Promiscuous Media

Film and Visual Culture in Imperial Japan, 1926-1945

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by Hikari Hori

Type

Studies

Subject

Countries > Japan

Keywords

Japan, 1930s, ideology

Publishing date

2018

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Collection

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 312 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-1-5017-1454-2

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Book Presentation:
In Promiscuous Media, Hikari Hori makes a compelling case that the visual culture of Showa-era Japan articulated urgent issues of modernity rather than serving as a simple expression of nationalism. Hori makes clear that the Japanese cinema of the time was in fact almost wholly built on a foundation of Russian and British film theory as well as American film genres and techniques. Hori provides a range of examples that illustrate how maternal melodrama and animated features, akin to those popularized by Disney, were adopted wholesale by Japanese filmmakers.

Emperor Hirohito's image, Hori argues, was inseparable from the development of mass media; he was the first emperor whose public appearances were covered by media ranging from postcards to radio broadcasts. Worship of the emperor through viewing his image, Hori shows, taught the Japanese people how to look at images and primed their enjoyment of early animation and documentary films alike. Promiscuous Media links the political and the cultural closely in a way that illuminates the nature of twentieth-century Japanese society.

About the Author:
Hikari Hori is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Letters at Toyo University. She is coeditor of Censorship, Media and Literary Culture in Japan.

Press Reviews:
A fresh perspective to understanding the popular culture of prewar Japan.... Hori's analyses and interpretations of the key visual/filmis texts are absolutely riveting and powerfully stimulating, compelling us to seek out the media works in question and reevaluate their meanings with our own eyes.
― CROSS CURRENTS

Promiscuous Media... is a work of impressive breadth and erudition.
― PACIFIC AFFAIRS

See the publisher website: Cornell University Press