Reviews for America's Geisha Ally: Reimagining the Japanese Enemy

The average rating for America's Geisha Ally: Reimagining the Japanese Enemy based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-03-13 00:00:00 Joseph Abruzzo At the end of World War II the U.S. government realized that Japan would need to be brought back into the Western fold as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and the expansion of communism into East Asia. Problem: many Americans still hated the recently defeated Japanese after the terrible fighting of the Pacific War, called by author John Dower "a war without mercy" between the two nations. Shibusawa's thesis is that the American people had to be led to reimagine the former Japanese enemy as a feminized and youthful state needing guidance from a wiser, more mature America, now in a role to lead the free world. In a fascinating and enjoyable discussion that takes in American servicemen falling in love with Japanese women, the reshaping of Emperor Hirohito's image from hated enemy leader to quiet, devoted family man, a Nisei (first generation American) traitor's trial, the Hiroshima maidens scarred by the atom bomb brought over by sympathetic Americans to the States for plastic surgery, the story of a former Kamikaze enthusiastically attending college in the U.S. on special scholarship, and Hollywood's role in presenting Japan as an exotic land in stories often featuring interracial romances between Euroamerican males and Japanese females, she proves her point succinctly. By reimagining Japan as a country full of natural beauty and astonishing cultural treasures, compliant, "doll-like" Geisha women only waiting to please Euroamerican men, cute, smiling children eagerly receiving candy from Occupation GIs, and a polite, clean, hard-working populace, the government led the liberal consensus to "bring over" the American people to see the Japanese differently. The author continually highlights the downside of this process, however. She sees U.S. efforts as a paternalistic and neocolonialist restructuring of former racial prejudices that continued to view the former enemy through an Orientalized and exoticised prism. Bottom line: Japan was perceived as a feminized and immature society in great need of guidance from a more mature America. While her criticism of Uncle Sam can be scathing and stinging, she can be fair-minded, too - acknowledging that overall the Occupation was mostly benign and that the liberal consensus was genuinely concerned for the welfare of the Japanese if for the wrong reasons due to a misguided cultural and political perspective. Her treatment of the war-time Japanese-American internment and discussion of how the great emphasis on rebuilding Japan came at the expense of a not-so-benign neglect of former Asian allies such as Korea and the Philippines add depth to what is a pioneering and enlightening study. Highly recommended.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-02-10 00:00:00 Phil Halliwell This book examines the post-war transition in U.S. perceptions on Japan: How did Japan go from racialized enemy to racialized ally? The United States' foreign policy encouraged Japan to be a capitalist ally in Asia in the cold war. The U.S. was invested in Japan's economic development as a model of capitalist growth during this period. Yet, this book isn't just about American foreign policy but how American popular culture comes to align with American foreign policy goals. That is, this book examines the ways in which cultural developments within the U.S. reinforced U.S. foreign policy. U.S. popular culture reinforced two separate ways of thinking about Japan: as a submissive woman and a young boy (who could grow up to an adult). The first chapter sets up the argument about the image of Japan as like a woman and like a child. The second chapter focuses on dissecting the racial theories underlying and contextualizing MacArthur's statement that Japan was "like a boy of twelve." The third chapter looks at how government and popular culture shifted the vision of Emperor Hiroshito. The fourth chapter looks at the treason trial of Kawakita, much less known than that of Tokyo Rose. The fifth chapter looks at Japanese exchange students in the US in the post-war period. The sixth chapter looks at the Hiroshima Maidens and the "moral adoptions" of Hiroshima orphans to contend that these projects assuaged U.S. guilt while reinforcing the image of Japan as a dependent young girl or growing child protected and guided by the parental U.S. The seventh chapter looked at Hollywood's depiction of Japan from the film Sayanora to The Geisha Boy . The wide range of perspectives she engages here is representative of other chapters. She provides a close reading of the film, alongside discussions of the politics of casting in the films, to the relationship between the films and the commercialization of Japan. The U.S.'s economic goals and the growth of capitalism (and wealth for the capitalists) are never far from Shibusawa's cultural analysis. The overall argument is solid and convincing. Each of the case studies is engaging and could stand-alone as a reading assignment. The earlier chapters do a good job grounding the argument to allow a more detailed analysis of particular events in later chapters.