The Discourse of Anti-Americanism and Hollywood Movies: Film Import Controls in Japan, 1937–1941

Abstract

AbstractOCLC Online Computer Library Center In interwar Japan, urban middle-class audiences patronized Hollywood movies rather than domestic native films that should have appealed to them as native and culturally familiar. The rise of militant nationalism and cultural nativism fueled the growth of official movements that celebrated an indigenous Japanese essence and eschewed allegedly foreign, modern “contamination.” The alleged Americanizing influence of Hollywood cinema became an increasingly worrisome problem for Japanese officials beginning in the early 1930s. This article examines Japan's efforts to impose tighter restrictions on American films during the 1930s, culminating in a total ban on film imports following the onset of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937.