Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


ElenaAponteDraft2April8.pdf (1.24 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Either 'Shining White or Blackest Black': Grey Morality of the Colonized Subject in Postwar Japanese Cinema and Contemporary Manga

Aponte, Elena M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1491495352122861

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, English/Literature.
The cultural and political relationship between Japan and the United States is often praised for its equity, collaboration, and mutual respect. To many, the alliance between Japan and the United States serves as a testament for overcoming a violent and antagonistic past. However, the impact of the United States occupation and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is rarely discussed in light of this alliance. The economic revival, while important to Japan’s reentry into the global market, inevitably obscured continuing paternalistic interactions between Japan and the United States. Using postcolonial theory from Homi K. Bhahba, Frantz Fanon, and Hiroshi Yoshioka as a foundation, this study examines the ways Japan was colonized during and after the seven-year occupation by the United States. The following is a close assessment of two texts and their political significance at two specific points in history. Akira Kurosawa's1948 noir film Drunken Angel (Yoidore Tenshi) shaped the identity of postwar Japan; Yasuhiro Nightow’s Trigun manga series navigates cultural amnesia and American exceptionalism during the 1990s after the Bubble Economy fell into recession in 1995. These texts are worthy of simultaneous assessment because of the ways they incorporate American archetypes, iconography, and themes into their work while still adhering to Japanese cultural concerns. Kurosawa and Nightow render worlds that reflect collaborative effort between the two cultures but in reality reveal social inequalities, thus creating a space for resistance. The "grey moralities" exhibited in Drunken Angel and Trigun through their characters, narratives, and the cultural circumstances in which they were created, offers a space for the colonized Japanese subject to push back against systems of oppression using popular culture that comes to be appreciated by both the colonizer and the colonized.
Khani Begum, Dr. (Advisor)
Kristen Rudisill, Dr. (Committee Member)
84 p.
Asian Literature; Asian Studies; Ethnic Studies; Film Studies; History; International Relations; Military History; Motion Pictures; World History
Postwar Japan; Occupied Japan; Postcolonial; Homi Bhabha; Frantz Fanon; Hiroshi Yoshioka; Japanese History; Japanese Cinema; Akira Kurosawa; Drunken Angel; Atomic Bomb; Bubble Economy; Yasuhiro Nightow; Trigun

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Aponte, E. M. (2017). Either 'Shining White or Blackest Black': Grey Morality of the Colonized Subject in Postwar Japanese Cinema and Contemporary Manga [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1491495352122861

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Aponte, Elena. Either 'Shining White or Blackest Black': Grey Morality of the Colonized Subject in Postwar Japanese Cinema and Contemporary Manga. 2017. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1491495352122861.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Aponte, Elena. "Either 'Shining White or Blackest Black': Grey Morality of the Colonized Subject in Postwar Japanese Cinema and Contemporary Manga." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1491495352122861

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1491495352122861
1,533
© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.