During the U.S. occupation of Japan after World War II, the Americans were determined to transform the island empire from an authoritarian to a democratic society. Much has been written about the political strategy of the U.S. Supreme Commander, Douglas MacArthur, and the constitution he bequeathed to Japan that remains in force today. But with Screening Enlightenment: Hollywood and the Cultural Reconstruction of Defeated Japan (published by Cornell University Press), Hiroshi Kitamura offers a lucid study of a seldom-examined aspect of the occupation. In collusion with Hollywood studios, the U.S. government crafted policies for Japan’s film industry to pry open a closed market and influence the psyche of moviegoers. Devastated by American air raids even before the atom bomb was dropped, the Japanese were looking for escape and found it in American popular culture as depicted in the movies.
American films were not unknown in Japan before Pearl Harbor, but they competed with a flourishing local film industry and butted against protectionist economic policies. As shown by Kitamura, a history professor at the College of William and Mary, the U.S. government at the behest of Hollywood’s in-house censor, Will Hays, devised plans during the war to open foreign markets in Europe as well as Asia. Once MacArthur took charge of the fallen empire, strict censorship was imposed in all fields, from the paper puppets of street entertainers through the press and motion pictures. Many wartime Japanese films were burned by the American military for promoting “militarism.” MacArthur didn’t abolish Japan’s big studios (U.S. troops were actually used to break a strike by studio workers) but gave them an agenda aimed at promoting tolerance, individual initiative and democratic ideals. The movies were supposed to “Show Japanese in all walks of life cooperating to build a peaceful nation.”
Although Kitamura is less interested in how U.S. policies played out in the work of Japanese filmmakers, he shows that the country’s movie industry regained momentum in the 1950s even as Hollywood marketed products aggressively. “U.S. cinema maintained a loyal following among most of the cultural elites” and many Japanese devalued the cinema of their own nation, despite the international acclaim received by highbrow (Rashoman) ass well as lowbrow (Godzilla) productions. Kitamura outlines the partial conquest of Japan’s imagination by Hollywood with many telling details, but neglects the flip side of the story. Star Wars may have been one of the most popular movies in Japan, buy without the influence of Japanese filmmaking, Star Wars as we know it might never have existed. The relationship between Hollywood and Japan was a two-way avenue; the pop culture that developed in Japan after the war was a hybrid that has inspired many artists in the West.
