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The Author's Name: Zhang QianyuTitle of the Essay: Horrific Sexism: A Closer Look at the Japanese Horror CinemaInstitutional Affiliation: University of Hong KongContact Information: Tel.: +85267262652 Email:
[email protected]
The Author's Name: Zhang Qianyu
Title of the Essay: Horrific Sexism: A Closer Look at the Japanese Horror Cinema
Institutional Affiliation: University of Hong Kong
Contact Information: Tel.: +85267262652 Email:
[email protected]
Paper for submission
Horrific Sexism:
A Closer Look at the Japanese Horror Thriller Cinema
In Japanese Horror Films and Their American Remakes, Valerie Wee claims that Japanese horror films enjoy a rising popularity and have transcended their "cult status" under progressively globalized media (6). Owing to the widened acceptance of Japanese horror thrillers and the large audience they reach, exploring certain manipulative elements in the Japanese horror cinema and thus helping deepen people's understandings of them bear significance. Japanese horror cinema overwhelmingly contains sexism. As for Japanese horror movies as a genre, the existent analyses on these films focus more on the genre-related factors and overlook this aspect.
Patriarchy in Japanese Society
Japan still operates under a powerful patriarchy. Michael C. Brannigan unveils that Confucianism was introduced into Japan in the third century and later "secured autonomy and special recognition" under Tokugawa period (194). In accordance with Kim El-Hannah, Confucianism has been depriving females of their rights to "realize the potentialities" and their rights to "become free and complete persons" (32). Atsuko Kameda reveals that this mode of thought dominates contemporary Japan with the added expectation that men should still have mastery over business (108). Besides, nowadays Japanese boys are still raised up in the expectation to be "active, brave and strong" while Japanese girls are still bestowed with the obligation to be "obedient, polite, and non-argumentative" (Kashiwagi, cited by Kameda 110). Moreover, Masami Ohinata further articulates that even in present Japanese society, the social expectation for females to merely "participate in the child-rearing process" continues to constrain women (207-208). These facts indicate that Japanese women are associated with domesticity and passivity. To illustrate female domesticity, women's economic independence is denied since business is at the mercy of men and the responsibilities to raise children tightly bind women to sacrificing themselves to their families. At this point, women are limited to domestic roles owing to their financial dependency and moral constraints from society. Speaking of passivity, the fact that women are expected to be "obedient" and "non-argumentative" denotes that women in Japanese society are rarely involved in the decision-making processes, which results in their incapabilities to determine their destinies. Accordingly females are submissive to male commands. Considering this phenomenon, as a descended social convention, patriarchic sexism still prevails contemporary Japanese society.
The pervasive sexism in Japanese society inevitably intrudes into its horror cinema. In order to achieve a box office success, Japanese films need to reach a large audience. Since the mainstream audience usually confines itself to follow social conventions, it is often safer for films to capitulate to and replicate these social conventions in order to attain acceptance and popularity. Hence, due to the legacy of Japanese social conventions, Japanese horror films inevitably reinforce its patriarchic ideologies. Thus, Japanese horror thrillers end up entrapping women within patriarchy again on the screen. Specifically, the following analyses will reveal the images of these oppressed female characters in Japanese horror thrillers.
The Objectification of Women
The well-known Japanese horror thriller Battle Royale directed by Kinji Fukasaka narrates a story about survival in a murderous game. This film starts with a scene of people celebrating victory of the winner of a former game of extreme survival. The winner, as a girl, covered with blood, smiles ruthlessly at the camera. Later a bunch of students are randomly selected from Japan to participate in the same murderous game. They are required to kill each other until only one person is left. Then the main part of this film delineates how different characters die, how the protagonists struggle against other students and the game organizer, and how the two main characters eventually survive the game.
