
45 them. The relationship on the track field is shown to be free of social restrictions and allows the stripping of individual differences, but it is also depicted as a primarily male space and relationship, where female competitors are gendered as male. While the characters are on the track field or in public space for sports, they are allowed to enjoy a male homosocial relationship that, unlike heterosexual relationships, does not impose restrictions on them.
The association between track competition and homosexuality is expressed through not only Hirose and Aihara‟s relationship being visually suggested only in spaces associated with track, but also through the dialogue between Hirose and Yamaguchi that shows the affinity between running and sexual intercourse, and Hirose‟s obsession with
Aihara‟s status as a runner. In the scene where Yamaguchi and Hirose first meet,
Yamaguchi asks how it feels to run at full speed, and Hirose tells her that running is an attempt to re-experience the pleasure embedded in the DNA by ancestors who felt pleasure out of running away from predators and catching prey. Yamaguchi then asks
Hirose if it is the same with sex. This conversation highlights the similarity between running and sex, making running almost synonymous with sex. After their conversation,
Yamaguchi tells Hirose that her ex-boyfriend used to run two laps. When Hirose asks about his record, she tells him one minute fifty two seconds zero six. Hirose says, “Then that‟s…” to which Yamaguchi responds by saying “Yes, Aihara.” From the beginning of the film when his name is first introduced, Aihara is identified not by his personal status but by his status on the track. This is furthered by the later sequences of the film, where
Yamaguchi may occasionally talk about her personal experiences with Aihara, but Hirose talks only about Aihara in relation to the track. This gives the impression that their
46 homosexual relationship occurred because of their acknowledging each other as track runners. Since they were drawn together because of their status in the realm of track competition, the film gives the impression of an association between homosociality and homosexuality. This association also allows the competition and relationship between
Nakazawa and Hirose to be seen as a homosocial relationship with latent homosexuality.
Homosociality and homosexuality, which are depicted by the film as preferable to heterosexuality in their freedom from social restrictions, are shown to remain a strong force at the close of the narrative, in which, after having had sex with Ida, Hirose is now able to have sex with Yamaguchi. Although Jonathan M. Hall reads this as a confirmation of Hirose‟s heterosexuality, the final sequence of the film allows different readings (69).
At the end of their conversation after having sex, Yamaguchi tells Hirose that they cannot meet anymore. When she asks him if he wanted to have sex with her, or with the body that had sex with Aihara, Hirose tells her, “That‟s you.” This conversation, and the several dialogues at the beginning where Yamaguchi expressed that her interest in track came from her adoration of people who can run fast, shows that Yamaguchi‟s attempts to have sex with Hirose was to connect with homosocial relationships. Although she had succeeded in making Hirose have heterosexual sex, the last scene of the film expresses the persistence of homosocial relationships. After Yamaguchi and Hirose‟s conversation, the film shows a lengthy sequence of Nakazawa and Hirose competing on the track field.
They enter the goal almost simultaneously, and then stand on the field panting, facing away from the camera. By showing Hirose and Nakazawa engage in track competition, which is the act that developed the homosexual relationship between Aihara and Hirose, the film seems to imply the possibility of a homosexual relationship between Nakazawa
47 and Hirose. By juxtaposing Hirose‟s failed relationship with Yamaguchi and Hirose‟s relationship with Nakazawa as a competitor at the end, the film seems to represent homosociality and the homosexual relationships associated with it to be more genuine, lasting, and desirable than heterosexual relationships. Yamaguchi is dissatisfied with a heterosexual relationship and tries to establish a physical connection with a homosocial relationship, and Hirose engages in a homosocial relationship after his failed relationship with Yamaguchi.
To summarize, then, in 800 Two Lap Runners, the homosocial space of the track is associated with homosexuality, which expresses a universalizing view of homosexuality by blurring the lines between homosocial relationships, which are common to the hegemonic society, and homosexual relationships. The film‟s heterosexual relationships have restrictions, such as the imposing of monogamy and condemning of female promiscuity, which the characters are forced to adhere to. In contrast, homosocial spaces are depicted to be utopian spaces where gender can be superseded and the characters can fulfill their desires without being restricted. Homosocial spaces also allow desires to be fulfilled through engaging in a single activity and achieving a collective experience. The homosexual relationships fostered in that utopian homosocial space are more fulfilling and, as expressed in the last track competition sequence, are more genuine, lasting, and desirable than heterosexual relationships.
Similar to how 800 Two Lap Runners blurs the distinction between homosocial and homosexual, Nagisa Oshima‟s Taboo (1999) represents homosocial relationships within a political group in the nineteenth century to involve homosexual desires. Like 800 Two
Lap Runners, Taboo universalizes homosexuality by representing radical political activity
48 to be motivated by homosexual desire, thus undermining the rationality of political activism. Taboo is about the homosexual relationships of Sozaburo Kanou in the
Shinsengumi militia, which is a group assigned to guard Kyoto. After Kanou has had affairs with several men in the militia, several murders involving Kanou‟s lovers are committed, and Tashiro, Kanou‟s first lover, is suspected for the murders. Since this is a gross breach of the militia‟s code of conduct, Kanou is assigned by the leader of the militia to kill Tashiro. When two members of the militia, Hijikata and Okita, see Kanou confronting his lover, they come to know that Kanou was the one who killed his lovers and framed Tashiro to eliminate Tashiro legitimately. After Kanou finishes his assignment, Okita kills Kanou.
Critics have generally perceived Kanou as a subversive figure that represents the other, a foreign element in the homosocial organization. Yomota Inuhiko interprets the character of Kanou as an embodiment of empty, passive evil motivated only by the purely negative desire to kill (Inuhiko 84). Inuhiko writes that Kanou is an enigmatic
“other” that subverts the organization by arousing homoerotic desires between the members of the organization. Yasuhara Yoshihiro seems to share a similar view of Kanou when he writes “the beauty and the „scent of murder‟ in the characterization of Sozaburo shifts the theme of homoeroticism in Taboo from a ubiquitous to a subversive element”
(Yasuhara 355). The two articles share the view that Kanou is a subversive element mainly because his desirability reveals the inherent sexual desire in the Shinsengumi militia. I would like to argue, however, that Kanou is subversive not only because of the fact that he fuels the homoerotic desire within the militia, but because he replicates the structure of the militia by using tactics similar to the militia in terms of arousing the
49 members‟ homosexual desires and liquidating members of the organization. This characteristic of Kanou is suggested through drawing parallels between him and Hijikata and Kondo, who are the heads of the Shinsengumi militia.
At the beginning of the film, Kanou is represented not as a subversive figure but as an object of desire for the men in the militia, as is strongly underscored by choices in framing and point-of-view editing. The film utilizes a close-up for the first time when
Kanou is introduced. This is followed by a shot of Kanou sparring with Okita for the recruitment test, and then a shot of Hijikata and Kondo looking at him intently is shown.
Then, there is a shot of Kanou and Okita sparring, but only Kanou is situated at the center of the frame, with the camera closing in on him slowly. This scene, by showing Kanou to draw the gaze of Hijikata, Kondo, and the camera, expresses Kanou to be not an active desiring figure, but an object of desire. The film confirms this through titles in white against a black background that expresses opinions that are clearly those of someone in the militia, though the opinions are never explicitly attributed to anyone in the film. The titles explain how Tashiro and a captain of the militia called Takeda are pursuing Kanou, and it also expresses the opinion that Kanou is asking for attention from the homosexual men by keeping his locks, which are a sign of adolescence. This reoccurring title suggests a general viewpoint of the militia members, and furthers the impression that Kanou is attracting their interest.
