When I was four years old, my favorite movie was 1962's King Kong versus Godzilla. (Take a few minutes and watch the ending battle here. If you like watching guys in monster costumes wrestle, you won't be disappointed!) I loved Godzilla and rooted for him to wallop all the beasts he faced, save the world, and smash as many buildings as he could along the way. There was even a green coat I would wear at that age when I wanted to pretend to be the big green guy!
Those childhood sentiments seem rather far away when placed against the most recent Japanese version of the beast, 2016's Shin Gojira.
As you can see from the promotional picture here, this is not exactly the cute and cuddly "Godzilla" of my youth. Its imagery is frightful and grotesque at times, while the film itself makes powerful political and moral statements. Far from a new turn for the figure, though, this representation returns it to its roots in the original 1954 Gojira. (A note about language: "Gojira" is the correct Japanese name for the creature. It is a portmanteau of the Japanese words for "ape" and "whale," showing something of the category-breaking quality frequent in monstrous figures. "Godzilla" is an anglicized rendering of the phonetics of "Gojira.") The original black-and-white Gojira was intended as a serious commentary on the atomic bomb and ongoing nuclear testing, particularly by the United States. As if the past history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not been enough fodder to inspire a film about a monster brought to life by nuclear weapons, contemporaneous to the film's inception and release, a hydrogen bomb test by the United States (codenamed "Castle Bravo") produced fallout that irradiated a Japanese fishing boat. With these incidents as a backdrop, the film depicts how atomic tests bring to life an ancient beast who wreaks havoc on Japan.
It is a grim, serious, and effective movie. The monster lays waste to stretches of Japan and is stopped only when another horrific weapon (an "oxygen destroyer") is employed to kill it. Even as the Japanese scientist who developed the oxygen destroyer shows his moral superiority to the United States by choosing to die along with Gojira rather than that risk his invention being misused, those present at the monster's defeat lament the prospect that future nuclear testing will produce even more unfathomable threats.
2016's Shin Gojira similarly occurs in the wake of a real-life disaster. In 2011, following an earthquake and tsunami, the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan suffered an accident that released an enormous level of radiation into the environment, causing large-scale evacuations. The Japanese government's handling of the accident and its aftermath was roundly criticized, up to and including accusations of active cover ups of the tragedy's severity. As the monster comes ashore in this new version, the effects of the Fukushima accident are glaringly obvious: the government is shown as inept, mired in red tape, and primarily concerned with not losing face rather than truly protecting citizens. Perhaps even to a greater extent than the original Gojira, the film also tackles tensions with the United States, showing the Americans as overbearing diplomatically and even perfectly willing to subject Japan to a modern nuclear strike (whether the Japanese agree to it or not) in order to stop the monster. Ultimately, it is the younger, brasher, and more nationalistic elements of the government, in concert with the Japanese military (the "Strategic Defense Force") who emerge as the heroes, defeating the creature and reasserting Japan's might and sovereignty in the face of international overreach.
Shin Gojira and its 1954 predecessor are also remarkable for the ways in which they draw on ancient mythic themes. In the 2016 film, the beast is called a "god incarnate," as a nod to the divine and dangerous creatures of Shinto mythology. The Strategic Defense Forces assigned to combat Gojira are codenamed "Dragon Slayers," explicitly in honor of the storm god Susanoo, who destroyed the monster serpent Orochi in Shinto mythology. Stories of a storm or thunder deity killing a primordial dragon are frequent in world mythology, particularly in the Indo-European region. Zeus kills Typhon, Thor is locked in struggle with the Midgard Serpent, Perun perpetually battles Veles, Ra pursues Apophis, Marduk slays Tiamat, Indra smashes Vritra, and on and on. It is present in the biblical tradition as well, exemplified by Yahweh fighting Leviathan and the various monsters of Revelation, especially the beast from the sea and the many-headed dragon. Whereas the thunder gods in each instance are meant to represent order and divinity, the dragon from the sea stands for the chaos, darkness, and dissolution that must be conquered.
Beneath the surface of these philosophical oppositions, though, there are layers and layers of political intentions, as many scholars in Religious Studies will point out. For instance, the Greek story of Zeus' defeat of Typhon (who is the champion of Gaia, Mother Earth) may be a polemic in favor of patriarchy's domination of women. Similarly, Indra was the warrior deity of the Vedic peoples, and Vritra was conceptualized as the various cultures they conquered. Despite many looney interpretations, the beasts of Revelation have the same kind of political origin, as stand-ins for the Roman Empire. In this same way, the original Gojira uses a monster out of the primordial sea to represent a contemporary horror: the atomic bomb. Shin Gojira updates this by adding a critique of the Japanese governmental structure and ratcheting up the anti-American sentiment. The notes may change slightly, but the song remains the same, right?
Well, yes and no. Myths have a tendency to get away from their authors. Besides the evolving friendliness of the character (its transition from fearsome "Gojira" to the funny "Godzilla") in the 1960-70s, there have been Hollywood interpretations in 1998, 2014, and 2019. One can even speculate that this is the reason why Shin Gojira has that particular title: "Shin" can be translated many ways, including "new" or "true," suggesting a deliberate contrast to the American films. Yet, for better or worse, Godzilla is now a multivalent figure, holding multiple, complicated meanings simultaneously. In a 2019 article for the Atlantic, Peter Bebergal masterfully points to these tensions. This just proves that any mythic figure can mean a lot of different things, whether its to an ancient culture, a Hollywood film studio, or a four-year old in a green coat.
The topic for next time is still up in the air, as there are a few topics I'm choosing between. At any rate, I'll be back in a week or so. Until then, take care.
No comments:
Post a Comment