Battle Royale builds up its female protagonist as the "scared object". In the murderous game in Battle Royale, the female protagonist Noriko Nakagawa appears passive, cowardly and needy, embodying the feminie trait required by Japanese society. Nakagawa stays aside, appalled, and watches in the scene where the male protagonist Shuya Nanahara is reluctantly involved in a deadly fight with Tatsumichi Oki, another school participant in the game. Later on, Nakagawa is transferred to be taken care of by Shogo Kawada, a muscular male fighter who is the winner from a previous killing game. Additionally, when Nakagawa confronts Mitsuko Souma, the cruel-hearted female murderer, instead of attacking Souma or defending herself courageously and actively, she remains docile and waits until she gets rescued by Kitano, their teacher and the organizer of the brutal murdering game. Along the way, Nakagawa follows either Nanahara's or Kawada's route without contributing any constructive suggestions, ideas or actions. As is disclosed here, Nakagawa is not only exempt from any physical strife but also ostracized from any decision-making process. Hence the character Nakagawa is bereft of both physical and mental subjectivity compared with her male counterparts. Her life is subject to the safeguarding provided by male characters and she obediently follows whatever the men decide to do. Ergo she is objectified under the dreadful circumstance set in the film.
The female protagonist Noriko Nakagawa appears passive, cowardly and needy, embodying the feminie trait required by Japanese society.
The female protagonist Noriko Nakagawa appears passive, cowardly and needy, embodying the feminie trait required by Japanese society.
When Nakagawa confronts Mitsuko Souma, the cruel-hearted female murderer, instead of attacking Souma or defending herself courageously and actively, she remains docile and waits until she gets rescued by Kitano,
When Nakagawa confronts Mitsuko Souma, the cruel-hearted female murderer, instead of attacking Souma or defending herself courageously and actively, she remains docile and waits until she gets rescued by Kitano,
Not limited to Battle Royale, the representations of women as objects emerge in the Japanese horror cinema at large. On the one hand, as unveiled by K.K. Seet, women as audience and characters are never empowered to "wield the gaze" (150). Since gazing enables one to observe, consider, and evaluate on his or her own, being able to "wield the gaze" confirms subjectivity. Albeit there are female gazes on the Japanese horror screens, the female characters who wield the subjectivity confirming gaze are always "dubious vamps" (Seet 151). For instance, in Battle Royale, there are close-ups of the ferocious female murderer Mitsuko Sauma resolutely gazing at her "preys" several times throughout the film. Moreover, the female winner from the last survival game gazes directly at the camera and smiles with blood covering her body. Here her ferocity and morbid happiness after killing creates her monstrous subjectivity. The absence of normal women gazes in Japanese horror thrillers turns female characters into objects that dare not see and by extension dare not think. Consequently, this deprives Japanese horror cinema of female subjectivity.
The female winner from the last survival game gazes the camera and smiles with blood covering her body. Here her ferocity and morbid happiness after killing creates her monstrous subjectivity.
The female winner from the last survival game gazes the camera and smiles with blood covering her body. Here her ferocity and morbid happiness after killing creates her monstrous subjectivity.
On the other hand, female characters serve their male subjects all the way in the Japanese thrillers. The women characters in the horror films are mainly male-centered individuals. Specifically, Toshikazu Kôno's film Bancho Sarayashiki (1957) narrates a story of a woman named Okiku being killed by her lover under social pressure and returning as a ghost to assure her lover of her forgiveness. What's more, Kaneto Shindo's film Kuroneko (1968) describes a discarded wife named Yone returning as a ghost to seduce and murder samurais after being murdered by marauding soldiers. Eventually Yone's husband turns up in an attempt to destroy her. Both films place female characters to endure sufferings when they are alive while their fates as ghosts are still tightly at the mercy of their husbands. Here, these female characters show up as abandoned objects when alive. Since Yone is an object serving her man, her devotion to her domestic duties restrains her at home and this increases her chances of suffering from discretionary attacks by marauding soldiers.
Similarly, because Okiku is her lover's object, she must abandon her life for him. Secondly, the motif of women as returning ghosts pushes the objectification of women further. As an uncanny being with mysterious power, a ghost returns for some unfulfilled will. Here the returned female ghosts either hunt for men's absolution or seek revenge on men. Their unfulfilled wills are both male-centric. At this point, the images of living and ghostly female characters divulge that in Japanese horror films, both women's lives and their immediate-afterlife periods are determined by their submission to men who retain their subject positions. To summarize, the Japanese horror cinema never lacks women as scared objects, tortured objects or unearthly objects.
