The experience of cinema-going for women in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the field of Japanese film studies, the relationship between women and cinema during the 1920s and 1930s has been mainly explored through the perspective of women’s representation in films, largely neglecting the experiences of actual, historical female audiences in cinemas. This article examines how Japanese female audiences received films in cinemas and the experiences these venues offered to women. By analysing contemporary film magazine and newspaper articles, which discuss female film audiences or are authored by women themselves, this study sheds light on the cinema-going experiences of women in Japan during this period. It particularly focuses on schoolgirls’ experiences of watching Western-imported films, drawing on their testimonies found in film magazines. For schoolgirls, cinema visits constituted an adventurous escape from domestic confines. Watching foreign-imported, particularly American, films provided them with an opportunity to observe and imagine lives divergent from their own. Moreover, the widespread film culture among schoolgirls enabled them to share their affinity for these films. The article concludes that cinema-going offered schoolgirls an opportunity to momentarily escape their constrained lives and collectively envisage a life beyond their immediate realities.