Frames Cinema Journal

Japanese Cinema and Otherness:

Nationalism, Multiculturalism and the
http://framescinemajournal.com

Problem of Japaneseness

By Mika Ko, Routledge, 2012

Reviewed by Andrew Dorman

The Sheffield Centre for Japanese studies in partnership with Routledge

has produced a series of extensive works dedicated to situating Japanese
cultural and political topics into the various contexts of east Asia,
regionalism, globalisation, internationalism, and foreign policy. Mika Ko’s
contribution to this series – Japanese Cinema and Otherness – tackles the
deeply problematic issues of nationalism and multiculturalism in relation
to cinematic representations of ethnic and cultural ‘others’ in the
Japanese social milieu. Taking into account a variety of works from the
1960s onwards, the book strives to relate the representation of certain
minority groups to prevailing discourses on Japanese national identity
and contemporary trends of multiculturalism through a close analysis
analysis of narratives and visual styles.

Ko’s work comes at a point when the study of Japanese cinema is

becoming increasingly outward-looking in its scope. Very recent
publications, such as Intellect’s Directory of World Cinema: Japan (2010)
and Yoshiharu Tezuka’s Japanese Cinema Goes Global (2011) focus on the
internationalisation of a cinema that has so often been essentialised as
intrinsically Japanese. Going further back, Eric Cazdyn’s The Flash of
Capital (2002) discusses the ‘break-up’ of national subjectivity (which Ko
makes reference to) as a result of global interactions, while Koichi
Iwabuchi’s Recentering Globalization (2002) traces the extension of
Japanese cultural influence in mainland Asia as an affectation towards
multiculturalism. Japanese Cinema and Otherness is not dissimilar from
Iwabuchi’s work in the sense that Ko uses the rhetoric of multiculturalism
and the idea of a more globalised Japan to focus attention onto the
tenents of Japanese nationalism.

As a result, Ko’s work proves to be more inward-looking, turning

attention back onto the nation and national subjectivity as much as
uncovering representations of multicultural Japaneseness. Not only is this
one of the book’s strengths, it also helps distinguish Ko’s argumentation
from current research on the global dimensions of Japanese cinema and
society. The end result proves to be an important addition to the field,
particularly for the way in which it attempts to move beyond basic ideas
of Japaneseness and nationalism towards a more complex understanding
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Frames Cinema Journal
of how Japaneseness is both constructed and challenged in contemporary
films.
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One of Ko’s central contentions is that certain films which reflect

multicultural sentiments in the contemporary society actively construct
different ‘versions’ of multiculturalism that, over the course of the book,
prove somewhat contradictory. Furthermore, the text sheds light upon
dominant constructions of nationalism connected to multiculturalism
suggesting the emergence of a new Japanese national identity that both
subverts traditional notions of supposed cultural and racial homogeneity,
and reinforces Japanese cultural exceptionality. As Ko argues: ‘while the
resurgence of nationalism and the promotion of internationalism and
multiculturalism may appear to be opposing trends, they are, in fact, two
sides of the same coin’ (1).

In her investigation of nationalism and internationalism-multiculturalism

as ‘two sides of the same coin’, Ko neatly divides her attention between
dominant discourses of Japaneseness and cinematic portrayals of
prominent minority groups. The opening chapter deals with the core
tenements of national identity through an examination of controversial
nihonjinron and kokutai ideologies. Tracing the development of these
concepts (and their relation to the emperor system), Ko suggests that the
promotion of contemporary multiculturalism and cultural hybridity
disguise the maintenance of nationalism and functions to ‘neutralise’ the
conflict between the ‘Japanese’ and their ‘others’ (31). The following
chapters seem to bear this out, particularly in relation to the
multicultural cinema of Takashi Miike and how his films Shinjuku Triad
Society (1995) and Dead or Alive (1998) allegorise the breakup of
national subjectivity and the distortion of Japan as a coherent geopolitical
image.

Also notable is the attention given to the othering of specific groups –

Okinawans and Korean diaspora or Zainichi. The research here is
particularly revealing of how minorities are accommodated in Japanese
cinema, yet in ways that maintain stereotypical images and contribute to
what Ko refers to as Japan’s ‘cosmetic multiculturalism’. The analysis
benefits from Ko’s continual awareness of the complexities evident in
Japanese multiculturalism and her conception of it as cosmetic. What can
be ascertained from this is that Japan’s increasing openness towards
outsiders has a profound duality: on the one hand, cosmetic
multiculturalism presents a challenge to cultural essentialism, while on
the other it serves to assimilate outsiders in preserving Japan’s unique
ability to absorb the foreign. Thus, as Ko maintains in her conclusion,
multiculturalism in contemporary films represents both a confirmation
and a challenge to cosmetic multiculturalism and nationalist ideologies
(172). Ko writes: ‘We should remember that cosmetic multiculturalism
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 Frames Cinema offer
may potentially Journal
a space where the negotiation between the
‘dominant culture’ and ‘other cultures’…take place. In other words,
http://framescinemajournal.com
although the ‘otherness’ of ‘others’ can easily be exploited, at the same
time cosmetic multiculturalism offers the possibility for ‘others’ to exploit
it and turn it into a device for negotiation and resistance (169).

With issues of ethnic and cultural hybridity and multiculturalism

continually (albeit slowly) being renegotiated in a nation often singled out
as one of the most non-diverse in the world, it is a shame that this study
is not more extensive in its scope, restricting itself mainly to Okinawans
and Zainichi. Some discussion of other ‘others’ – Ainu for instance – may
have added to the analysis of such a broad category like multiculturalism.
Moreover, although the choice of films works well for the most part,
ranging as it does from the work of Miike to Shohei Imamura’s Profound
Desire of the Gods (1968) and Yoichi Sai’s All Under the Moon (1993), the
textual analysis is at times muddled: it is difficult for example to see how
the analysis of Swallowtail Butterfly (1996) fits alongside Miike’s films
and the overall discussion as cosmetic multiculturalism. It is also unclear
in the early stages of the book as to what nihonjinron discourses Ko views
as standing in the way of Japanese socio-cultural diversity, for the most
part the concept hovers over the work as a faceless spectre.

These are minor drawbacks however. Ko’s argumentation remains

persuasive and her analysis highly revealing of the cultural positioning of
ethnic and cultural outsiders in modern Japanese cinema. What results is
an absorbing and thought-provoking study that contributes original
scholarship to the field and which should prove to be an indispensible
source for students and researchers concerned with constructions of
Japanese identity and the politics of otherness in contemporary cinema.

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