Hijikata and Kondo, the leaders of the militia, are also similar to Kanou in attracting the desire of the men in the militia by constantly being at the center of the attention and gaze of the militia members. For example, in a scene where Kanou spars with Okita, they sit on a platform raised higher than where the men who are being tested
50 sit, where they have a higher vantage point but are simultaneously being displayed.
Kondo attracting attention is highlighted in a later scene, where he rides a white horse when returning to the militia base. As Kondo nears the street, a woman runs and shouts
“They‟re coming, the militia‟s coming.” The woman‟s announcement is followed by three shots of Kondo guarded by militia members, with the shots composed to capture the townspeople of Kyoto looking up and bowing to Kondo.
Kondo being an object of desire is expressed through the dialogue in two scenes.
The first scene shows Hijikata talking to Okita about what motivated Kanou to enter the militia. Hijikata tells Okita that the militia is similar to the organization they fought before, in which high-spirited men gathered and discussed until they were sure that they could overthrow the shogunate. Hijikata continues that the smell such organizations and the militia gives off is what attracts young men. Okita responds by saying “It takes a madman to know a madman. And you‟re the leader of the madmen,” which implies that the “smell” that the organizations such as the militia gives off is that of madness. The conversation also implies that Hijikata and Kondo, by being the leaders of the organization that gives off the smell, is what men desire. The desires directed toward
Kondo become the central subject in the dialogue between Hijikata and Okita at the end of the film, where they are waiting for Tashiro to approach Kanou. Okita tells Hijikata,
“There is a silent agreement between Hijikata and Kondo that nobody can come between them, and that is what the Shinsengumi is about. Sometimes, somebody comes between them, or Kondo lets somebody in, which ends with Hijikata killing them.” Okita‟s abstract analysis of the Shinsengumi seems to illustrate the militia to be held together by the homoerotic tension between Hijikata and Kondo, which is reinforced by attracting
51 men and killing them. The two dialogues illustrate parallels between Kanou and the
Shinsengumi‟s leaders. Similar to Kanou, Hijikata and Kondo display themselves as objects of desire, and attract men not by identification with their ideology, but by elements unexplainable by rationality (smell).
Kanou and the militia are also similar in cultivating absolute allegiance and devotion from their associates. The code of conduct, or taboos of the Shinsengumi introduced in the film show that the militia requires the members to give their life to the organization. After Kanou and Tashiro are accepted into the militia, white titles on a black background appear with the code of conduct, which includes prohibitions against deserting the militia and fighting for personal motives, followed by the statement in the same white letters that anybody who breaks the codes will be told to commit ritual suicide. This punishment is also brought up in the scene where Kanou is told to assist a man who broke the militia‟s code of conduct in committing ritual suicide. Tashiro looks at the framed code of conducts in the militia base, reads the code of battle requiring the member to die in battle if the captain falls before him, and complains that one life isn‟t enough in the militia. The code of conduct requires men who enter the militia to be ready to give their life, and what also is made clear in the code is that the militia is ready to kill men for the purpose of preserving the organization. The code of conduct is eroticized through the parallels drawn between the code and the devotion of Kanou‟s lovers. The rule about dying after the captain‟s death is evoked in the scene where Tashiro tells
Kanou that he does not want to die without making love to him, and the scene where
Yuzawa, one of Kanou‟s lovers, tells Kanou that he will not mind dying if he hears the nightingale‟s song in the dawn while holding him in his arms. In the two scenes, the men
52 express that becoming Kanou‟s lover is equal in value to their life. The men being ready to give their life for both the Shinsengumi militia and Kanou by association eroticizes the men‟s devotion to the militia.
The film implies that such homoerotic desire is not intentionally created for the reinforcement of the structure of the organization, but is a primal desire that exists before the formation of the organization. This is suggested in the dialogue between Hijikata and
Kondo, and in Okita‟s explanation of the story “Chrysanthemum Tryst” from Tales of
Moonlight and Rain to Hijikata before the murder of Tashiro. After discussing Kanou‟s relationships within the militia, Kondo tells Hijikata that there was a storm of homosexual relationships before the Ikedaya incident, in which militia members ambushed radicals in hiding. Kondo‟s statement makes it clear that homosexual desire preceded the ambush, implying that the heightening of homoerotic tensions culminated in the political act. The story that Okita tells to Hijikata is about a man who had developed a strong bond with a samurai who lodged in his house one night. The samurai had to leave the man‟s house to avenge his master, but the man who killed his master caught him. The samurai killed himself to keep his promise to the man that he would return when the chrysanthemums bloom. After imparting this story, Okita tells Hijikata that the men must have loved each other to be committed to a promise to that degree. Okita‟s story can be read to be pointing to how the samurai did not fulfill his obligation to his master, who he does not have a homosexual bond with, but fulfills the promise he made with the man who he did have a homosexual bond with. A homosexual bond can strengthen a man‟s devotion, but can also divert his devotion away from his social obligations. The Ikedaya
53 incident, Tashiro‟s comment, and Okita‟s story all imply that homosexual desire precedes and is stronger than political or social obligations, but sometimes fuels political acts.
In Taboo, the Shinsengumi is represented as an organization with latent homoeroticism that controls homosexual desire for political purposes. The film depicts liquidation of members as the Shinesngumi‟s primary method of controlling homosexual desire. At the end of the film, after Kanou kills Tashiro, Okita tells Hijikata that he remembered that he had to do something, and returns to where Tashiro and Kanou met.
Moments later, the sound of Kanou calling Okita‟s name is heard, followed by Kanou‟s scream. Hijikata says to himself that Kanou was too beautiful, and that he became possessed while sleeping with all those men. After making the comment, Hijikata cuts down a cherry tree, which can be read to symbolize that although Okita killed Kanou,
Hijikata was the one who made the decision of ridding the beautiful object from the organization. The cutting of the tree evokes the anecdote written in Mishima Yukio‟s novel Kinkakuji where two groups fight for a beautiful cat and a priest resolves the fight by cutting the cat to kill it (Mishima 144). Like the story in Kinakuji, Hijikata‟s action can be read as an act of ridding the organization of a beautiful object for the purpose of eliminating something that will divert the interest of the organization. Kanou created another sect in the organization, with him as the object of desire and the executioner of the liquidation. It can be said that like the men who discussed overthrowing the government until they went mad, Kanou and his lovers “became possessed” through their communication, creating a separate group from the organization that emitted its own distinct “smell.” By the elimination of Kanou, the Shinsengumi rids the outlet of
54 homosexual desire, thus making it possible to channel men‟s desires toward Hijikata,
Kondo, and the Shinsengumi so that they can utilize the desire for political purposes. The title of the film can be read to be pointing to this act of channeling homosexual desire.
Taboo, or code of conduct, as it is translated within the film, is what Hijikata and Kondo use as a reason to liquidate Kanou, and is what restricts homoeroticism to create and reinforce the structure of homosocial organizations.
