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The Geopolitics of Godzilla

petertasker.asia

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Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#21

Post by whythre »

magicfractal wrote: post #5

Now replace the Japanese with the Nazi and you’ll see how this is an absurd premise for a movie

Remember: you can’t make any movie about postwar Japan without also making it about the warcrimes of Imperial Japan /s

This is like bitching that Grave of the Fireflies doesn’t call out the atrocities committed by unit 731 so it’s bad.

The regular people featured in Godzilla Minus One talk about how corrupt and destructive their government is; they explicitly call attention to the fact that their government didn’t care at all about the lives of its own people. I think it is pretty telling that if Imperial Japan is letting it’s own civilians starve or forcing them into pointless suicide attacks, then they certainly wouldn’t care about American POWs or Chinese peasants.

Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#22

Post by KRAKRISMOTT »

aamoyg wrote: post #19
atticora wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's easy to cast them as bad guys because they were defeated. It's also easy because they were the aggressors. The attack on Pearl Harbor when we were at peace does not leave a lot of room for nuance. We were not their oppressors, we were just in the way of their conquests.

Well we stopped selling them oil, so they must have framed us as oppressing their expansion

I am sure the middle easterns were the bad guys during the Gulf war too.

Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#23

Post by whythre »

paganel wrote: post #15
rf15 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate?

The Japanese Army and the Japanese politicians never really paid for their WW2 crimes and the crimes committed prior to that (the invasion of China started in 1937, 1931 if you include Manchuria). They even left the Japanese emperor in place after WW2.

Hirohito was not Adolf Hitler and the idea that he should have been deposed is such a dumb take. The Emperor was a symbolic figurehead who helped unite and reconcile postwar Japan.

Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#24

Post by CHB0403085482 »

aamoyg wrote: post #18
earthscienceman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, since this article is explicitly political and thoroughly interesting context I definitely have some criticism that I think should be stated here. I saw the film and it was very well made and enjoyable. A friend invited me and I didn't know anything about it before going in. That said, there are clear problems with the political narrative in the film given it's supposed to be artwork. Making a film about rede…

I think I can apply your last two paragraphs to pretty much any movie unintentionally celebrating the United States security apparatus, politics, public policy, or exploitative crony capitalism that that people lust over for whatever reason. "That said, there are clear problems with the political narrative in the film Oppenheimer, given that it's supposed to be artwork. Making a film about a nuclear weapon without in…

Japanese media has been sweeping their ww2 aggression under the rug forever... https://youtu.be/4IuCBj7WB0o?t=321

But notice how the country that makes the media is always patriotic. Dr Who always have UK save the world from aliens.

Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#25

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

aamoyg wrote: post #18
earthscienceman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, since this article is explicitly political and thoroughly interesting context I definitely have some criticism that I think should be stated here. I saw the film and it was very well made and enjoyable. A friend invited me and I didn't know anything about it before going in. That said, there are clear problems with the political narrative in the film given it's supposed to be artwork. Making a film about rede…

I think I can apply your last two paragraphs to pretty much any movie unintentionally celebrating the United States security apparatus, politics, public policy, or exploitative crony capitalism that that people lust over for whatever reason. "That said, there are clear problems with the political narrative in the film Oppenheimer, given that it's supposed to be artwork. Making a film about a nuclear weapon without in…

(Your comment is very good and insightful; I'm just pointing these things out anyway).

> People there have to use metaphors to talk about getting nuked

... Not really, it's presented pretty directly in Barefoot Gen or in this corner of the world.

In the USA, you can make a movie portraying the US military in a bad light, but not only would it be harder to find an audience, it would also be much more expensive to make the movie. The reason is the US military offers assistance, staff, and equipment to filmmakers for free, as long as they're portrayed as the good guys.

Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#26

Post by aamoyg »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #25
aamoyg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I can apply your last two paragraphs to pretty much any movie unintentionally celebrating the United States security apparatus, politics, public policy, or exploitative crony capitalism that that people lust over for whatever reason. "That said, there are clear problems with the political narrative in the film Oppenheimer, given that it's supposed to be artwork. Making a film about a nuclear weapon without in…

(Your comment is very good and insightful; I'm just pointing these things out anyway). > People there have to use metaphors to talk about getting nuked ... Not really, it's presented pretty directly in Barefoot Gen or in this corner of the world . In the USA, you can make a movie portraying the US military in a bad light, but not only would it be harder to find an audience, it would also be much more expensive to mak…

Sure, but look at the larger context-- those two pieces of media first and foremost are anime which are where more of Japan's risque takes occur. Barefoot Gen was made by Madhouse, which was an extremely new studio at the time. These aren't live action movies made by some conservative, pre War joint stock company like Toho. Cold War 198X also has nuclear war depicted in it accurately from a military perspective, but again, it's anime.

