Extra Blog Post, Nuclear Pacific. 

Book Thief. SPOILERS. 

It is funny how after studying American Representation through media in an academic class, I tend to view films far more differently now. Last week, I failed to convince my fiancé to go see the new Godzilla movie with me because he was so disinterested. We opted to rent a movie at home instead, and settled upon Book Thief. It is a film about Nazi Germany, and by nature is extremely depressing. SPOILER everyone dies. Well everyone except for this poor little girl whom happens to be the main character. Well, throughout the entire film there is no representation of the US, although it is hinted at because the film takes place at the hight of WWII. As you can image, everyone dies, the film is depressing, blah blah blah. The the screen goes black, subtitled with the text “Two years later US Troops Occupy Germany 1945”. The next shot is an image of the US troop parading through the streets while the Germans cheer them on. This is typical american commentary in media but what kills me is what happens after this. The final scene in the movie, though is the last little girl standing is finally reunited with her beloved Jew, the one her family was hiding in their basement. I totally took this as a statement that the happy ending could only come after the US had occupied Germany. The same ending could have been achieved without altering the story line whatsoever by simply saying “two years later 1945” and cutting the the reunion scene between the little girl and the Jew. Completely cutting out the whole ‘praise US troops crap’. Anyways, I had a very heated discussion with my family about this after the film and maybe I am just jaded. My fiancé did not agree with my view on the film, however, my history buff brother-in-law totally was on my side. I followed his advice by looking up who made the film to gain a great understanding and to my utter surprise it was made by a BRITISH director. To further confuse my argument about american commentary through media, the film was based on a book written by an AUSTRALIAN author!  The screen play was also written by an Australian. Although this movie was not made by Americans (to my surprise) do any of you share my jaded view on films now?

-Alli

Radio Bikini

For this blog posting, I wanted to discuss the video "Radio Bikini" a little bit more, and bring up some things that were revealed to me for the first time in this video.
Recently, we've talked a lot about the effects of radiation on those near the detonation of the atomic bomb and the bomb test sites. We've learned about how radiation had an effect on those in Japan. But until "Radio Bikini," I didn't know that it affected our own American soldiers. It hurt me to think that not only did America do damage on Japan, but it also did damage on the islanders at Bikini, as well as our own soldiers!
I found an article online where an individual discusses how the atomic bomb radiation not only affected his father, but generations down the line in their family as well.

"My dad was at Operation Crossroads, Bikini Atoll 1946, his kids and our kids have many after effects from this. While my dad is still with us I am seeking, at minimum, medical for life, for his 1st and 2nd descendents. This is due to his heavy exposure to radiation, that has brought him tumors, (removed from chest), tumors in his back,(cannot be removed) prostate cancer and now melanoma. Offspring (4) born 1954-61 all have diabetes, bone (DISH syndrome) and other health issues. Grandchildren suffer severe body pain and meshed skin pigmentation, to list a few. My dad, as a retired veteran has no recourse with the government, but I would believe and hope his children/grandchildren would."

It is so upsetting to see how the government does not do anything about this. It seems to be swept under the rug. These men and women fought for our country and do not get compensation for their duty and the effects of it. After reading the damage it did to the America soldiers, I couldn't even imagine the damage done to Japan.

Godzilla as Nuclear Power as Hero

Much like our Professor's, my mind was whirring as I watched the new Godzilla in theaters.  Behind my 3D glasses, my eyeballs glared at the screen and my eyebrows danced up and down (disbelief, anger, confusion) as this new rendition of Godzilla infantilized Japan and heroicized the military US.

The premise of this new flick is that Godzilla, still a product of nuclear fallout acting on prehistoric dinosaur bodies, is called from the dark waters of folkloric public consciousness by the presence of these new radioactive material-consuming monsters called MUTOs who are basically just trying to get it on and chow down on some yummy nukes.

Director Gareth Edwards really goes to town  on the analogies and distributes world super-power identities to all of his boring characters.  The way I understood these to work out is as follows: The freaky, nuclear weapon hungry MUTOs stand to represent the countries that we have accused to hold weapons of mass destruction, (Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Syria).  They are violent without reason, super powerful, needing to reproduce, and drawn to radioactivity.  The main thumb, Breaking Dad's son Ford, can be seen as the U.S. military, or because the whole narrative is centered in the military, the entire U.S.  He is very strong, pretty dumb, blond, and apathetic yet strangely involved.  Ford happens to land the big job of eradicating both Godzilla and the MUTOs, all while trying to find his boring "nuclear" family.  The little boy that Ford saves on the metro is Japan.  He is enthralled by Ford and captivated by his stupid American toy.  Ford expresses how he is pissed about having to take care of Japan but eventually returns the boy to his irresponsible and emotive parents.

It took me a minute to figure out Godzilla's role in this narrative as his line had kinda been usurped by the MUTOs but I think I finally figured it out-  Godzilla is the use of nuclear power.  In this pretty crappy action drama, thirst for nuclear weaponry dukes it out with nuclear energy- maybe you can guess who wins.  Here is how it pans out: Japan pretty much fucks up and fosters this crazy thirst for nuclear weapons.  The US comes in to take over, using the product of nuclear testing to fight the monstrous thirst for nuclear power.  As you might have imagined by our stance as victors in all of the nuclear conflicts we have been engaged in, the US wins and Godzilla slinks back to the sea.