The homosexual desires within homosocial organizations in 800 Two Lap Runners and Taboo differ in several aspects. In Taboo, homosociality is utilized for political purposes and revolves around a specific object of sexual desire. Homosexual desire is often restricted or is left unsatisfied for the reinforcement of the structure of the homosocial organization. In contrast, 800 Two Lap Runners depicts homosexuality in homosocial relationships to be purposeless and unrestricted. The track field that develops homosocial and homosexual relationships is a utopian space where sexuality and desires are not repressed.
However, the two films are similar in their view that homosexual desire is inherent in homosocial relationships. In Taboo, the channeling of homosexual desire is the precondition for homosocial relationships to develop. In 800 Two Lap Runners, the lines between homosexuality and homosociality are blurred. Since homosociality and homosexuality are depicted to be indistinguishable, homosocial relationships always carry the connotation of homosexuality. The two films‟ universalizing view of homosexuality can also be read as expressing an assimilatory sexual politics. In the two films, homosexuality is assimilated into the hegemonic culture by representing
55 homosexuality as an already inherent sexuality in male homosocial relations.
Homosexuality is not rendered alien, but internalized.
The gay “pink” film Mistake differs from the mainstream films Taboo and 800 Two
Lap Runners in its perspective on the relationship between homosexual desire and homosocial organizations. In Mistake, homosexual desire is used for reinforcing the structure of homosocial organizations, which makes it similar to Taboo, but it differs from Taboo in showing homosocial organizations to create and exploit homosexual desire rather than control existing homosexual desire. Homosexual desire is not an inherent element of homosocial organizations, but is fabricated to serve homosocial organizations.
Mistake represents the conflict between homosexuality in homosocial organizations, and homosexuality in the private sphere. Mistake presents a story about a male contract killer named Naoya, who is trying to leave an assassin organization to live with his male lover, Izumi. By juxtaposing homosexuality in the assassin organization and Naoya‟s relationship with Izumi, the film creates a clear division between homosexuality in homosocial spaces and homosexuality in the private space. The disconnection between the private and the public separates Mistake from 800 Two Lap
Runners and Taboo, which establish homosexuality as an underlying universal desire.
In Mistake the assassin organization uses homosexuality as a way of enforcing the members‟ homosocial ties to it. After Naoya finishes his job of killing a female designer at the beginning of the film, he has sex with a young man in a motel. He receives a call from his superior, who asks Naoya if he had fun with somebody after his work, and tells him that he educated Naoya to crave intense sexual pleasure after every assignment. This
56 dialogue points to the control that the organization has over the members‟ sexuality, and the superior‟s choice of the word “educate” suggests that the control over this sexuality is for the benefit of the organization, and not only for the personal satisfaction of Naoya‟s superior.
The quality of the “education” and the function of homosexuality in the organization become clearer in the flashback scene that follows the conversation on the telephone. The flashback shows Naoya in a dark room with bare concrete walls, being blackmailed by his superior about the two murders he committed to join the organization.
After their conversation, the superior puts his gun into Naoya‟s mouth and his hand between his legs. Naoya resists, demanding of his superior what he is doing. Then, Naoya and his superior have sex, but it is made clear that Naoya is being forced, which is most emphasized in the scene showing the superior moving Naoya‟s head to fellate him. The superior tells Naoya that his expression is changing and that Naoya is craving to have more done to him, which suggests that Naoya is submitting to the superior because of the homosexual desire that is developing within him. Naoya‟s transition from acting rebellious to submitting to the superior‟s sexual advances shows the effectiveness of homosexuality as a tool for the organization‟s education. In the beginning of the scene,
Naoya is a killer without a purpose, “a man like an animal” as the superior put it, but he is assimilated into the organization by the superior arousing his homosexual desire, which implies that homosexual desire makes it possible to create a bond that will sway a reluctant man to join the organization, and also makes it possible to transform “a man like an animal” into a socialized member of the organization. By showing the arousing of homosexual desire to be the initiation for joining the organization and becoming
57 socialized, Mistake suggests that some degree of homosexual desire is necessary for the homosocial organization, and that the homosocial organization utilizes homosexuality to reinforce their structure. Mistake is similar to Taboo in its interest in homosexual desire as a tool to reinforce the structure of homosocial organizations, but while Taboo shows the Shinsengumi channeling the already existing homosexual desire for their purpose, Mistake shows that homosexual desire is intentionally created for the organization to exploit. Homosexual desire does not precede the forming or does not become the foundation for the forming of a patriarchal homosocial organization, but is created and exploited by the homosocial organization.
In Mistake, homosexuality in the characters‟ private lives differs from homosexuality in the homosocial organization in the space it is associated with, its lack of any purpose further than personal satisfaction, and its idealistic representation. The sex between Naoya and his superior takes place in a dark room with echoes that suggest it is large, concrete, and bleak. Naoya‟s sex after the assassination where he craves for pleasure because of the superior‟s “education” takes place at a room with the interiors designed to look like a hotel. The space where homosexuality occurs signifies the organization‟s impersonal quality and the lack of personal affection within it. In contrast,
Naoya‟s sex with his lover Izumi always takes place in Izumi‟s apartment. Izumi‟s apartment is represented to express his personal taste through decorative furniture and a poster of Querelle, a film about homosexuality by Fassbinder. The clothes designed by
Izumi displayed in the apartment show Izumi‟s personal interests, emphasizing that the space belongs to him. Unlike the impersonal space where homosexual relationships in the homosocial organization takes place, Naoya‟s sex with Izumi takes place in a space that
58 emphasizes the private character of the relationship and also expresses Naoya‟s interest in Izumi‟s personal characteristics.
Homosexuality in the private sphere also differs from homosexuality in the homosocial organization in the function it serves. Sex in the homosocial organization functions as a tool for subjugation, which is made clear through the way the characters ejaculate. In the scene where the superior has sex with Naoya after recruiting him, the superior ejaculates into his own hand and puts his fingers into Naoya‟s mouth, a gesture clearly indicating his dominant position. Along somewhat similar lines, in the scene where Naoya has sex with a man after killing the designer, Naoya ejaculates onto the man‟s face and into the man‟s mouth, an act which appears to express Naoya‟s connection with the organization and his desire of maintaining superiority and control within the organization. The film thus suggests that homosexual sex does not exist solely for pleasure, but also as a tool for subjugating and reinforcing the hierarchy within the organization. In contrast, the establishing of a hierarchy or subjugation is not apparent in
Naoya and Izumi‟s sex. The first sex scene with Naoya and Izumi in the film ends with
Naoya and Izumi fellating each other. They both have orgasm, and there is a shot of
Izumi raising his head with semen coming out of the corner of his mouth. The consuming of semen is not forced but voluntary, and it is also mutual instead of unilateral. This scene represents that they have sex only for their pleasure, unlike the sex within the homosocial organization, which exists primarily for subjugation.
The differences depicted between homosexuality in the homosocial organization and private homosexuality idealizes the latter. The two spaces where sex within homosocial organizations take place, which are impersonal, bleak, and only exist for a
59 certain function, symbolize the quality of homosexuality within the homosocial organizations. Homosexuality in the homosocial sphere is fabricated for the homosocial organization‟s purpose, reinforces the hierarchies between the subjects, forcefully fulfills desires, is unrelated to personal affection, and ultimately only exists for profiting the organization, which is directly connected to the death of people. In contrast, homosexuality in the private sphere is represented as an ideal relationship that does not create superior and inferior subjects, and brings pleasure without causing death or discomfort to others. Mistake depicts homosexuality in private relationships and homosexuality in organizational relationships to be completely different, without similarities or continuities.
