Godzilla and the Japanese Nightmare: When "Them!" Is U.S.

Abstract

In 1954, Japan's Toho Studios-in what appeared to be merely an imitation of 1953 American film Beast from 20,000 Fathoms -unleashed Godzilla. The film was Japan's first international hit, inspiring sixteen sequels and a dozen other radioactive dinosaurs. Today, Godzilla has achieved icon status in and America, making plausible James Twitchell's jibe in Dreadful Pleasures that it is one of first images Westerners think of when they hear word 'Japan.' If word evokes Godzilla-and not Hiroshima, 1985's $62 billion trade surplus, and compact cars-one wonders why these films are so easily dismissed by Twitchell and ignored by others.' That this genre-Japan's most popular filmic export-has been neglected seems in itself to indicate a mechanics of repression at work. These movies are ascribed same attributes those made in Japan products that in fifties connoted shoddiness. When examined, however, they reveal a self-conscious attempt to deal with nuclear history and its effects on Japanese society. There are two related impediments to a sociohistorical reading of Godzilla films: critical approach and concept of Otherness. Noel Carroll sums up prevailing approach to horror film when he states that as a matter of social tradition, psychoanalysis is more or less lingua franca of horror film and thus privileged critical tool for discussing genre.2 He also notes that the horror and science fiction film poignantly expresses sense of powerlessness and anxiety that correlates with times of depression, recession, Cold War strife, galloping inflation, and national confusion.3 Ironically, Carroll does not attempt to historicize psychoanalytic archetypes he goes on to posit. Unlike Carroll, Robin Wood makes a direct link between psychoanalysis and history in examining horror film. In An Introduction to American Horror Film, Wood applies psychoanalytic concepts of repression and projection to horror film: It is repression . . .that makes impossible healthy alternative: full recognition and acceptance of other's autonomy and right