And yes, it's the same in the United States. There are plenty of films that criticize the US government or elements of it. In the 1950s, there were Westerns which did it. In the 70s and 80s, there were Vietnam war movies which did it. Post 9/11, you have Snowden-related movies, or even movies like Captain America 2.

However, yes the DoD offers many incentives for portraying US weapons systems as cool, or US forces in a positive light to "content" makers (I hesitate to call them films).

As Japan rearms to face China, and seeks to boost recruitment we will see more of this patriotic attitude. And maybe Godzilla will be China one day.

(It's hilarious, because in China's recent Korean War films, the United States is scarier than Godzilla to their troops who spend 80% of the movie running away and dying).

Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#27

Post by hughesjj »

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #16
earthscienceman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, since this article is explicitly political and thoroughly interesting context I definitely have some criticism that I think should be stated here. I saw the film and it was very well made and enjoyable. A friend invited me and I didn't know anything about it before going in. That said, there are clear problems with the political narrative in the film given it's supposed to be artwork. Making a film about rede…

> Making a film about redemption without in any way commenting on the evil atrocities you committed is extremely Japanese and morally dubious at best... downright propaganda at worst. Were the Japanese public and military rank and file the real victims of the war? Is it ok to pronounce the moral ambiguity of the top brass without commenting on the Holocaust-level crimes committed? It's easy to cast them as bad guys b…

> It's easy to cast them as bad guys because they were defeated.

Real interesting response to 'holocaust level crimes'

Historically the US absolutely treated our natives and African descendents to a similar level of horror, but we 1. Own that and 2. Weren't doing anything to that level en masse by the time WWII came around.

I love Japan and it's people but I will absolutely throw shade at their cowardice in ignoring the sins of their past (at the cultural/national level).

Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#28

Post by aamoyg »

CHB0403085482 wrote: post #24
aamoyg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I can apply your last two paragraphs to pretty much any movie unintentionally celebrating the United States security apparatus, politics, public policy, or exploitative crony capitalism that that people lust over for whatever reason. "That said, there are clear problems with the political narrative in the film Oppenheimer, given that it's supposed to be artwork. Making a film about a nuclear weapon without in…

Japanese media has been sweeping their ww2 aggression under the rug forever... https://youtu.be/4IuCBj7WB0o?t=321 But notice how the country that makes the media is always patriotic. Dr Who always have UK save the world from aliens.

It depends on what you consider patriotic.

There are movies like Haqueeqat, made in India after their military defeat in 1962. It's a black and white, realistic war movie (no Bollywood dancing). The entire movie is a big fuck you to the Indian government (Nehru in particular) for trusting China, having a Communist defense minister, putting the Indian military in a situation in which they need to have some crazy 10-1 kill ratio in the mountains while retreating, and villagers with little to no military training have to make a militia because troops cannot be deployed in time.

More egregiously, a Little Red Book gets bayoneted, a woman in the militia gets overtly raped as a form of torture by the Chinese, and children scream among all the dead bodies in the mountains. Also the end of the movie shows people voluntarily giving up their gold so that the government can buy weapons, which is a big "fuck you". Not only did the country get fucked over, but now people are giving up their gold (like Ottoman Turkey in WW1) so that the government can buy armaments.

Ironically, this film was funded by the same government it was criticizing. However, it was not censored at all, because the government at the time was very idealistic and considered this critique patriotic.

Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#29

Post by aamoyg »

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #22
aamoyg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we stopped selling them oil, so they must have framed us as oppressing their expansion

I am sure the middle easterns were the bad guys during the Gulf war too.

I should have put the /s tag in my post. And the Gulf War wasn't even our war to get involved in.

Re: The Geopolitics of Godzilla

#30

Post by paganel »

whythre wrote: post #23
paganel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Japanese Army and the Japanese politicians never really paid for their WW2 crimes and the crimes committed prior to that (the invasion of China started in 1937, 1931 if you include Manchuria). They even left the Japanese emperor in place after WW2.

Hirohito was not Adolf Hitler and the idea that he should have been deposed is such a dumb take. The Emperor was a symbolic figurehead who helped unite and reconcile postwar Japan.

> The Emperor was a symbolic figurehead who helped unite and reconcile postwar Japan.

Yes, the symbol of the Nanjing Massacre.

> and reconcile postwar Japan.

That was the US's doing, Japan still functions by the constitution imposed by MacArthur.

Also, more generally, the fact that people in the West are white-washing guys like Hirohito is a very big part of why we're in the current geopolitical mess. It would help if, for once, the West would admit: "yeah, we let that killer in place because it suited our geo-political interests back in the day". But were they (the Westerners) to do that then we wouldn't have blog-posts like this one here which totally goes over Japan's war-crimes (and does not mention Hiroshima nor Nagasaki, although it doesn't forget to mention that China, Russia and North Korea now have nukes).

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