The perspective on homosexuality expressed in the gay “pink” film Mistake differs from that of the mainstream films 800 Two Lap Runners and Taboo. 800 Two Lap
Runners and Taboo suggest an assimilatory politics by internalizing homosexuality into the hegemonic culture by depicting homosexuality as inherent in homosocial relationships. Contrary to the two mainstream films, Mistake suggests a separatist politics by depicting homosexuality in homosocial relationships not as an underlying, inherent element, but as a desire created for the purpose of serving the organization that is less positive than the idealized homosexuality of the private sphere. The clear division created between homosexuality in the homosocial organization and the private sphere in Mistake can be read as suggesting that individual homosexuality does not have a social relation to homosexual desire in the hegemonic culture. The separatist politics in the gay “pink” film
Mistake can be read as criticism of the view that homosexuality, either apparent or latent, universally exists in homosocial relationships, which is the view expressed in the
60 mainstream films Taboo and 800 Two Lap Runners. Unlike the two mainstream films that erase the idea of gay identity by universalizing homosexuality through internalizing it into homosocial organizations, the gay “pink” film Mistake clearly differentiates homosexual desire operating in homosocial organizations from homosexual desire between two gay individuals, separating homosexual desire operating within the hegemonic culture from homosexuality operating in an individual gay man‟s private life.
61 Chapter 3: Female Spectatorial Identification with Gay Characters
The first two chapters of this thesis examine homosexuality‟s relation to heteronormative organizations or heteronormative structures in Japanese films that feature homosexuality. The mainstream films analyzed in the two chapters are similar in their assimilating homosexual elements in the hegemonic culture through including gay characters in the heteronormative familial structure, or internalizing homosexuality by representing homosexual desire to exist in the male homosocial relationships within organizations of the hegemonic culture. The gay “pink” films in the two chapters suggest separatist politics, through excluding the maternal figure to create a family that is constituted of only gay men, or by representing a private homosexual relationship to be more desirable than the homosexual relationships in a homosocial organization.
The films analyzed in this chapter are similar to those in earlier chapters in their suggestion of assimilatory or separatist politics, but unlike the films of the first two chapters, the politics are suggested through the films‟ allowing or disallowing identification with the gay characters by female spectators. The three films in this chapter, the mainstream films Boys’ Love (2006) and Sukitomo (2006) and the gay “pink” film Naughty Boys (2001), are similar in that their narratives each focus on a male/male relationship. However, whereas Boys’ Love and Sukitomo figure the characters and the male/male relationships so that the potential for identification with the characters by non- male and non-gay spectators is heightened, Naughty Boys lowers the potential for identification by non-gay viewers by emphasizing the importance of gay sex in homosexual relationships.
62 I will argue in this chapter that the potential for female identification with male characters in Boys’ Love and Sukitomo is in part heightened by incorporating elements of yaoi comics, which are Japanese comic books depicting male/male relationships that are mainly marketed towards women. Most analyses of yaoi comics, such as James Welker‟s article on the comics of the 1970‟s or Brent Wilson and Masami Toku‟s article on yaoi and art education, are centered on women by focusing on the subject positions yaoi comic books offer to women or discussing how they present the idea of femininity. I would like, however, to also focus on how homosexuality is presented in the process of making the male characters more conducive to identification on the part of women.
The title Boys’ Love references a sub-genre of comic books that shares the same name (boys‟ love comics), that depicts male/male relationships with less explicit sexual references than yaoi. The title points to the film‟s consciousness of the comic book genres, and also suggests the film‟s intention to market toward female spectators who are familiar with the boys‟ love and yaoi comic books. The film, like yaoi comic books, may allow female spectators to “imagine themselves as acting beyond the strictures imposed on them in Japanese society” (Shamoon 85) through identification with the male characters, but at the same time expresses homophobic sentiments.
As the title might imply, Boys’ Love is about a male/male relationship between a high school model named Noel, and Mamiya, who is a young male writer for a magazine.
Mamiya, upon learning of Noel‟s numerous sexual relationships with random men, tries to persuade him to terminate his relationships, and starts developing a platonic relationship with the highschooler. Mamiya finds out that Noel‟s random relationships are a result of the emotional wound he suffered when his best friend and first love died
63 without fulfilling his promise to see the ocean with him. Mamiya is fired because his relationship with Noel is revealed to his company, and after the two bond over the experience, Chidori, a male friend from Noel‟s childhood, stabs Noel out of jealousy.
Mamiya carries the wounded Noel to an ocean, and they disappear into the water together.
Boys’ Love exemplifies the characteristics of yaoi comic books (comics depicting homosexual relationships between men targeted towards women) as described by Akiko
Mizoguchi. Boys’ Love is similar to yaoi comics in the sexual identity of the main characters, and in its creation of “the myth of the ultimate couple.” Mizoguchi observes that the yaoi narratives are rarely about relationships between homosexual men, but instead show heterosexual men falling in love with each other. By creating narratives where men love each other not because of their sexual identity, but because the person they were destined to be with was coincidentally of their own sex, yaoi comics emphasize that their stories are not about homosexuality, but about the “ultimate couple” whose obstacle just happened to be their own sexuality. Boys’ Love adheres to the tendency of yaoi comics in the sexuality of Mamiya, but deviates in the sexuality of Noel. Although
Mamiya‟s heterosexuality is never clearly suggested, his sexuality is implied through his reactions to homosexuality. After Mamiya meets Noel for the first time for an interview,
Mamiya takes Noel to a restaurant to buy him dinner. After consuming some champagne that Noel bought for him, Mamiya goes to the bathroom. When Mamiya is standing in front of the urinal, Noel grabs his penis from behind and pulls him into a cubicle.
Mamiya displays surprise and disbelief, which is further emphasized in the flashback he has the next day. The flashback shows Mamiya being fellated by Noel, and his agitation
64 is expressed through an extremely grainy shot of Noel‟s hand flushing the toilet and an inverted image of Mamiya‟s face. The agitation and the pained expression he shows in the cubicle suggest that his passivity comes from his disbelief that he is presently involved in a homosexual act, which implies that Mamiya is not homosexual and also is unfamiliar with the idea of homosexuality.
In comparison to Mamiya, Noel is depicted as being actively homosexual. During the dinner, when Mamiya asks Noel if he lives in the atelier where Mamiya interviewed him, Noel answers that he occasionally sleeps there, but mostly sleeps over in hotels and other people‟s houses. When Mamiya visits Noel‟s atelier for the second time, Noel greets him with sheets wrapped around him, and he kicks out a suited man who tells
Mamiya “I‟ve never seen you before here,” implying that there are many men who sleep with Noel. There is also a later scene showing Noel with a man in a hotel room. The man takes off his clothes hurriedly while Noel stands naked. The two scenes showing Noel‟s relationships are similar in establishing Noel as the object of desire. In the two scenes,
Noel is fully or partially naked and either blankly stares at the other man or does not look at them. In contrast, the clothed men look at his body intently, and in the case of the first scene, touch his body. This suggests that Noel does not actively engage in homosexual relationships, but is the passive receptacle of other men‟s desire.