This film is a bold, pro-military, nationalistic drama that promotes the use of nuclear energy.  It says, "Maybe you are afraid of nuclear energy but really it will save the day."  It affirms our identity as the nuclear super-power/bully of the world and we all get to cry tears of joy as the thumb runs to his thumb wife, and their thumb kid gets a brief hug too.

All of these things bother and disturb me, especially because some people go home thinking that this movie was about a couple of huge bugs fighting with a huge freaky dinosaur.  The implicit messages massage our ego and make us approve of the militarization of our national identity.  It is also really frustrating to see the director's portrayal of a veteran's reentry into familial and societal life as seamless and pleasant.  It has been my experience that this is a gross misrepresentation, and I find it dismissive of and disrespectful to those who suffer trauma and trauma by association during such processes.

Retributive Justice and Avenues of Post-Nuclear Healing

One of the most compelling issues that I have been wrestling with during the course of this class is the idea that states and perpetrators of violence must pay for their actions. Bombings by the United States are often justified as appropriate retribution for acts of violence committed against America. This policy is not simply enacted on the international front either. The most common system of domestic justice within the United States involves jail time and (in certain states) capital punishment. Especially after reading Ceremony, I have been thinking about the extremely damaging cycle of violence that is embedded in even our calls for justice which frame crime, punishment and justice in ways that alienate the perpetrator and simply pass on harm to another subject. How then, do we go about handling atrocities and making reparations for them without continuing their cycles of violence and creating more and more injustice?

 The link which I have provided below contains an interview of Marshall Rosenberg, a psychologist who advocates a form of conflict resolution he calls Nonviolent Communication (NVC) as an alternative to a judicial and rehabilitation system focused solely on violent ideas of punishment and forced rehabilitation. Rosenberg outlines four steps to NVC: observing what is happening in a given

situation; identifying what one is feeling, identifying what one is needing; and then making a request for what one would like to see occur. These steps are used largely in individual treatment and so have their limitations and drawbacks, especially when considering reparations due for large scale atrocities such as wartime bombing and ethnic cleansing or genocide. However, the idea behind NVC of restorative rather than retributive justice ring very powerfully especially in novels such as Ceremony where Tayo's path to healing involves stepping away from the cycle violence and alienation present in white America and pursuing a new course which is meant to allow whiteness into the world narrative that it has been so alienated from.

http://people.ucsc.edu/~chlking/Transformative%20Action%20Winter%20%2711/COURSE%20READINGS/Class%208/Beyond%20Good%20and%20Evil.pdf

I LOVE GODZILLA?

For this week's blog, I decided to write about the "fans" of Godzilla. After reading Rori's post, I became aware of the way that children were viewing the newest Godzilla figure. I came across this picture last week on an app called iFunny. iFunny is an app that allows users to post funny/entertaining pictures and have them viewed by all users. Rori briefly described seeing children in line for the Godzilla movie dressed in dinosaur costumes. Initially, I could not believe that America's children would dare to idolize a figure that represented death for others, until I came across this image. This image represents the way American's have transformed Godzilla. Godzilla is now represented as a hero. He is a figure, who although was initially mutated by nuclear testing by the U.S, ends up combining powers with America's military and helps save the country. Isn't that a little ironic? In addition to it's irony, doesn't this story sound a little too close to other super heroes? Or is it just me?

Although others might disagree, I personally feel that this is yet another way the United States is attempting to justify something that they have done. How might the viewers of Gojira feel about what is going on in this image? If we take the caption into consideration, "My friend's son has real dreams.." we can see that children dream of being Godzilla, similar to the way they would dream about being Superman, or Spiderman. I find this to be quite disturbing. What is even more disturbing to me is that if I had never taken this class, I too might have found this image "cute" without knowing all it represents.  

Attack on Titan, Attack on Hiroshima/Nagasaki

Good afternoon everyone!


For this blogpost, I wanted to bring it back a couple weeks ago to the discussions of using Barefoot Gen and Gojira as a medium for telling the story of the bombings.

For Memorial Weekend, I attended a convention called Fanime in where hundreds of people enjoy the experience of cosplaying (wearing costumes), watching panels, and enjoying anything and everything Anime related. I do not consider myself an anime fanatic as other people and I only enjoy the mainstream products. However, I was treated to the hype of an anime/manga called Attack on Titan. Many individuals cosplayed as "titans" and the defenders of the city and I was seriously confused since I never heard of this anime before.

Fortunately, the convention was day and night and had the opportunity to watch a couple episodes. While I was watching, I couldn't help but see a ton of parallels regarding the bombings Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The main plot of the story features these "titans" that are huge human-looking monsters than eat people for no apparent reason. The city builds walls within walls (shout out to the Parable) to protect the people: the rich, important individuals inside with the military on the outside to fight of the titans. The back story parallels Gen's story as the main character Eren had to watch his mother (top left) get eaten by a titan in the same morbid manner as Gen (top right) watched his family be burned alive.

You can see the idea of helplessness as many people knew they were fighting a futile battle. The titans just keep on coming. They have the power to regenerate from wounds and are difficult to defeat. One scene in particular struck me as it reminded me of Gojira. The idea of perspective is seen here as two huge monsters are peering over what is about to be destroyed.

 As both Gojira and Attack on Titan parallel WWII and the atomic bomb, it is amazing to see this culture extend to a convention that celebrates these topics. Manga and anime have gotten a lot of popularity and my mindset for this class has extended even during this weekend break.

Thank you all for reading and enjoy the picture of me cosplaying as Brick from Borderlands. ^_^