In Oh No, There Goes Tokyo, the author mainly analyzes the relationship between Japanese culture transition and Japan history, logic behind the appearance of Godzilla and its post influence on city landscape.
What attracts me most is the rigorous analysis on strong correlation between Japanese culture and history. Start with the history before WWII, Japanese culture was constantly influenced by natural disaster, nuclear explosion and economic crisis. Elements of devastation and annihilation was subliminally added in creations, leading to a disastrous style of culture. It stimulates my thoughts of Chinese movie culture under certain historical background. Similarly, Chinese movie culture is affected by history. During WW2, almost all films focused on the war, trying to show the bravery and persistence of military groups and people. While during the Cultural Revolution, the available movie was limited, and all aimed at praising Mao’s government. And after the reform and opening up, the movies ‘content became diverse and contained real hope for future.
By analyzing these cases, we can find that culture is actually a product of history. The historical background constantly affects the formation of certain culture. If dig deeper into the reasons, the historical background in every moment is actually material, containing people and objects at that time. It decides consciousness and acts as a dominator. While culture is a concentration of certain consciousness created by people, which may reflect their emotions and thoughts. As a result, culture and history always have a tight relationship.
——Zhao Yuxuan, 3036127050
Tsutsui, William. Noir urbanisms: dystopic images of the modern city. Princeton University Press, 2010