The objectification of women in Japanese thrillers engenders sexism. Objectified, the female characters are deprived of mastery of their own fates on the screens. Instead, men are the masters of their destinies. So objectifying women is a way of consolidating patriarchic orthodoxy. In Battle Royale, in the survival game, Noriko Nakagawa shows up as the controlled and sheltered object, which allows males to dictate her behaviors. This pervasiveness of male dominance entails sexism in Japanese horror movies.
The Misidentification of Female Characters
The portrayals of female characters in Battle Royale create an angel-devil dichotomy. Thus, the major personalities of the female characters in Battle Royale are polarized. The female protagonist Nakagawa is depicted as benevolent, tenderhearted although submissive while the other type of girls who fight and murder people are described as vicious and truculent. Although some some of Nakagawa's female classmates like Hirono who attempts to murder Souma for vengeance are ambiguous, their stories do not occupy much of narrative.
By contrast, particularly, the female character Mitsuko Souma pushes the sinful depiction of female fighters to the extreme. To explicate, there are three scenes in total narrating ferocious murders that Souma conducts. Furthermore, close-ups highlight her ruthless facial expressions along the way. Moreover, her malignant words such as, "What's wrong with killing, everybody has got their reasons" denote her bloodthirstiness. By contrasting Nakagawa and Souma, major female characters are delineated as either good and compliant angels or vicious and aggressive devils. Here the film imposes on audience's minds a polarized perception of women.
Her malignant words such as, "What's wrong with killing, everybody has got their reasons" denote her bloodthirstiness. Close-ups highlight Sauma's ruthless facial expressions along the way.
Her malignant words such as, "What's wrong with killing, everybody has got their reasons" denote her bloodthirstiness.
Close-ups highlight Sauma's ruthless facial expressions along the way.
This angel-devil construction of female characters also occurs in other Japanese horror thrillers. For example, in Ugetsu, Genjuro, the husband, falls in love with a seductive noblewoman in the city named Lady Wakasa who turns out to be a ghost. On the contrary, his wife Miyagi in the village remains faithful to him at home . Here the noblewoman appears to be the sinful ghost because she dallies with men without giving them a positive and perpetual future. In contrast, Miyagi is the angel who is obedient to patriarchal conventions.
The angel-devil dichotomy is sexist because it makes the audience empathize with female submission. Caught in the angel-devil dichotomy, in order to avoid connecting to the immoral or ghostly female, the spectators would choose to empathize with the kind-hearted angel in the film. For instance, in Battle Royale, the audience will automatically empathize with Nakagawa. And because the audience tends to empathize with a character as a whole, the audience comes to empathize with Nakagawa's absence of subjectivity as well. Likewise, in Ugetsu, in order to psychologically escape from Lady Wakasa, the spectators will empathize with Miyagi and thus agree with her dedication to loyalty and domesticity.
Besides the angel-devil dichotomy, constructing women as the monstrous "Other" is a requirement in Japanese horror theatre to emphasize the devil within this dichotomy. Hideo Nakata's Dark Water fits into this category. In this film, the single mother Yoshimi struggles to hold her sanity while Mitsuko, abandoned by her mother earlier, returns as the vengeful ghost haunting Yoshimi's house. Seet addresses them as "horror objects" (145). Here both figures are alienated as monstrous females but in different ways. Yoshimi entails deformed femininity owing to her horrifying mental status while Mitsuko entails monstrous femininity because being a spiteful ghost herself engenders horror to others. These women carry danger and hopelessness. Christopher Sharrect insists that in Dark Water, women are pictured as hopeless without the males and women are punished for "neglecting [their] duties as [keepers] of the household" (37). So Dark Water implies that Yoshimi's semi-insanity and Mitsuko's ghostly avengement are de facto the result of the absence of patriarchy in their lives. Mitsuko's mom's failure to fulfill her maternal duty results in Mitsuko's revenge and Yoshimi's semi-insanity is a consequence of her lack of a man's support. To eliminate the potential of resembling Yoshimi or producing Mitsuko, audience will choose to identify with men's support and maternal duties. Therefore, the demonization of women characters in Japanese cinema also strengthens sexism by reinforcing the importance of a patriarchic family.