Although Noel does not actively engage in homosexual relationships, he clearly deviates from the typical main character in yaoi comics illustrated in Mizoguchi‟s article by having homosexual relationships. However, the film suggests Noel‟s homosexual relationships are a temporary disorder by depicting them to be a response to a past trauma, and by having Mamiya save Noel from his state. When Mamiya visits Noel and
65 instead runs into Chidori, Noel‟s friend from childhood, Chidori tells Mamiya that
Noel is not enjoying his homosexual relationships, and that he only sleeps with men and paints to temporarily forget his grief. The quality of his grief is expressed in a later scene, where Noel explains that he does not believe in promises after having his childhood love die without fulfilling the promise of going to the ocean with him. Noel‟s promiscuity is not merely an outlet for his sexual appetite, but a disorder caused by an emotional wound, which makes his promiscuous homosexuality a temporary state that can be “cured.”
Mamiya is portrayed as Noel‟s “cure.” After hearing from Chidori that Noel does not enjoy sleeping around with men, Mamiya visits Noel swimming at a pool to tell him to change his lifestyle. Noel promises that he will stop sleeping with men if Mamiya can catch him in the water, and Mamiya succeeds by pretending to drown. After this incident,
Mamiya and Noel develop a friendship, and Noel not only stops sleeping with men but also starts attending high school regularly. Later in the film, Chidori makes Noel‟s trauma resurface by hiding a picture of his childhood love, and he then breaks his promise with Mamiya by drinking and sleeping with men. Mamiya is again established as the “cure” by having Noel confess about his trauma to him, and having the two cry together and hold hands fully clothed while sleeping together. Noel being “cured” by his platonic relationship with Mamiya gives a pathological quality to Noel‟s promiscuity.
The pathological and temporary quality of Noel‟s promiscuity shows that he is essentially not a homosexual, but is only showing the effects of a psychological wound.
The strong disjuncture between homosexual relationships and Noel‟s relationship with Mamiya is established through the contrast between the impersonal quality of Noel‟s homosexual affairs and the personal quality of the relationship between Noel and
66 Mamiya. The men having homosexual affairs with Noel constantly change, and they only appear when having sex with Noel or when leaving the room after having sex with him, which leaves the impression that the relationships are devoid of any personal interactions other than sex. In contrast, the attention Mamiya pays to Noel‟s past history and personality as well as his gentle physical intimacy give the impression that Mamiya‟s attraction to Noel‟s personality, rather than his physical appearance and sexuality, is what binds them together.
The quality of Noel‟s homosexuality makes him similar to the characters in yaoi narratives as described by Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi explains that the main characters in yaoi narratives show homophobia towards gay identity by expressing that their love is not homosexual because their love is directed toward an individual who only happened to be a man (Mizoguchi 196). Boys’ Love is similar in the sense that Noel is essentially not homosexual and likes Mamiya not because of the physical pleasure Mamiya provides
(their relationship is purely platonic) but because of their attraction to each others‟ personalities. Homosexual relationships are depicted as pathological and devoid of true love, and, in contrast, the non-sexual relationship between Mamiya and Noel is an ideal relationship founded on true love. The contrast between the relationship with Mamiya and the relationships with other men gives the impression that love that effaces sexuality is favorable over homosexuality. Similar to the yaoi narratives, in Boys’ Love, homosexuality becomes the scapegoat to celebrate the ultimate love that transcends sexuality (Mizoguchi 197).
Boys’ Love also exemplifies Mizoguchi‟s description of the characteristics of yaoi comics in its enabling of the identification with multiple characters. Mizoguchi states that
67 yaoi comics allow the female spectator to identify with the perspective of the aggressive masculine male, the passive effeminate male, and the perspective of the reader, or, as she puts it, the “perspective of god.” Boys’ Love allows the spectator to identify at will with multiple characters by not clearly establishing a solitary central protagonist. Mamiya and Noel are the central focus of the narrative, but neither of their perspectives is prioritized over the other‟s. Both characters have their own subjective shots and flashbacks, and both of them become active agents that propel the narrative forward in different moments. The film also brings in the perspective of Chidori, showing his subjective point of view shot when he is looking back at Noel‟s desk in his high school, or when he witnesses Noel on his bed with Mamiya. The film seems to privilege
Chidori‟s perspectives in the scenes where he is in the high school by following Chidori‟s actions and reactions to Noel more closely than in other sequences. Boys’ Love enables identification with Mamiya, identification with Noel, and identification with Chidori. It can also be argued that by not forcing identification with any single central character,
Boys’ Love allows the spectator to detach him/herself to identify with the “god‟s perspective” of the camera.
Boys’ Love can be said to be a film that consciously tries to enable female identification with gay characters by incorporating the characteristics of yaoi comics, such as the “myth of the ultimate couple” and enabling identification with multiple characters. However, the film also adopts the homophobia inherent in the yaoi genre, which depicts gay identity and homosexual relationships as temporal, impersonal, and pathological to some extent in order to glorify the non-homosexual ultimate love between the protagonists.
68 Unlike Boys’ Love, the narrative of Sukitomo (2006) deviates from the conventions of yaoi comics, especially in its lack of the “ultimate couple” and the presence of an active female character. However, Sukitomo is similar to Boys’ Love in making the male characters more conducive to identification on the part of women by incorporating an aspect of yaoi comics. Sukitomo represents the active female character to embody the characteristics of a yaoi comic reader, enabling spectators to identify with the male characters through her, instead of incorporating elements of yaoi comics in the characters and narrative to enable female spectators to identify with the male protagonists as Boys’ Love did.
Sukitomo portrays a love triangle between Tomokazu, a member of the boxing club in his university, Yoshiki, his male childhood friend and photographer, and Misao,
Tomokazu‟s stepsister. Yoshiki is always with Tomokazu and photographs his boxing.
Misao, who has romantic feelings toward her brother, senses Yoshiki‟s affection toward
Tomokazu and becomes jealous of him. She tries to be closer to her brother than Yoshiki while he is preparing for his boxing match, but when she learns that Yoshiki is also struggling with his feelings toward Tomokazu, Misao gives up on trying to be possessive of her brother, and decides to stop preventing Yoshiki from being close to him.
The narrative of Sukitomo deviates from the general characteristics of yaoi comics outlined by Mizoguchi. The film presents a couple that has the potential of becoming the
“ultimate couple,” but does not depict them developing an “ultimate” relationship.
Tomokazu and Misao have the potential to transcend incest taboos, and Tomokazu and
Yoshiki have the potential to transcend gender and sexuality. However, the central focus of the film, unlike Boys’ Love, is not on the “ultimate couple,” but rather on how Misao
69 comes to identify with Yoshiki in his potential “ultimate couple” relationship with
Tomokazu. The film also deviates from the norm of yaoi narratives in the presence of female characters. Mizoguchi writes that most yaoi narratives rarely have female characters, and when there are female characters, they mostly either function as signifiers for the male characters‟ heterosexuality by being their former girlfriends or their admirers, or are stalkers of male characters. Even when they are portrayed positively, they are usually passive observers of the male characters‟ relationships (Mizoguchi 207).
In contrast, Misao is one of the main characters of Sukitomo, and she actively struggles for her stepbrother‟s affection. Thus, unlike Boys’ Love, the film does not enable female identification with homosexual characters through adopting the conventions of yaoi narratives.
Although Sukitomo does not display the characteristics of yaoi narratives, the perspective expressed through the character of Misao can be said to echo the sentiments of a yaoi reader. The perspective of a yaoi reader is referenced by Misao becoming an observer of her brother‟s relationship, and through the film‟s contrast of the relationship of Yoshiki and Tomokazu with that of Misao and Tomokazu.
