Godzilla

We all know the horrifying, scaly monster that emerges from the sea and terrorizes Japan. But how well do we know Godzilla? We paint him as the epitome of evil, the embodiment of terror, the very basis of all the horrible things that happened to Japan.

However, this character is largely misunderstood. He does wreak havoc on the land, he is big and terrifying, but all of the fear and destruction is not his fault.

The writers of Godzilla described this character as a beast that has been lying peacefully for millions of years, and was only awakened by the radiation of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.

With this information, someone must have awakened this murderous, angry Godzilla. And who was that? The Americans, of course. Postwar Japan was rampant with the horrors we see in this film. Destroyed houses and cities and powerlines, people displaced from their homes, health risks and a frightened country of wary civilians. In this day and age, the parallels between Godzilla’s path of destruction and the post-WWII state of Japan are glaringly obvious, but at that time the Americans did not realize the deeper meaning this movie conveyed.

As well, the era in which this movie was made (the mid-1950s) is very obvious when watching. The most apparent characteristic is the gender roles in the film. The women are portrayed as very weak, and constantly going out of their way to help the men in their life. They are very deferential and do not have developed personalities or a high tolerance for conflict. Female actresses in the present take a much more active role in the films they star in.

If we look at Godzilla superficially, we see a movie intended for any sort of audience, especially one that is enthralled by violence and action and destruction. So namely, a younger audience of teenagers. However, if we begin to search deeper into the film for the real, underlying meaning, we see that maybe the intended audience is older and more intelligent, and more aware of world issues so they can fully appreciate the symbolic meaning of Godzilla.

The mood of the film is very fearful. The characters are living in a constant state of worry and the whole nation is in distress over this large, powerful object that they have no control over. As well, the only way they were able to stop this terrorizing madness was to sacrifice one of their own people. This represents the larger need in the country for the Japanese people to sacrifice part of themselves in order to move past the destruction that the US had caused.

The acting in Godzilla was comically exaggerated. This may not have been intentional, but it served to emphasize the horror that the Japanese people were experiencing when Godzilla was terrorizing their towns. The lighting, dialogue, and music were all simple as to not detract from the main character, the giant scaly monster. The special effects were used to demonstrate Godzilla's insane power and the size of the villages and cars and people compared to this scaly horror.

Overall, the film was very well done for its time period. The special effects were quirky and the effort put into them was very cute. It is refreshing to see something that is not computer animated, but rather a real model of a city with toy cars being knocked over.

Godzilla was a well made film that is entertaining while telling us a lot about history through a fresh viewpoint.