'Why Godzilla Endures'

In lieu of the most recent Godzilla's anticipated release, and the original film's 60th anniversary, NPR's Fresh Air, aired a brief feature on Godzilla and why the creature is one of the most timeless, memorable monsters of all-time.

Here is an excerpt that stood out:

"Make no mistake: Destruction is great to look at. There's an amoral pleasure to be had in watching Godzilla reduce Tokyo to fiery rubble, rather like the beauty of seeing those napalmed palm trees flare like matches in Apocalypse Now or the illicit thrill of seeing the White House get obliterated in Independence Day — before Sept. 11, of course." 
Destruction is great to look at. The producer, John Powers, reads these lines like a small child still in awe of the action he's watching on the screen. To me, Powers came across as a child enveloped completely by a Hollywood narrative and entertainment culture. The act of watching monster movies, playing violent video games and reliving moments such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki through pictures of the mushroom cloud, demonstrates how the act of seeing, in a safe, removed setting, allows the viewer to detach from reality. The blurred line between re-enactments or fictionalized attacks on real places can lead to a dangerous non-chalance over what destruction really means and yields. 
In Godzilla, American audiences experienced an atomic sublime effect; a thrilling beauty and "amoral pleasure watching Godzilla reduce Tokyo to fiery rubble." Yet Powers mention of the film within a historical context left much to be desired. He stupendously simplifies the gravity of the film on Japanese audiences and within a historical context when he says, "Both drawn to and terrified of the monster's power, the movie is steeped in Japan's traumatic historical experience. It has weight. It means something." 
Powers ends his segment by offering that, "Godzilla's resonance is also inseparable from something else that once defined the best monster movies — a sense of compassion for the monster." He asserts that why Godzilla endures, why it is a timeless classic with 22 film adaptations to date, is this compassion, "The monster the child knows best is the monster he feels himself to be." To me, after taking this class, I interpret this line to have a loaded meaning: America is the monster that wrecked havoc on Japan, but by understanding the monster, by giving him human-like qualities compassion replaced what should have been anger towards the symbol of Japan's destruction (Godzilla/America). This film was a metaphor on many accounts and launched anti-nuc campaigns all through Japan during the time, but  it is also a metaphor for the narrative that was imposed on the people of post-war Japan and caused a docile nature (and even loving nature) towards their destructor. 
Link: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/02/308934760/movie-monsters-monster-movies-and-why-godzilla-endures