--- On Sun, 8/24/08, John Matturri <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: John Matturri <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Horror Question
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Sunday, August 24, 2008, 10:00 PM
> Did viewers actually taken Godzilla / Gojira as a nuclear
> war film on a meaningful emotional or intellectual level rather than as
> just using the
> back story as a premise for entertaining monster mayhem?
Iīm not an expert, sorry for the German bias, but the director Jörg Buttgereit appears to be: From what I still recall from his television special (including footage from a trip to Japan), the movie series was greeted by both children and adults as a way to deal with the unspeakable.
In Japan, the gap between adult culture and stories for kids is less wide than in the Western World (think of the Grave of Fireflies), my guess again because itīs stronger tied to visuals, but to fictional abstract images like manga / anime not real life actors.
I guess I am not exaggerating when I say that meaningful / intellectual is often perceived as the opposite of showing or creating a series of images, which is a shame. I believe that 'coping with' emotionally was the common reaction, not perceiving it as an allusion to an event in the past, although it is difficult to tell that apart.
(The same goes for the use of paiting in psychiatry, or the link between images and emotional reactions functionalized the other way around in the form of moodboards in graphic design.)
I donīt know when Gojira / Godzilla became something that was suitable as a toy figure, and I donīt have a clue if there is a certain mechanism at work that makes Freddy Kruger or Myers ready to be spoofed or used as a Halloween night gimmick. It might be the urge to have control over the image.
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