Asian extreme as cult cinema: the transnational appeal of excess and otherness

Abstract

This thesis investigates the way Western audiences respond to portrayals of excess and otherness in Japanese Extreme cinema. It explores the way a recent (2006-2016) cycle of Japanese Splatter (J-Splatter) films, including The Machine Girl (Noboru Iguchi, 2008) and Tokyo Gore Police (Yoshihiro Nishimura, 2008), have been positioned as cult due to their over-the-top representations of violence and stereotypes of Japanese culture. Phenomenological research and personal interviews interrogate Western encounters with J-Splatter films at niche film festivals and on DVD and various online platforms through independent distributors. I argue that these films are marketed to particular Western cult audiences using vocabulary and images that highlight the exotic nature of globally recognised Japanese cultural symbols such as schoolgirls and geisha. This thesis analyses J-Splatter’s transnational, cosmopolitan appeal using an approach informed by the work of Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton, Matt Hills, Henry Jenkins, and Iain Robert Smith, who read the relationship between Western audiences and international cult cinema as positive and meaningful cultural interactions, demonstrating a desire to engage in more global experiences. The chapters in this thesis use textual analysis of J-Splatter films and case studies of North American and Australian film festivals and distribution companies, which include interviews with festival directors and distributors, to analyse the nature of the appeal of J-Splatter to Western audiences. I consider how DVD marketing strategies, and publicity material when the films are exhibited at festivals, seek to attract viewers by using notions of extremity to establish the filmmakers as cult directors. Through this analysis, I investigate the ways in which film distribution strategies and marketing techniques are deployed to attract the attention of international audiences in order to present one culture to an audience from another culture. This thesis makes a methodological contribution to studies of screen culture by developing a phenomenological approach to audience studies in order to advance the field beyond the assumptions and abstractions that typify traditional theories of spectatorship. The key purpose of this research is to understand cross-cultural audience responses and illuminate the role of film festivals in diversifying the film experience and informing global media flows. My audience reception work sheds new light on how signifiers of otherness are counterpoised by the shared language of visceral, bodily experience. Using the niche festival venue as a site for cult film exhibition, my phenomenological approach to collective viewing is implemented through participant observation of the audience’s experience at festivals and exhibitions, including Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, Australia’s Japanese Film Festival, and Queensland Gallery of Modern Art’s “Cult Japan” Series.