Oh no! There goes Tokyo!

[maypirate]

For someone who wrote the bulk of their Capstone (senior thesis) in 20 hours, it's downright frustrating to be unable to wordify what should be a very simple section of her Master's Thesis.

I just have to write about Godzilla! There's so much to say! But there's so much to say that I've freaked myself out and I'm just staring at the computer with no writing mojo and how did it come to this? Why do I always psych myself out on this shit?! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME, GODZILLA?!?!

And I left one of my most important books for it on campus and there's no immediately edible meat in my house. All I've eaten today is like 2.5 bowls of Fruit Harvest cereal, because I suck. Bugaroni is planned for eating while watching House, but fuckdamn I want to eat an animal.

Mmmrgh. Auuuuuuuuugh, Godzilla.

Comments

[baka-deshi.livejournal.com]

Hmm...would it help to tell me here things about Godzilla that I should know? Because honestly what I know is that he's huge and stomps Tokyo and/or other monsters XD

[maypirate.livejournal.com]

It might help! The problem is that uhhh...I kind of wrote this in the way I take notes? So it might not actually make sense to you.

But thank you!

Godzilla - part of the resurgence of J cinema postwar
-influenced by the American/HW films pedaled widely by SCAP
-sorekara similar to the trend of giant radioactive monster films in the U.S. - again the US involvement, and the J tendency to borrow from the US, and remake - same year as THEM
-G performed by two men alternating the suit
-orchestral score
-how was it received in J?
-and then we brought it to the US as a completely different entity - it arrived as a new foreigner, but to an audience already familiar with the novelty of atomic monsters - just another brick in the crazy movie wall, devoid of anything but entertainment value - erasure of almost all references to Hiroshima and Nagasaki/the ambiguous ending with regard to the continued testing of H bombs - false happiness and safety, everything is okay now, we'll never make that mistake again

For the J
-revision/destruction of history
-writing themselves in on the allied side
-the punishment for actions in the war as well as for losing it - a sort of even-keel "now we're just like you" idea - this time they can win the battle, mostly
-G as both the terrifying other and the misunderstood self that brings a (necessary?) decimation, a trauma that is personal, recognizable, specific to Japan in the sense of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon - familiar scenes of devastation on a physical and human level
-important paradox/leveling of blame in regards to the nature of horrific weaponry - when the J have a terrible weapon, the man responsible ensures that no one can even recreate it or learn the secret from him; he would rather die than see it used again - sharp, poignant and accusatory against the US, who used awfulness when they found it, and continued to expound upon it

For the US
-campy campy woo-woo - familiar terror, but in the sense that we've seen it (and defeated it) before - "it happened, but not to you"
-made to be acceptable in the eyes of a public still wary of the Asian other (and in this case there is still a great othering) - insertion of an all-American brave dude with whom the public can relate/experience the disaster --> secondhand horror, no longer personal
-erasure of atomic themes - the H bomb is mentioned once, HiroNaga not at all
-a window in a wall of misunderstandings, only offering part of the view
-happy ending, moral-less and non-incriminating

Politics
-first test of the H bomb - Ivy-Mike, November 1, 1952 by the United States on Enewetak, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, as part of Operation Ivy
-Bikini Atoll and the Daifukuryu Maru incident - result of Castle Bravo test, March 1, 1954
-SCAP left in 1952, and J was now on its own, albeit with a society rebuilt by Americans - interesting to consider G's destruction of western-themed architecture in his rampage of Tokyo
-in the US, did we even remember? - or did we only consider J in the colonized vision offered by the reedited film?

[sky-dark.livejournal.com]

Godzilla: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/showdown

That is all I have to say.

Animals are gud.

oops I said more.

[minigendo.livejournal.com]

I will reveal to you a secret. A mystical and magical secret. When in doubt, write about it as if it were porn. Godzilla, hardest working monster in the industry. 330 feet, 225 tons of steaming, ripling reptile flesh. 50 years ago, Japanese culture gave this lizard the eye from across the bar and it ROCKED THEIR WORLD! That's right Japan, once you went Kaiju, you never went back.

I write this in levity, but it actually worked for a friend of mine while typing a particularly boring report for Merrill Lynch.

[fourfreedoms.livejournal.com]

I attempted to eat steak tonight. WAHAHAHAH, what a bad idea. I think I'm lucky I'm not chucking it up all over the place.