In the course of the narrative, Misao transforms from an active agent in the narrative to a passive spectator. The first part of the film shows Misao realizing that
Yoshiki is feeling strong affection towards her brother when Yoshiki and Tomokazu fall over each other, and also shows Misao‟s subsequent attempts to discard any object that
Yoshiki gave to her brother. However, later in the film, after Misao realizes the difficulty of conveying her feelings to her brother, Misao‟s friend tells her that she should consider herself lucky because the bond between brother and sister is permanent, while lovers are
70 destined to part someday. After the conversation, Misao, who is worried that
Tomokazu only likes her because they are siblings, identifies with Yoshiki, who worries that Tomokazu is kind to him only because he feels guilty about an automobile accident that wounded Yoshiki‟s leg. Misao tells Yoshiki that her brother does value Yoshiki‟s presence, and that without Yoshiki he could not win any fights. Yoshiki starts to ask about Misao‟s feelings towards Tomokazu, but Misao stops him, saying that their relationship is only that of brother and sister. In fact, at the beginning of the film, Misao actively tries to change her relationship with her brother into a romantic one, but after realizing the difficulty and finding out that she is able to identify with Yoshiki, she sublimates her romantic feelings toward her brother and gains satisfaction from identifying with his close friend instead. In this way, like the yaoi reader, Misao desires the male character indirectly through identification with another male character.
Misao‟s change of perspective is also suggested through the sequence that follows the end credits, in which Yoshiki sets up a camera to take a photograph of Tomokazu,
Misao, and himself with a certificate congratulating Tomokazu on his acquiring of a championship title. After the photograph has been taken, Misao stands up and tells the others that she will take a photograph of them. Misao tells them to move closer together, and takes the photograph. Taking a photograph has earlier been established as a way of indicating an object of desire through Yoshiki‟s constant photographing of only
Tomokazu in the boxing team, which the other boxers playfully mock. When this is taken into consideration, Misao‟s suggestion to take a photograph of Yoshiki and Tomokazu together after she has denied her feelings toward her brother can be perceived to imply that Misao has become a passive spectator desiring the relationship of the two men. Like
71 the yaoi spectator, she becomes the spectator of a male/male relationship, identifying with the desires between the two men.
Misao‟s desire can also be read as a desire for the egalitarian relationship between the two men that she cannot achieve because of her status as a female. There are several instances in Sukitomo where Misao has to maintain a distance from Tomokazu because of their differing genders. In the several scenes where Tomokazu is practicing in the gym,
Misao and her female friend are made to remain in the area near the entrance while
Yoshiki, as a male, is allowed to be close to him to take photographs. In another scene where Misao and Yoshiki surprise Tomokazu by visiting him at the beach where he is staying for a training camp, Tomokazu tells them that it is alright for Yoshiki to come along, but is irritated by the fact that Misao followed Yoshiki to the camp. In these scenes, Yoshiki is permitted to be in the same space as Tomokazu, but Misao has to keep a distance because of her gender. Yoshiki can have a relationship with Tomokazu as an equal, while Misao cannot.
Misao‟s desire of being in an egalitarian relationship similar to that of the two men can be compared to sentiments dramatized in Ken-Kojiro comics, which are yaoi comics that fantasize the homosexual relationship of two teammates, Ken and Kojiro, from the soccer comic “Captain Tsubasa.” Ken and Kojiro, whose relationship “is based on equality and reciprocity,” can be said to exemplify the comics that depict “ideal, egalitarian relationships that are so difficult to attain in heterosexual relationships in reality” (Suzuki 262, 263). A parallel can be drawn between the egalitarian relationship shared by Ken and Kojiro, and that shared by Tomokazu and Yoshiki. By this association, the character of Misao can be said to hold a perspective parallel to that of the
72 yaoi reader in her desire to be in a relationship similar to that of Tomokazu and
Yoshiki. Thus, Sukitomo situates the spectator in the position of the yaoi reader by having the key protagonist Misao desire a relationship similar to the ideal relationships in yaoi comics. But while Sukitomo is different from Boys’ Love in its focus on the “perspective of god” or the perspective of the yaoi reader, they are similar in being films about homosexuality that incorporate elements of yaoi comics, heightening the potential for female identification.
Naughty Boys (2001) is a gay porn film that is similar to Sukitomo and Boys’ Love in its narrative focus on the relationship between two men. However, Naughty Boys differs from the two mainstream films in emphasizing the importance of sex in male/male relationships. By stressing the importance of gay sex, Naughty Boys emphasizes the characters‟ sexual object choice, which brings the characters‟ sexual identity to the foreground, in contrast to Sukitomo, which does not discuss gay identity at all, or Boys’
Love, which expresses homophobia toward gay identity. In addition, by stressing gay sex, a factor unique to gay men, Naughty Boys can be read to make its characters harder to identify with for non-gay men or women, unlike Sukitomo or Boys’ Love, which incorporates elements from yaoi narratives to enable cross-gender identification for women.
Naughty Boys is about the relationship between Takayuki and Gachiro, who are two male lovers living together. Takayuki, frustrated over Gachiro‟s sleeping frequently with other men and insisting that it is not serious, decides to go to Shinjuku Ni-Chome, a famous meeting spot for gay men, to cheat on Gachiro. Gachiro follows Takayuki with the intention of keeping him from sleeping with other men, but he loses sight of him.
73 Meanwhile, Takayuki meets a kind older man, Keiichi, and keeps him company and goes bowling with him, but decides not to sleep with him. While heading home from his excursion, Takayuki meets Gachiro coincidentally. They continue on their way home together and later have sex.
Contrary to the relationships between men depicted in yaoi comics and Boys’ Love, which are bound by “ultimate” love that makes characters inescapably drawn to each other regardless of their sexuality, in Naughty Boys the gay characters acknowledge the possibility of being in relationships with other men, making their relationships a result of their conscious choice, rather than a result of unavoidable attraction. The possibility of the development of relationships other than that between the two main characters is suggested through interactions Takayuki and Gachiro have with Keiichi and Kotaro respectively. Kotaro is a gay male character who Gachiro has sex with at the beginning of the film, before Takayuki leaves for Shinjuku Ni-Chome. After Takayuki leaves for
Shinjuku, Gachiro visits Kotaro‟s house, and Kotaro expresses affection for Gachiro and makes a remark implying his hope to establish a longer-term relationship. After Gachiro leaves the house and starts following Takayuki, Kotaro becomes an omnipresent character, occasionally appearing to save Takayuki from being mugged and interfering with Gachiro‟s attempts to knock out the men who try to seduce Takayuki. The possibility of Gachiro and Kotaro developing a longer-term relationship is not suggested in the film, but the positive depiction of his subtle acts expressing affection toward
Gachiro, and the comically ironic but sincere interaction with Gachiro, can make the spectator aware of him being a suitable partner for Gachiro. Unlike such characters as
Chidori in Boys’ Love, whose function in the narrative is basically to serve as a contrast
74 to the “ultimate” lover, Kotaro‟s positive portrayal does not serve to confirm the relationship between the protagonists to be “ultimate,” but points to the possibility of the existence of other suitable partners.
The relationship between Keiichi and Takayuki also suggests the potential of the protagonists having suitable partners outside of their primary sexual relationship. The potential for Keiichi and Takayuki to be lovers is implied in several scenes. Before the scene where Keiichi first appears, Takayuki has a flashback of how he met Gachiro.
