Shin Godzilla & the Fukushima Allegory [2017]

Originally written 2017. See my 2016 piece on the PR reponses to Fukushima for a more substantial contextual background on the events on which Shin Godzilla is based.

Japan is a nation with a long history of grief following the advent of nuclear power, whether it be the nuclear bombings of World War 2, or the more relevant case of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear incident. The Fukushima disaster was a catastrophe that shook the people to their core, and in reply the government’s philosophy started to shift towards condemning nuclear energy. Shin Godzilla functions as a critical response to the nuclear spillage, the governmental mismanagement therein, and the emerging anti-nuclear ideology. Through the allegorical nature of Godzilla itself, loaded symbolic imagery, and visual call-backs to the mayhem, it challenges the dominant discourse of the governing bodies to question whether hurriedly discarding nuclear energy is truly the right pathway for the Japanese people.

After more than a decade in slumber, 2016’s Japanese feature-length film Shin Godzilla marked the long-awaited return of Toho’s Godzilla franchise to the Japanese theatre. Shin Godzilla was primarily a craft from the mind of its director Hideaki Anno, most famously known for his universally lauded 1994 anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion; a piece that took not just Japan but the entire world by storm, and continues to be hotly debated to this very day. With his usual composer Shiro Sagisu also on board, it was immediately clear that Shin Godzilla would be akin to his usual repertoire, something entrenched with deeper meanings. Right from the beginning, Shin Godzilla was crafting this connotative link to Anno’s past endeavours merely by the merit of his name alone. Indeed much of the pre-release chatter surrounding the film was specifically of an audience excited to see where Anno would take Godzilla, perhaps even drowning out those long-time franchise fans who were just excited to see Godzilla again

Gojira 1954

Godzilla is a franchise finding its roots in the fires of World War 2, with the original 1954 Godzilla film being made as an allegorical response to the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first movie features the chilling line “Godzilla was baptised in the fires of the H-Bomb, what could possibly hope to kill it now?” (Gojira 1954). This single quote encapsulates the entirety of the fear, anxiety and ideological vulnerability felt by a country scorned of nuclear war, to the point that they’d anthropomorphise it into such an ungodly beast. With ideology being defined as a “system of meaning that helps define and explain the world and that makes value judgments about that world” (Croteau & Hoynes 2014, p.152), it can be understood how Godzilla itself was constructed as a representation for a society’s woes to be manifested. Seeing their pain brought to life as a tactile entity presented the Japanese people with an opportunity to engage and reconcile with their past transgressions more directly. And while this anti-nuclear message quickly gave way to the franchise instead becoming a cheese-filled battle royale of monsters, Shin Godzilla crafts an intertextual relationship with the original by returning the series to its original messianic purpose. Shin Godzilla more than anything is a direct critical response to the political instability surrounding the 2011 Japanese earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear spillage. If journalism is understood to be an ideological vehicle for social commentary in and of itself (Deuze 2004, p5), then it is not incorrect to classify Shin Godzilla as a metaphor-heavy journalistic piece. While it did see much international success, Shin Godzilla was undoubtedly made primarily with its Japanese audience in mind. Whereas a western fan may not be familiar with the events of the Fukushima incident, Japan itself is still feeling its effects to this day. It immediately sets its nuclear agenda with striking imagery of mass destruction and panicking crowds that pull the audience right back to 2011 in an attempt to finally offer catharsis and a prayer for the future.

Left: a frame taken from live news coverage on the escalating 2011 disaster
Right: Shin Godzilla setting the city ablaze

Observing it through Todorov’s 5-stage narrative theory, Shin Godzilla’s story creates a sense of urgency by omitting certain sections. Todorov’s framework is roughly as follows – “equilibrium, disruption, recognition of disruption, attempt to fix issue, equilibrium returns” (1969). However Shin Godzilla never truly has any moments exemplifying equilibrium. The film defies an audience’s expectations by immediately launching into the catastrophe of Godzilla. There is no introductory sequence or scene-setting; only a minute and a half into the film a massive explosion rings out from beneath the waves of Tokyo Bay signalling the start of Godzilla’s siege, and not a minute later it shows the government departments already beginning to hastily convene in response. Although in saying that, the different departments are constantly at odds with each other, and they exhibit a slow response time actually publishing a press release and providing information for the concerned public. This is a direct parallel to the real life 2011 earthquake which also saw a sluggish flow of information, leaving the panicked peoples desperately deprived of understanding on what was happening and what to do in that situation. The film wastes no time getting into the meat of its content. This absence of equilibrium subverts the usual narrative format, confronting the audience’s preconceived idea of plot sequence and subconsciously perturbs them. This decision immediately primes the unsettled audience to associate with the panic portrayed upon the screen in reminiscence of their own experiences during the 2011 disasters. However, no amount of words I use could convey it as powerfully as the following video.

