Gojira vs. Godzilla

a project by Aaron Kerner

 
  On March 1, 1954 the United States conducted the first ever test of the Hydrogen bomb, the Bravo test blast in the Bikini Atoll; to-date this is the largest weapon ever detonated. The Japanese fishing vessel the Daigo Fukuryu Maru was subsequently exposed to high doses of radioactive fallout. The 23 crewmen onboard suffered radiation poisoning; almost all endured life-long ailments. The radio-operator of the vessel, Aikichi Kuboyama, however, on September 23, 1954, would die as a result of his exposure to the deadly radiation.

At the same time Gojira was in production, the film subsequently incorporated these historical events into the narrative. The opening of the film, for example, begins on a fishing vessel clearly modeled after the Daigo Fukuryu Maru; also the first person that dies in the film is the radio-operator, again, a clear reference to these tragic historical events. In fact, the first Gojira film premiers on November 3, 1954, just a couple weeks following Kuboyama’s death.

In 1956 the United States released a re-edited version of the original 1954 Japanese film. In addition to re-editing the film, the US version inserts an American character into the narrative. Most nefariously though more than the re-editing of the film and the insertion of an American character, the American version downplays US responsibility for the use and testing of atomic weapons. Gojira is in fact the longest running film series in the history of cinema, and it has become an important representative of Japanese resentment, anger, and complex emotions when dealing with its relationship to the United States, the atomic bomb, atomic bomb survivors and Japan’s own war-time history. On several occasions now, Americans have apparently been compelled to re-visit the Gojira narrative and in an effort to transform this poignant Japanese allegory into something benign.  This video project is an engagement with these competing (historical) narratives.

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