I wanted to see the comparison between female representation in Hollywood thrillers and Japanese thrillers. Hideo Nakata further emphasises the difference in his interview: ‘The difference between Japanese horror and Western horror can be traced back to the difference in religious beliefs’. Whereas Japanese culture reflects a spiritual aspect such as ‘the classis ghost story of Tokaido Yotsuya, a tale that has been performed as a Kabuki play since the Edo period’, Hollywood culture reflects an ‘influence of monotheism such as Christianity’. Thus, Hollywood thrillers might reflect confrontation between G-d and the devil taking a religious stance of good versus evil, whereas Japanese cinema reflects confrontations between the dead and the living. This divide is evident in representation of women. Women traditionally are seen as ‘good’ with the men as ‘evil’, specifically in Western culture. However, Japanese culture twists this and shows the dead ghost as ‘evil’ and revengeful against the one who ‘violently poisoned her to death’. Although the audience tends to sympathise with the ghost character, the woman is still represented in a sinister way as she taking ‘revenge’.
I wanted to look into more depth, and therefore used textual analysis focusing specifically on the narrative structure, questionnaires within discussions, interviews and opinions to compare Hollywood cinema and Japanese cinema in its reference to the representation of women in films focusing on the Asian genre.
I started off by looking at the similarities and differences between the original version of ‘The Ring’ (Ringu) and the Hollywood remake. Both plots share similarities, however, there are key distinctions of how the women are represented. Although the Hollywood film does not portray Naomi Watts (the main character) as part of the Asian genre or figure, the films relates to a Japanese written story therefore reflecting to some extent a film focusing on the Asian genre. I decided to search opinions of cinema-lovers through the internet movie database site. The message boards were highly useful as I was able to ask questions and gain a variety of replies from a worldwide perspective. One user called ‘medea_17’ stated that in the Hollywood version, director ‘Kruger also adds layers to the film, introducing arcing themes of parenthood, the nature of children and empathy’. An American audience is ‘stereotypically more sympathetic and wants a typical happily ever after ending to give them a sense of security and resolution at the end of the film’. Thus, the film is created in a more sympathetic way with a more sensitive and emotional character role of the woman. The Hollywood film reinforces the stereotype of women being more sensitive. On the other hand, the Japanese version refers to a Japanese culture of ‘work, work, work’. The mother is seen as more ‘un-caring’ with more emphasis on finding more about the curse itself for a story scoop rather than sympathising with the girl in the video, which the Hollywood film interprets. In addition, the role of ‘the ghost’ and the ‘disturbed girl’ in the Japanese version takes a similar view to what Nakata was stating i.e. that she is revengeful of what her father did albeit still ‘appealing to her father for help’. The Hollywood version makes the audience sympathise with the girl rather than regarding her as ‘evil’ or ‘ruthless’.
Whilst embarking in a discussion with a group of ten women about the two films, one commented that ‘the Japanese film is effective in invoking stark realism and dark terror whereas the remake takes a more surreal view’. She implied that the Japanese representation of women was more realistic even if the woman is represented in a different way to Hollywood. Contrary, the Hollywood version glamorises the representations of women within the film to appeal to the target audience and reflect the Hollywood dominant ideology of America, whether it reinforces or challenges stereotypes.
I wanted to research into ‘Kill Bill Vol. 1’ (2003). This film was made by Quentin Tarantino whose films like ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994) usually represents women as a ‘kick ass’ character. However, I wanted to see if the hybrid genre of Hollywood vs. Asian in ‘Kill Bill’ reflects any similarities of how women are represented. I searched the web for interviews with Tarantino and in one interview he stated that ‘(American audiences) will be seeing things that they’ve never seen before. In Hong Kong, in China, in Japan, in Korea, they are going to have a context for where some of this stuff is coming from’. Going into more depth, he referred to the roles of ‘Oren Ishii’ and ‘The Bride’ and how the American audiences aren’t used to these powerful female roles. This implies that the American audiences are not used to the representations used and thus agrees with my hypothesis that Hollywood and Japanese cinema do represent women in separate ways. However, I began to think as Tarantino was American but using Japanese influences and a Japanese crew, would this hybrid mean that there isn’t a difference in representation? If Tarantino, world-class Hollywood director is using Japanese culture in his films, has the gap between Hollywood and Asian genres been closed? I decided to look for more information and came across an article in The New York Time (January 4th 2004) titled ‘Hollywood’s land of the rising cliché’ by Motoko Rich. He wrote that ‘the current state of Japanese obsessed movies may simply represent the increasing popularity of Japanese culture in a rapidly globalising world.’ He also argued that ‘Kill Bill makes no attempt to convey a ‘real’ Japan’. This infers that whilst Tarantino is using Asian influences to create his female characters, he makes no attempt to recreate Japanese cinema, and still follows Hollywood conventions. In an interview found on a Japanese online magazine site, Tarantino stated that ‘the movie takes place in this special universe… this is a movie universe and in this universe, people carry samurai swords’. This implies that he is not reflecting on a total Japanese culture to create a film, but rather creating a film and characters based upon an alternative universe combining a mix of Hollywood conventions and Japanese conventions. ‘As I watch movies I make my own version of it… taking the things I like and mixing it with stuff I’ve never seen before’. In addition, Rich argued in his article that ‘He (Tarantino) wants to describe not real Japan and its culture, but the people and culture in films such as yakuza and B-action films’.
However, with reference to ‘The Erotic Anime Guide’ by McCarthy and Clements (1999) and the New York Times article, I discovered that ‘Lucy Liu’s ‘Oren Ishii’ character also strays into the realms of the stereotyped ‘dragon lady’ of oriental myth’. In anime, the ‘dragon lady’ is considered ‘stronger than all and even referred to as ‘the monster’. However, although Tarantino applies this theory, he still kills off Lucy Liu’s character showing her not to be the strong character as is represented in oriental myth and anime. Instead, by being murdered, it shows the weakness of the all mighty and all powerful character. Japanese anime such as ‘Akira’ (1980s and 1990s TV series) shows the ‘dragon lady’ as successful and the female character as dominate, always winning battles, even against men.
‘Mulan’ (1998), the Disney version of an Asian girl in ‘combat’ to show patriotism for her country by fighting (aka Joan of Arc tale) shows a Hollywood version of the Asian female. Whereas, anime such as ‘Akira’, ‘Sailor Moon’ and ‘Princess Mononoke’ shows the women as ruthless, strong, powerful and dominant, Mulan shows a strong figure whilst still emphasising sensitivity and emotion. Whilst this is going away from complete stereotypes of a weak and powerless women figure, the character is considered a ‘new age’ and ‘kick ass’ woman similar to the role of ‘the bride’ in ‘Kill Bill Vol.1’. Although they are strong, they still show emotions as evident in Mulan’s attempt to stay close to her family by sticking to her father’s word as well as falling in love with a fellow soldier. In ‘Kill Bill’, this is evident with the character of ‘the bride’ who although revengeful, still remembers the loss of her child and shows herself as a ‘caring mother’.
Overall, the research used to create conclusions of my hypothesis point out that as a whole, Japanese films represent women in a stronger light reflecting the culture of anti-family and an emphasis on success and a highly optimistic view. In addition, many films step away from the patriarchal society created in Japan and challenge stereotyped women’s roles within the films as emphasised by Mizoguchi’s films. At the same time, the increase of globalisation has led to a cross breeding of genre and increasing influences of Asian genre in some Hollywood action/thriller films as seen through ‘Kill Bill’. Yet, the representations of women are still different.