The Shin Godzilla Motif, 3.11, 2016 – Warning: depictions of trauma and extreme distress

The way a story and its events are structured to create meaning is as important a narrative tool as any other. Traditionally a story begins with some kind of overlying prompt, and at the end this question is finally answered (O’Shaughnessy & Stadler 2008, p.268). However, Shin Godzilla refuses to conform to this formula. Its beginning is wrought with disarray, and in its concluding moments there is no concrete answer or happy ending to be found.

Never one to dilute his message, Anno makes a bold move by excluding any major form of traditional character in the film. The story is constantly moving between individuals referred to only by their job description or role, and there isn’t necessarily a main protagonist that goes through any significant characterisation. The cast within this film could be likened to drones swarming around a bee-hive. This is a genius move that allows the film to link together with the experience of the masses in the chaos of the 2011 earthquake even more closely. Instead of being presented with some form of hero that stands firm as a point for the audience to anchor themselves within, we are given a surging horde of people and politicians that are all constantly panicking at odds with each other in one large, disorderly heap. Through this the viewer is made to put themselves into the situation as a disembodied and faceless observer. By having no characters for the viewer to identify with, they themselves feel like they are getting swept up by the tides of anarchy that the government and its people face in the wake of Godzilla, something that aims to convey even just a smidgeon of the sheer hopelessness and lack of agency the Japanese public felt when faced with the disastrous 2011 earthquake.

In many ways, Shin Godzilla acts as a critical discourse analysis in and of itself. Critical discourse analysis is a form of socio-cultural critique that targets the accepted hegemony of the ruling class to pry into the deeper truths of their ideologies (Paltridge 2012, p.186). Furthermore, it has been stated that one of the most important aspects in a discourse analysis is “the relationship between the viewing world and the narrative world.” (Matheson 2005, p.91). Shin Godzilla incorporates this idea deeply in the way that it draws direct parallels to the imagery of the 2011 catastrophes. The plot begins with Godzilla loudly declaring its existence through a massive explosion offshore in the Tokyo Bay, he then makes landfall and begins sweeping his way inland, and once he evolves to his final form he starts leaking radiation wherever he walks. This sequence of events directly correlates to the Fukushima incident, which entailed a large offshore earthquake causing a tsunami that tore through the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and began flushing its irradiated water throughout the region.

Shin Godzilla 2016

Godzilla itself is depicted as the central embodiment of past Japanese tragedies through the semiotic concept of condensation wherein “one idea comes to stand for a series of associated meanings along a chain of signifiers” (Barker 2007, p.2). At a basic design level, Godzilla’s disfigured facial features and charred, tumorous skin draw visual links with the burns of those who survived the nuclear bombings. He moves very stiffly and constantly has his small, deformed arms held up in a rigid position, looking as if he were a corpse suffering from rigor mortis.

Shin Godzilla 2016

Next is that throughout the film, Godzilla is never given any kind of characterisation or motivation. This is a very intentional decision. Keeping him faceless makes it feel much more like a force of nature than a monster, just as the 2011 natural disasters were; from an allegorical standpoint Godzilla is the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear fallout itself. Additionally, the film does not just address recent atrocities. The scene of Godzilla drowning the city of Tokyo beneath his sea of flames harkens back to the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo in World War 2, an event said to be the most destructive bombing raid in the history of human warfare. By acknowledging and anchoring all these times of strife to a single figure, it then allows Anno’s parting words to carry much more weight when received by its Japanese audience.

Left: US Army Air Forces, Firebombing of Tokyo, marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons
Right: Shin Godzilla 2016

If the main acts of Shin Godzilla are a reflection on the past 2011 earthquake, then the ending scene is where the film delivers its message for the future. In the final act, the government departments all manage to work together to stop Godzilla. Surprisingly, they find a degree of success. First, they topple him over by running trains into him. This is incredibly strong imagery for its audience that illustrates the depths of their desperation. Japan’s work culture is very much built around public transport, and trains in particular. So for them to be weaponising the trains portrays the idea that Godzilla (volatile nuclear power) is an issue that needs to be addressed even if it causes turmoil within day-to-day society, since ignoring it will ultimately be detrimental in the long run. With Godzilla toppled on the ground they barrage his mouth with a super-coolant to halt his inner nuclear power source, causing him to frost over in a state of dormancy.