Takayuki is sitting on a swing, confused because of his unfamiliarity with Tokyo, and
Gachiro holds a hot steamed bun to his cheek. The scene returns to Takayuki sitting on the same swing, and a hand appears inside the screen and holds a hot coffee can to
Takayuki‟s cheek. The following shot shows Keiichi‟s face, and in the next shot
Takayuki throws his hands around Keiichi‟s hips. The scene showing Keiichi performing an action that parallels Gachiro‟s seems to imply that the kindness that Gachiro expressed to Takayuki is not special or unique, but can be expressed by a different person. The physical affection expressed by Takayuki to Keiichi confirms that he can feel affection towards the action, even when someone other than Gachiro executes it. By deemphasizing the uniqueness of Gachiro‟s act, the relationship between Gachiro and
Takayuki also becomes not “ultimate,” but common.
At the end of the film, Takayuki decides that he will not have sex with Keiichi, and that he will go home to Gachiro. After they part, Takayuki runs back to kiss Keiichi on the cheek and then runs away. The affection expressed through Takayuki‟s gesture seems to show his acknowledgement of Keiichi as a potentially suitable partner to him. By showing Takayuki to choose Gachiro after knowing that Keiichi is compatible with him,
75 the film demonstrates a relationship to be based on conscious choice to spend time with a certain person. The idea expressed in this film that there are multiple potential relationships and that the development of any particular one is based on conscious choice creates a stark contrast to the view of male/male relationships in yaoi narratives and
Boys’ Love, which show relationships to be based on an irresistible and singular desire toward a destined partner, where choice has no place.
Another difference between Boys’ Love, Sukitomo, and Naughty Boys is the function of sex in the relationships represented. The films that incorporate characteristics of yaoi narratives deemphasize the importance of sex in male/male relationships: Boys’
Love idealizes platonic love through its contrast with homosexuality, which is impersonal and pathological, and the male characters in Sukitomo do not show their desire for sexual interactions with one another. In contrast, Naughty Boys accentuates sex as a vital element for male/male relationships: it becomes clear that Takayuki has chosen his relationship with Gachiro over his relationship with Keiichi when he decides to have sex with Gachiro. The film creates the impression that there is a strong connection between homosexual relationships and sex by making sex the signifier for the continuance of
Gachiro and Takayuki‟s relationship.
Sex is also depicted as a vital element in the gay community in Naughty Boys. The bonds between gay men, whether in friendship or partnership, are shown to originate from sex or the prospect of sex. For example, Kotaro and Gachiro establish a strange relationship because they had sex, and Keiichi and Takayuki become friends because there was the prospect of sex. A scene that expresses the importance of sex in gay communities is the scene where Takayuki goes to a bar in Shinjuku Ni-Chome after
76 leaving his house. When Takayuki enters the bar, the bartender immediately tries to pair him up with a man in the bar. When two new customers try to enter the crowded bar, the bartender makes space for them by driving Takayuki and the man out, telling them that they have already hit it off and are leaving the bar together. When the two leave the bar, the man asks Takayuki if he likes him, and when Takayuki does not answer, he tells him that it is fine if Takayuki is not attracted to him. They have a brief conversation, and they agree to go drinking together despite the fact that there is no possibility of the two having sex. The owner of the bar understands that the social space of the bar is created because of gay men who are drawn by the prospect of sex. The gay community in
Naughty Boys is based on the people‟s similar interest in sex, although what they might find in that community might not be a sexual relationship, as is the case with Takayuki.
By highlighting the importance of sex in gay relationships and in the gay community,
Naughty Boys suggests to the viewer that relationships between homosexual men are based on sexuality or sexual identity. Thus, unlike Boys’ Love or Sukitomo, which express homophobia or indifference towards gay identity, Naughty Boys shows that relationships between gay men are based on their sexuality and their particular interest in sex.
Although the three films discussed in this chapter are similar in that the narratives are centered on a single male/male romantic relationship, the quality of the male/male relationships in the “pink” film Naughty Boys differs from that of the mainstream films
Boys’ Love and Sukitomo. Boys’ Love and Sukitomo create male relationships that enable cross-gender or cross-sexuality identification by foregrounding affections between male characters that are not based on causes unique to a certain gender or sexuality, such as
77 physical attraction or sexual desire. This can be read as an attempt to make the male/male relationships easier to identify with for non-male or non-gay spectators. In contrast, Naughty Boys puts an emphasis on the function of sexual identity, sexual attraction between gay men, and sex between gay men in a male/male relationship. By focusing on factors that are specific to gay men, Naughty Boys seems to make its characters harder to identify with for non-gay men or women.
The differences in the representation of homosexuality in the three films can be associated with the differences in their modes of production. The homophobia or indifference toward gay identity in the two mainstream films is expressed in the process of enabling identification by non-male and non-gay spectators. It can be said that the intended audience of the film is a factor affecting the representation of homosexuality.
The same can be said for the gay “pink” film Naughty Boys. The emphasis on gay sex, and the selective quality of the identification the film allows for the spectators can be associated with the intended audiences for the film, which are primarily gay men.
The political implications of the mainstream films and gay “pink” film in this chapter can be understood in conjunction with uchi, the Japanese idea of a shared self.
Uchi is a concept that “locates the self in terms of group membership,” and which defines the boundaries of the group that the self belongs in by creating an outside (soto) and inside (uchi) (Valentine, 108). Naughty Boys can be read as suggesting a separatist politics by emphasizing factors specific to gay men, thus encompassing only the gay male community within gay spectators‟ sense of uchi. The mainstream films can be read as suggesting an assimilationist politics by presenting gay men that female spectators can identify with as within their own uchi, and further strengthening the inside and outside
78 distinction of the uchi by presenting homosexual relationships with an emphasis on sexual attraction, such as Noel‟s homosexual relationships in Boys’ Love, as outside of the uchi. Expanding the boundaries of their uchi to include gay men enables the female spectators to identify with them, but at the same time the borders function to exclude certain gay characters by utilizing homophobic representations of gay identity.
79 Conclusion
The mainstream films and the gay “pink” films discussed in this thesis can be said to generally exhibit differing stances regarding the politics of sexuality. The mainstream films suggest an assimilationist politics by downplaying differences between homosexuality and heterosexuality, depicting the gay characters as assimilable into the hegemonic culture. In contrast, the gay “pink” films suggest a separatist politics by portraying gay characters as those who express the desire to live with minimal relation to the hegemonic culture.
The sexual politics of the films are conveyed in a variety of ways. In films of the first chapter, the political perspectives are implied by the relationship between the gay man and the family. The mainstream film Okoge assimilates homosexuality by bringing a gay character into the heteronormative familial structure, but in the gay “pink” film
Konna, Futari, gay characters envision a family where a heterosexual woman, who is pregnant with a gay man‟s child, will be excluded after giving birth to form a family with gay parents exclusively. In Okoge, the family becomes an epitome of the hegemonic culture, admitting certain homosexual characters to participate in a socially circumscribed fashion, but in Konna, Futari, the family becomes an epitome of the gay community, excluding the heterosexual characters in favor of an exclusively gay group.