Patriarchic Narratives
Patriarchic narratives could be discerned in the endings of different characters in the movie Battle Royale. The characters who devote themselves to patriarchal conventions survive while those go against patriarchy end up in death. Nanahara and Kawada are the male characters who practice their imposed patriarchic duties, which in this film equals protecting Nakagawa. Although having different personalities, these two characters make violent efforts and end up surviving until the killing game ends. Moreover, they achieve success in subverting Kitano, the organizer of the inhumane survival game.
In terms of Shinji Mimura, Keita Iijima, and Yutaka Seto, the three who attempted to infiltrate and destroy the supervising and controlling computer system of the murderous game, are found out and brutally murdered by Kazuo Kiriyama. For these three characters who fight against the system of the game, they have no action of protecting any female character throughout the film, this indicating their betrayal to patriarchic duties. Hence, this film reproaches the absence of their fulfillment of patriarchal requirements by making them killed at last.
Additionally, the female characters who appear not biddable end up dead. To be specific, Chigusa is shot dead by Souma after she struggles to kill her sexual harasser. Here Chigusa, as a woman, her independent endeavors in a violent way do not pay off. At this point, Battle Royale implies that women cannot succeed independently without support from men.
Sisterhood, as a threat to patriarchy, is denounced in Battle Royale as well. At the beginning of the killing game, Kusaka and Yukiko promote peaceful advocacy to pacify the bestial situation. During their urge in which process these two girls seem to form sisterhood to fight against male game organizer, denoting them uniting to fight against patriarchy, they get shot dead as well.
Conclusion
In conclusion, based on the patriarchic social background, the Japanese horror cinema is sexist and projects sexism into the audience's minds since it portrays women as objects, generates misidentification regarding female roles and contains patriarchal narratives. Accordingly, as to the Japanese horror theatre at large, to reduce its sexism, more women gazes, fewer female vengeful ghosts and more vivid types of women are called for.
Works Cited
Battle Royale [バトル・ロワイアル]. Dir. Kinji Fukasaku. Japan, 2000. Film.
Bancho Sarayashiki. Dir. Toshikazu Kono. Japan, 1957. Film.
Brannigan, Michael C. Striking a Balance: A Primer in Traditional Asian Values. New
York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000. Print.
Dark Water. Dir. Hideo Nakata. Japan, 2002. Film.
Kameda, Atsuko. "Sexism and Gender Stereotyping in Schools." Japanese Women:
New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future. Eds. Kumiko
Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1995. 107-124. Print.
Kim, El-Hannah. "The Social Reality of Korean American Women: toward Crashing with the Korean Ideology." Korean Women: from Tradition to Modern Feminism. Eds. Yong I. Song and Ailee Moon. USA: Praeger Publishers, 1998. Print.
Kuroneko. Dir. Kaneto Shindo. Japan, 1968. Film.
Ohinata, Masami. "The Mystique of Motherhood: A Key to Understanding Social
Change and Family Problems in Japan." Japanese Women: New Feminist
Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future. Eds. Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1995. 199-212. Print.
Sharrett, Christopher. "The Problem of Saw: 'Torture Porn' and the Conservatism of
Contemporary Horror Films." Cineaste 35.1 (2009): 32-37. Print.
Seet, K. K. "Mothers and Daughters: Abjection and the Monstrous-Feminine in
Japan's Dark Water and South Korea's A Tale of Two Sisters." Camera
Obscura 24.71 (2009): 139-159. Print.
Ugetsu. Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi. Japan, 1953. Film.
Wee, Valerie. Japanese Horror Films and Their American Remakes: Translating
Fear, Adapting Culture. New York: Routledge, 2014. Print
