Godzilla has long been a subject of both popular and scholarly analysis. For example, a 1998 article in the Week in Review quoted an essay by a social psychologist, who wrote of explaining to his young son that people must learn to work together. His son, he added, "can then watch examples of this when Rodan and Godzilla work together to defeat Ghidorah in 'Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.' "
To mark the beast's golden anniversary, the University of Kansas at Lawrence last month hosted a symposium "In Godzilla's Footsteps: Japanese Pop Culture Icons on the Global Stage." The King of the Monsters was not just a guy in a rubber suit, as these excerpts from the papers presented at the gathering make clear.
Godzilla was roused from hibernation by nuclear testing, right? Not necessarily, argues Joyce Boss, who teaches film and literature at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, in "Hybridity and Negotiated Identity in Japanese Popular Culture":
On its face, the story of Godzilla's origins, as related in the first film, "Gojira," seems straightforward. Dr. Yamane's theory ... is that Godzilla is a mutation born of the H-bomb tests. However, this does not entirely square with the earlier scenes on Odo Island, where Godzilla is spoken of as a destructive monster of ancient legend. ... What, exactly, is the relationship between the Godzilla which had just been created, or animated, within the postatomic era, and the Godzilla of Odo Island folklore? The tension, never fully resolved in the original film, is emblematic of the many ways in which various forms of hybridity mark the totality of the global Godzilla phenomenon.
In "When Godzilla Speaks," Susan Napier, a professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, sees "Godzilla" as shorthand for the fear of the foreign:
While Godzilla's representation may include both the camp and the cute, for many it is still at heart an image of terrifying otherness, invoked to describe everything from the "Godzilla" earthquake that flattens a future Japan in William Gibson's novel "Virtual Light" to the notorious "Bridezilla" so ubiquitous in magazine columns of weddings dos and don'ts. (Bridezilla is a "don't," by the way.)
Godzilla threatens Japan; worse, he threatens the media, says Mark Anderson, of the Asian languages and literature department at the University of Minnesota, in "Mobilizing Godzilla: Mourning Modernity as Monstrosity" :
Gojira's presence in the film is first experienced as a flash of light. This message is relayed to Japanese maritime authorities by radio transmitted Morse code. ...Various characters hear radio reports of Gojira's location, apparent heading, and emergency warnings to evacuate Tokyo. Evacuation is organized ... through the media.
Within "Gojira," the entire nation is depicted as literally tuning in to the developing situation. ... If Gojira is monstrous above all else because he or she responds to or designates a threat to the Japanese nation, we may conclude that it is also the media system whose broadcasts interpolate and reiterate that the nation is ultimately endangered.
The lizard is loud, notes Martin Boyden, a doctoral candidate in English literature at the University of Rochester, "Godzilla's Sounds: Tuning the Monster to 20th Century Noisescapes":
Godzilla's footsteps produce not only a footprint, that is, a visual and tangible impression of the monster's impact, but they also create a terrific aural announcement of its arrival and movement. Perhaps scholarly focus on Godzilla as a visual cultural phenomenon, as opposed to an aural one, may be understood in terms of the manner with which the visual and aural indices of Godzilla's footsteps are received in the film. The visual trace of Godzilla's footfalls, like the objects of most scholarship, is identified after the event of Godzilla, a temporal position allowing for active investigation and determined pursuit. On the other hand..., the sound waves auguring Godzilla's approach provoke fearful paralysis or terrified flight, panicked conditions under which it is difficult to conduct inquiry.
It wasn't just bad dubbing that turned a monster into a cult figure, argues Barak Kushner, who teaches history at Davidson College, in Davidson, N.C., in "Godzilla as Japan's First Postwar Medium Event":
The longevity of "Godzilla" and one of the goals behind its promotion abroad was to advertise a modern Japan, but this has proven impossible since once icons are removed from their cultural context and displaced abroad, their significance changes. What America bought in Godzilla was not representative of the Japan that parliamentarians wanted to export because the monster morphed in transition and became funny and wacky. Eventually, Godzilla became a friendly monster since there was no fear in the American sense, and the film turned entertaining in the derisive sense, reaffirming American notions about Japan that the country is a joke.
"Gojira," a 1987 play about a girl named Yayoi who falls in love with Godzilla, is the subject of " 'Our First Kiss Had a Radioactive Taste': Ohashi Yasuhiko's 'Gojira' in Japan and Canada," by Kevin J. Wetmore Jr., who teaches theater at California State, Northridge:
An on-stage reporter then announces that Godzilla is walking very carefully from Mihara to Oshima Motomachi, carefully avoiding stepping on houses. Then, Godzilla and Yayoi arrive at the house, marking the first time Godzilla is seen on stage. With "scrunching noises underfoot," Godzilla announces, "Good evening, everybody." As they scream, he introduces himself: "You must be Yayoi's father. I'm really pleased to meet you. I'm Godzilla."
The family then raises a series of objections to the relationship when Godzilla asks for Yayoi's hand in marriage. First is religion, with which Godzilla counters that he is "nonsectarian, so shrine or church, either is fine with me." Hayata asks about children, and Grandmother, whose first love was a tadpole that then turned into a female frog, reveals that Godzilla already has a son. Mother and Father then state that marriage is therefore out of the question, and Godzilla rages, breathing fire.
Every great screen villain deserves a great death scene. But Godzilla never got one, says Joanne Bernardi, who teaches Japanese at the University of Rochester, in "Teaching Godzilla: Classroom Encounters With a Cultural Icon" :
The demise of King Kong and the Beast in "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" are both - to varying degrees - depicted with some degree of emotion. . . . But their deaths are also . . . primarily spectacular. King Kong is remembered best looming over New York City... (and there is the added suspense of worrying about the fate of the precariously perched Fay Wray), and Ray Harryhausen's Beast dies in painful anguish against a backdrop of the giant roller coaster at Coney Island.
In comparison, Godzilla is undramatically (and more than a bit implausibly) pinpointed by a single Geiger counter held to the surface of the water, and seemingly come upon while he's sleeping.
Thomas Vinciguerra is an editor at The Week magazine.