In the second chapter, the sexual politics of the films are suggested through the relation between homosexuality and homosocial organizations. The mainstream films 800
Two Lap Runners and Taboo represent relationships within homosocial organizations to be inherently homosexual. In 800 Two Lap Runners, homosexual relationships within the realm of track competition are positively depicted compared to heterosexual
80 relationships, which are bound by numerous social codes. Taboo portrays homosexual desire as an influential element in either the reinforcement or subversion of the structure of a militant political organization, romanticizing the role of homosexuality in the homosocial organization. Since the organizations are not marginal entities, but rather a component part of the hegemonic culture, the mainstream films thus imply homosexuality has been internalized within the dominant culture, and suggest an assimilationist perspective. In the gay “pink” film Mistake, in contrast, a separatist viewpoint is implied mainly through suggesting that homosexuality in homosocial organizations does not share continuities with private homosexuality, and by showing the latter as the desirable ideal for gay men. In these three films, the homosocial organizations become the epitome of the hegemonic society; both Mistake and the mainstream films view such organizations as encompassing certain homosexual relationships, but Mistake views this homosexuality as disparate from that in the private lives of gay men.
The films discussed in the third chapter differ from those of the first two chapters in that they do not represent any particular institution as epitomizing the hegemonic culture; but the examples are similar to those of the other chapters in that the mainstream films suggest an assimilatory political stance while the gay “pink” film suggests a separatist position. The sexual politics of the films are suggested in part by how the films make the gay characters more conducive to identification on the part of female or gay spectators. The mainstream films Boys’ Love and Sukitomo represent homosexual relationships that female spectators can understand and identify with by foregrounding affections between gay characters that are not based on causes unique to gay men, such as
81 physical attraction or sexual desire, which in turn helps stress similarities between homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships. In contrast the gay “pink” film
Naughty Boys represents the bond within homosexual relationships as unique to homosexuality, emphasizing the importance of sex as a tie that binds gay relationships and the gay community.
Although, as this thesis has argued, the mainstream films suggest an assimilationist sexual politics, this is not the attitude of the Japanese media in general. John Valentine states that the representation of homosexuality in Japanese television utilizes stereotypes
“as boundary markers containing the Other” (74). The dominant stereotype of homosexuality in Japanese television is that of the okama, which is a feminized man, often represented as cross-dressing. The exceptions to gay men on television being placed in the okama stereotype are when they are announced as the “Other” in different ways
(for example, in being foreigners) or when the gay character is revealed later in the narrative as being an okama for dramatic effect. In any event, gay men are presented as outsiders to the hegemonic culture. In contrast, in the alternative image offered by mainstream films, homosexual characters are not depicted as being outside of the hegemonic culture or contained in stereotypes, but are represented as being able to exist within the hegemonic society.
The gay “pink” films provide an alternative to the representation of homosexuality in both the mainstream films and Japanese television. In the gay “pink” films, homosexuality is defined as the norm, instead of heterosexuality. Heterosexual characters are rarely represented, and when they are, they are depicted as outsiders to the gay community, representing the heteronormative society, such as the female characters in
82 Konna, Futari. The gay “pink” films draw clear borders between homosexuality and heterosexuality, but unlike Japanese television, they present heterosexuality to be outside and alien to the gay culture rather than presenting gay characters as outside of the hegemonic culture.
The sexual politics suggested in the mainstream films and gay “pink” films can be understood in relation to the Japanese concept of uchi, a concept that understands the self in terms of group membership and shared identity (Valentine, “Conformity” 108).
The boundaries of the uchi comprise a “variable frame that is drawn in opposition to those defined … as outside (soto)” (Valentine “Conformity” 108); the concept thus defines not only the self, but also the group where the self belongs (Bachnik
“Introduction” 26). The mainstream films can be understood as expanding the frame heterosexual spectators identify as circumscribing “our group” (uchi) by including certain types of homosexual characters, such as the domesticated asexual gay man in Okoge, homosexual men participating in masculine activities in homosocial organizations in 800
Two Lap Runners and Taboo, and gay men whose attraction to each other is understandable by female spectators in the mainstream films of the third chapter. In contrast, the gay “pink” films draw the borders of the uchi to exclude heterosexuality, showing the inside of the uchi to be constituted by gay men having private homosexual relationships.
A parallel can be drawn between the mechanism of the uchi and that of social recognition more broadly, as described by Judith Butler. Butler writes, “the very terms that confer „humanness‟ on some individuals are those that deprive certain individuals of the possibility of achieving that status, producing a differential between the human and
83 the less-than human” (2). Similar to how the terms that confer “humanness” create a differential, defining certain individuals as uchi can be only done through creating a differential between the inside and outside (soto) by excluding certain subjects.
Mainstream films exclude certain types of gay men, such as sexually active gay men, okamas, and gay men with a strong sense of gay identity, from the uchi while including certain types of gay men within the uchi. On the other hand, the gay “pink” films exclude not only heterosexual characters, but also certain types of homosexual characters. For example, in Naughty Boys, the stereotypical okama character is situated at the outside of the uchi by being represented as an unsympathetic character mugging Takayuki, the protagonist, with a gang of foreigners. The mainstream films and marginal films analyzed in this thesis demonstrate similar tactics in defining the uchi, where the self belongs, by the exclusion of certain subjects to create the distinction between inside and outside.
The borders of the uchi drawn in the mainstream films are characterized by their fluidity, and include certain homosexual characters to create an idea of the uchi that encompasses both heterosexual and homosexual subjects. At first glance this characteristic of the mainstream films seems to point to the construction of a queer identity, but instead of suggesting an identity that encompasses diverse forms of marginal sexuality, the films create the sense of the uchi through articulating a distinction between tolerable (and thus assimilable into the uchi) and intolerable forms of homosexuality. The idea of uchi suggested in the gay “pink” films is more rigidly bound by sexuality, defining the self in opposition to heterosexuality, but at the same time excluding certain types of gay men (such as the okama) in order to create a sense of a uniform gay community rather than one that encompasses diverse forms of homosexuality.
84 The analyses of the films in this thesis demonstrate that despite the tendency of the mainstream films to suggest an assimilationist politics, the films suggest their political position in a variety of ways, which results in the films providing diverse representations of homosexuality. The analyses of the gay “pink” films further illuminate the complexity of the discourses of homosexuality in the Japanese media, by not only examining the alternative images of homosexuality and politics of sexuality that are represented in the media catering toward the gay subculture in Japan, but also by drawing similarities and continuities with the representation of homosexuality in the mainstream media. The images of homosexuality in the gay subculture are not fundamentally disparate from those of the mainstream media, but have an ambiguous relation with it, which is evidenced by the gay “pink” films‟ alternatively reflecting and diverging from the representation of homosexuality in the mainstream films.
Although the methodology employed for the analyses of the films in this thesis was the most efficient to provide a nuanced formal comparison of representations of homosexuality in films featuring homosexuality, other methodologies and perspectives may be incorporated for providing a more comprehensive examination of the discourses of homosexuality in Japan. In the future, I wish to extend my study of the media representations of homosexuality in Japan by, for example, elaborating on the applicability of queer theory in Japan, or by questioning how the images of homosexuality in the mainstream media and the media catering towards the gay subculture are perceived by the gay community, along with expanding the range of subjects analyzed chronologically as well as analyzing the representation of homosexuality in other media to provide greater theorization and contextualization. Such
85 expanded strategies would not only more comprehensively illustrate how images of homosexuality are represented and consumed in the Japanese media as a whole, but also allow a further examination of how gay or queer identity is constructed in the Japanese culture.
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