Shin Godzilla 2016

However, they do not actually solve the problem of Godzilla. What they accomplish is simply freezing him in time, buying them a few years to try and come up with a solution before he reawakens. In the time until his return, Godzilla’s colossal body looms on the horizon like a time bomb, as a constant reminder of the threat he represents. This scene is the crux of Shin Godzilla’s nuclear message, and it is where it diverges with the anti-nuclear ideology put forth by the original 1954 film; they do not eliminate Godzilla, they realise they must learn to live with him. Although he sleeps peacefully as the film draws its curtains, they must search for a way to avoid him rampaging as a volatile beast again. This is a direct throwback to the political situation surrounding the use of nuclear energy in the fallout of the Fukushima incident. Following the accident, politicians in damage control publicly decried nuclear energy and expressed their desire to begin moving away from it, in an effort to sate the anxious public. In the nature of Chomsky’s propaganda analysis where he asserts it is important to “explore the boundaries of the expressible on crucial topics” (Klaehn 2005, p.13), Shin Godzilla risks controversy by approaching sensitive topics without reluctance. The government was doing its best to try and talk down the scale of the nuclear leakage while damning its reliance on nuclear energy. This was a very delicate issue concerning not just the fate of the Japanese archipelago as a broad whole, but also the individual lives and misfortunes of those humans caught up in the natural disasters and ensuing radiation. For Anno to produce this reflective piece that acknowledges the tragedy and yet still paints the potential for a future alongside nuclear energy can be considered nothing less than ‘exploring the boundaries of the culturally acceptable’. And yet despite the large potential for scrutiny, he still resolved to make this film. When the dominant discourse of the governing bodies was one attempting to flee from it, Shin Godzilla raised a counterpoint to this. Through that final lingering shot of Godzilla, the film gives its concluding decree – nuclear power for better or worse is something that will remain as a constant into the future with energy demands steadily increasing, what’s important as a society is not to completely reject it when it bears its fangs, but to find a way to harmoniously coexist alongside it. To not fear the unknown, but reconcile with it.

Shin Godzilla 2016

Having finally said its piece, the film comes to a close, hanging on a haunting shot of demonic humanoid skeletons spawning off of Godzilla’s tail. This scene left a lasting impression on audiences worldwide, prompting constant discussion and thought surrounding it. Indeed if one were to search for information about Shin Godzilla the first and most prominent question would undoubtedly be “what was the symbolism of the creatures in the end?” In-universe the humanoid hybrids splitting off Godzilla’s tail in the final shot are meant to be its next evolution caught mid-freeze, but for the real world they carry a very real and very philosophical weight. If Godzilla is to represent the volatile use of nuclear energy, then these beastly humanoids of uniform appearance clearly draw parallel to the soldiers within mankind’s armies who have abused their nuclear arsenal. It is the utmost grim warning possible from a Japanese director who wants to believe in the potential of nuclear energy despite his country’s many scars from it – that man must fear and respect nuclear power with the god-like reverence it demands, lest he become the raging nuclear demon himself.

References

Barker, C. 2008, ‘Foucault: discourse, practice and power’, in Cultural studies: theory and practice, SAGE, p. 2

Croteau, D. & Hoynes, W. 2014, ‘Media and ideology’, in Media/Society; industries, images and audiences, 5th edn, SAGE, p. 152,

Deuze, M. 2004, ‘Journalism studies beyond media’, in Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, vol. 25, Taylor Francis Online, p. 5, accessed 23 April 2018

Gojira 1954, film, Toho, Tokyo

Klaehn, J. 2005, ‘Critical review and assessment of Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model’, in Filtering the news; essays on Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model, Black Rose Books, p. 13

Matheson, D. 2005, ‘The stories they tell us: studying television as narrative’, in Media Discourses, McGraw-Hill Education, Berkshire, p.91

O’Shaughnessy, M. & Stadler, JM. 2008, ‘Narrative structures and binary oppositions’, in Media & Society, 4th edn, Oxford University Press, p. 268

Paltridge, B. 2012, ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’, in Discourse analysis: an introduction, Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 186

Shin Godzilla 2016, film, Toho, Tokyo

Todorov, T. & Weinstein, A. 1969, ‘Structural Analysis of Narrative’, in NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 3, Duke University Press

US Army Air Forces, Firebombing of Tokyo, marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons