On the importance of having big balls
Dec. 18th, 2007 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusTwo inspiring things for you today. First of all, Berlin-based artist Tino Sehgal has his first solo show in New York just now, a piece called This Situation at Marian Goodman. The Village Voice describes how it works. As you enter the large, empty room, six "players" greet you in unison with the words "Welcome to this situation". They're normal people, standing, sitting or lying on the floor, distinguished only by coats they carry over their arms. "Each of the six," reports the Voice, "will then walk backward in a generally clockwise motion, find a new spot to occupy, freeze in a mannered pose, and wait for a fellow player to utter a previously memorized quotation, all of which begin with a date and anonymous author: “In 1693, somebody said: ‘Be dead to the world but diligent in all worldly business,’ ” or, “In 1670, somebody said: ‘True eloquence has no use for eloquence.’" The players then spend anywhere from a few minutes to upward of 30 discussing the introduced idea. The afternoon I was there, topics included labor theory, gender relations, the art of conversation, technology, and environmentalism. Occasionally, one of the players will turn to a visitor and ask directly, 'What do you think?'" (It sounds a bit like a live version of Click Opera, actually!)
So excited was I by this idea that, after reading about it, I went to bed and dreamt I'd flown to New York to see the show. I ran into Zach Feuer, who told me he'd pioneered shows like these years ago, when he'd exhibited a cloud of fertilizer chemicals in upstate New York. So successful had the cloud been, Zach said, that he'd had as many letters about it from farmers as art-lovers.
The other thing I've really been inspired by is the amazing, crazy 2005 film by Seijun Suzuki, Tanuki Goten or Princess Raccoon. It may well be the 84 year-old director's last film (he suffers from emphysema and doesn't feel up to making more), but it's probably the most energising and visually glorious film I've seen all year. It's basically a musical, a revival of a genre popular in the 1940s and 50s, the tanuki film. Here's a scene from Suzuki's version, a song-and-dance number called "Man is an Epidemic":
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The tanuki film tradition is perfect for Christmas -- it's like going to see a pantomime. There are frogs, fairies and princesses, sword fights, and above all lots of songs, in every style (there's even some Japanese hip hop in Suzuki's film). To show you what the genre used to look like, here's the wonderful torch singer Misora Hibari dressed up as a scarecrow in the 1958 tanuki film Shichihenge Tanukigoten.
The tankuki, or raccoon dog, is an important symbol in Japan -- as the 1991 Studio Ghibli animation Pompoko explains, tanukis are magical animals capable of transforming themselves into ghosts and other fabulous creatures. They've learned not just to use their own energy, but also to harness and amplify the energy of fire, electricity, levitation and other natural forces. They also have phenomenal testicles, the size of eight tatami mats (as anyone who's seen the statues of them outside Japanese drinking establishments can testify).
In his tanuki film, Suzuki uses a different kind of magic -- digital graphics -- to bring Misora Hibari back to life. She appears at the end of the film as Kwan Yin, singing a song, despite having died in 1989.
I think what Sehgal and Suzuki both embody is the idea that anything is possible if you give yourself enough license. Or, as The Guardian put it in their interview with the elderly director, "Suzuki puts anything he likes into his crazy little world, be it a femme fatale who lives among dead butterflies or a protagonist with a fetish for the smell of freshly boiled rice, or some ingenious assassination techniques - one victim is shot through the plughole of his sink... "
Such idiosyncracy comes with a commercial price, though: "The qualities for which he is celebrated by today's postmodern cultural magpies are the very ones that cost him half his career." Suzuki, you see, was blacklisted by the Japanese studios for more than ten years ("Your films make no sense!") but saw his fortunes revive partly thanks to being championed by Quentin Tarantino, who, in the 90s, loved and copied Suzuki's energetic, stylish 60s yakuza movies like "Tokyo Drifter".
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The Tarantino endorsement produced a questionable tribute-to-the-tribute, 2001's too-Tarantinesque Pistol Opera. But, with Tanuki Goten, Suzuki has become a sort of King Lear of directors, outliving his enemies, outgrowing his fascination for gore, and reveling in his capacity to say -- and film -- anything. In the winter of his years, tanuki-like, he's grown eight-tatami balls.
So excited was I by this idea that, after reading about it, I went to bed and dreamt I'd flown to New York to see the show. I ran into Zach Feuer, who told me he'd pioneered shows like these years ago, when he'd exhibited a cloud of fertilizer chemicals in upstate New York. So successful had the cloud been, Zach said, that he'd had as many letters about it from farmers as art-lovers.
The other thing I've really been inspired by is the amazing, crazy 2005 film by Seijun Suzuki, Tanuki Goten or Princess Raccoon. It may well be the 84 year-old director's last film (he suffers from emphysema and doesn't feel up to making more), but it's probably the most energising and visually glorious film I've seen all year. It's basically a musical, a revival of a genre popular in the 1940s and 50s, the tanuki film. Here's a scene from Suzuki's version, a song-and-dance number called "Man is an Epidemic":
[Error: unknown template video]
The tanuki film tradition is perfect for Christmas -- it's like going to see a pantomime. There are frogs, fairies and princesses, sword fights, and above all lots of songs, in every style (there's even some Japanese hip hop in Suzuki's film). To show you what the genre used to look like, here's the wonderful torch singer Misora Hibari dressed up as a scarecrow in the 1958 tanuki film Shichihenge Tanukigoten.
The tankuki, or raccoon dog, is an important symbol in Japan -- as the 1991 Studio Ghibli animation Pompoko explains, tanukis are magical animals capable of transforming themselves into ghosts and other fabulous creatures. They've learned not just to use their own energy, but also to harness and amplify the energy of fire, electricity, levitation and other natural forces. They also have phenomenal testicles, the size of eight tatami mats (as anyone who's seen the statues of them outside Japanese drinking establishments can testify).
In his tanuki film, Suzuki uses a different kind of magic -- digital graphics -- to bring Misora Hibari back to life. She appears at the end of the film as Kwan Yin, singing a song, despite having died in 1989.
I think what Sehgal and Suzuki both embody is the idea that anything is possible if you give yourself enough license. Or, as The Guardian put it in their interview with the elderly director, "Suzuki puts anything he likes into his crazy little world, be it a femme fatale who lives among dead butterflies or a protagonist with a fetish for the smell of freshly boiled rice, or some ingenious assassination techniques - one victim is shot through the plughole of his sink... "Such idiosyncracy comes with a commercial price, though: "The qualities for which he is celebrated by today's postmodern cultural magpies are the very ones that cost him half his career." Suzuki, you see, was blacklisted by the Japanese studios for more than ten years ("Your films make no sense!") but saw his fortunes revive partly thanks to being championed by Quentin Tarantino, who, in the 90s, loved and copied Suzuki's energetic, stylish 60s yakuza movies like "Tokyo Drifter".
[Error: unknown template video]
The Tarantino endorsement produced a questionable tribute-to-the-tribute, 2001's too-Tarantinesque Pistol Opera. But, with Tanuki Goten, Suzuki has become a sort of King Lear of directors, outliving his enemies, outgrowing his fascination for gore, and reveling in his capacity to say -- and film -- anything. In the winter of his years, tanuki-like, he's grown eight-tatami balls.
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Re: Did someone say Tanuki?
Date: 2007-12-18 03:11 pm (UTC)Recently a video game was released for the Nintendo DS called Doki Doki Mojo Shinpan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doki_Doki_Majo_Shinpan!) which is a borderline H game featuring young girls where you have to poke them (in various places...) to find out if they're witches. It's a completely official Nintendo game and It's now gone on to become the best selling pre-order DS game in Japan.
As for the reactions its been getting in the west, to quote Wikipedia:
"The import review of the game in the UK publication NGamer (like its predecessor NGC Magazine, famous for comical reviews of particularly bad games), felt so disturbed by the game that they abandoned their normal percentage scoring system and awarded it a 'score' of simply "NO" in every category".
My favourite thing about this pedo game however, is the Official English website:
If you didn't laugh you have no soul.
There's also Enjo Kousai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enjo_kōsai) which, whilst not strictly child prostitution, enables young girls to sell themselves sexually for money. There would be moral outcry of the highest order if shit like this ever happened Britain.
I also think that Japan as a society has a different relationship with nudity. Nudity can of course still evoke sexual feelings, but it's something a lot of Japanese people associate with cleansing and bathing, which is done as a group in onsens or at home. It's not uncommon for family members to bath together.
Re: Did someone say Tanuki?
Date: 2007-12-18 03:50 pm (UTC)The film Harmful Insect (http://pinku-uploads.livejournal.com/33500.html) has a plot we can't really imagine coming out of the UK:
"Sachiko, a 12-year-old girl in junior high school, has a complicated life. When she was still an infant, her father disappeared. Her mother, who works in a bar, is secretive and distant. Longing for an escape from her dreary existence and lacking any kind of parental guidance, Sachiko has a short-lived affair with her sixth-grade teacher, Ogata. But fearing that his indiscretion might be discovered, Ogata moves to a town far away. Although he and Sachiko continue a written correspondence, soon the absence of her only real friend and confidant leads Sachiko into a deep melancholy. When her mother attempts to commit suicide, the turbulence of Sachiko's life becomes too much to bear. After dropping out of school, she finds temporary solace in the company of others who have fallen through the cracks of middle-class society. But when she is forced back into the confines of her classroom, her long-dormant rage begins to surface and her life quickly spins out of control."
coming out of the UK:
Date: 2007-12-18 04:11 pm (UTC)Re: Did someone say Tanuki?
Date: 2007-12-18 07:03 pm (UTC)Re: Did someone say Tanuki?
Date: 2007-12-21 09:08 am (UTC)Whoa, whoa. Do you somehow think there wasn't a huge moral outcry in Japan? EnjoKosai led to serious post-Bubble moral panic: the end of Japanese society, etc.
You can also point to bikini clad girls on the cover of comics that are targeted to young boys as proof of whatever you are trying to prove, but also note that the PTA and women's groups are always fighting against this. (http://blog.livedoor.jp/dqnplus/archives/1069874.html) Imagine if you seriously discounted the opinions of women in a society, and yeah, there'd probably be more openness towards men lusting after very young girls. Not saying that patriarchy is the sole engine Japanese sexual morality, but I wouldn't assume that Japan lacks the ideology of the ruling parties like in other countries. If you look at the groups who do protest against these things, they are all made up of women - who are not exactly racking up political power in Japan.
Marxy
Re: Did someone say Tanuki?
Date: 2007-12-22 08:53 am (UTC)I'm well aware that in Japan enjokosai has a sleazy reputation that leaves a bad taste in a lot of Japanese people's mouthes, not just because of the unspoken sexual undertones of the whole situation but as an embodiment of the power consumerism and materialism has over some of Japan's youth.
What I am trying to point out is that enjokosai still goes on there regardless, and that in Britain nothing like enjokosai would ever ever be tolerated. Child prositution is the deepest of underground in the United Kingdom. Anything remotely related to children, sex and paedophiles sends the tabloids into a frenzy, and they create a perpetual spiral of hysteria. They wouldnt be happy until laws were passed banning that sort of thing.
The businesses would be targeted by vigilantes. It would not be tolerated.
in Japan, child prosititution can be thinly veiled as "enjokosai" where they insist that sex doesnt happen but everyone knows it does but they can't prove it, so no laws are passed against it.
Thats the difference between the UK and Japan in this matter. In Japan, they shake their heads and cry a tear of pity for the 15 year old girl willing to sell herself sexually in secret for a new phone. In Britain, they'd kick the door down, grab the girl by the arm and demand the government act immediately for the safety of our children, regardless of the fact sex isnt on the official agenda.