For the tenth episode of the Japan Foundation New York pop culture series, we will take a closer look at Godzilla, the worldwide pop culture icon, and the longest-running film franchise in world history!
Starting in 1954 with the Japanese release of Ishiro Honda’s Gojira, the franchise has since released 36 films made in Japan and in Hollywood, with new titles still being made today. Godzilla sparked the Kaiju (monster) genre, and its fandom has reached all generations and has spread all over the world.
What were some of the cultural contexts in which Godzilla was created? What does Godzilla mean to Japanese people? How was it exported to the world, and what led Godzilla to become the "King of Monsters?"
Come join the panel discussion with five Godzilla experts from both the U.S. and Japan: Bill Tsutsui, Takayuki Tatsumi, Norman England, Meghan Mettler and Steve Ryfle as they explore the history of Godzilla and discuss its universal appeal.
This event is free with registration. Click the button below to register:
About the Speakers:
Bill Tsutsui is an award-winning historian and teacher, frequent public speaker and media commentator, who currently serves as President and CEO of Ottawa University. Bill’s research and teaching focus on the business, environmental, and cultural history of twentieth-century Japan. He is also an author of books and numerous essays on modern Japanese history. His book Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters (2004) reveals how Godzilla was born and explores Godzilla's lasting cultural impact on the world. He has also coedited In Godzilla's Footsteps: Japanese Pop Culture Icons on the Global Stage (2006).
Takayuki Tatsumi is Professor Emeritus at Keio University in Tokyo and has taught American Literature and Critical Theory since 1989. He is an award-winning author of books and numerous essays on subjects ranging from the American Renaissance to post-cyberpunk fiction and film. His major books include: Cyberpunk America (1988), New Americanist Poetics (1995), Disfiguration of Genres: a Reading in the Rhetoric of Edgar Allan Poe (1995), Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America (2006). His essay "On the Monstrous Planet, Or How Godzilla Took a Roman Holiday" in The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film (2014) examines the origins of Gojira from literary and cultural perspectives.
Norman England is a film journalist, author, columnist, subtitler, set photographer, director and teacher, who has been living and working in Japan for almost 30 years. For American and Japanese film magazines and media, he covered countless movie productions in Japan, reporting from film sets and interviewing directors, writers, producers, and actors, including Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) and Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002). In 2008, he directed the Godzilla documentary, Bringing Godzilla Down to Size, released by Classic Media in the United States. In 2012, he began writing for Eiga Hiho, one of Japan's top-selling cinema magazines. He is currently working on his upcoming book Behind the Kaiju Curtain, covering his years on Godzilla sets.
Meghan Mettler is the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at Upper Iowa University having served until recently as an Associate Professor of History. Her research centers on U.S. international relations during the Cold War, especially cultural relations between the United States and Japan. Her essay Godzilla versus Kurosawa: Presentation and Interpretation of Japanese Cinema in the Post World War II United States contrasts America’s reception of the most famous Japanese movies of the 1950s: Kurosawa Akira's Rashomon (1951) and Honda Ishiro's Gojira/Godzilla (1956). In 2018, she published her first book, How to Reach Japan by Subway: America's Fascination with Japanese Culture, 1945–1965, which analyzes how middle-class American consumers embraced Japanese culture in the wake of WWll.
Steve Ryfle is an author, journalist, and documentary film producer who has written about film, books, and culture for the Los Angeles Times, Criterion Current, Cineaste, and other publications. He is author of the forthcoming book Godzilla vs. the World: The Politics of Japan's Disaster Monster (Univ. of TX Press) examining the geopolitical themes of the Godzilla series, and coauthor with Ed Godziszewski of Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa (Wesleyan, 2017). Steve cowrote the NY Emmy-winning documentary Miracle on 42nd Street (2018) and coproduced the documentary Bringing Godzilla Down to Size: The Art of Japanese Special Effects (2008). He has contributed audio commentaries and other material to numerous home video releases in the U.S. and U.K., including Gojira: The Original Japanese Masterpiece (Classic Media, 2006).