Location
University of Nevada Las Vegas, Greenspun Hall (first & second floor lobby)
Description
This project tackles the 1954 Japanese film Gojira, known to most Americans as Godzilla. By examining the strong emotions expressed in the film’s narrative, we can begin to understand better the experience of the Japanese survivor of World War II. Specifically, by studying the way the primary emotional responses to a war experience (guilt/anger, pain/suffering, and powerlessness/fear) are represented in the film it is possible to see how Gojira functions rhetorically to provide for the Japanese people a safe venue for post-war expression and healing.
Keywords
Censorship; Film anyalsis; Films; Gojira; Japan; Japanese films; Narrative approaches; Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); Psychoanalytic approaches; Responses to atomic bombs; Science fiction movies; World War II survivors
Disciplines
Film and Media Studies | Rhetoric
Language
English
The rhetorical significance of Gojira
University of Nevada Las Vegas, Greenspun Hall (first & second floor lobby)
This project tackles the 1954 Japanese film Gojira, known to most Americans as Godzilla. By examining the strong emotions expressed in the film’s narrative, we can begin to understand better the experience of the Japanese survivor of World War II. Specifically, by studying the way the primary emotional responses to a war experience (guilt/anger, pain/suffering, and powerlessness/fear) are represented in the film it is possible to see how Gojira functions rhetorically to provide for the Japanese people a safe venue for post-war expression and healing.
Comments
Related thesis: http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations/371/