Organizer and Chair: Roger W. Purdy, John Carroll University
Discussant: Peter Duus, Stanford University
The emperor was the focal point of Imperial Japan (1865-1945). This panel will look at the way imperial images were used in the early Showa era and the messages these images conveyed. Rather than treat just the political manifestation of tennosei, the panel will discuss the social aspects of the emperor, his family and surrogates, and imperial symbols as they influenced the Japanese people.
"Imperial Images in Okinawa" by Steve Rabson, looks at how the Japanese government used imperial images to bring the Ryukyu Islands into the Japanese empire. "Mother of the Family State: Public Images of the Japanese Empress, 1926-1945" by Sally Hastings, examines how the public duties of the Showa Empress promoted motherhood and family as a way for women to serve the nation. "Imperial Presence, Symbols, and Surrogates: The Image of the Emperor in Japan's Wartime Newsreels" by Roger W. Purdy, discusses how newsreels linked in the mind of the Japanese viewer images of the emperor and the military and provided a visual expression of imperial sanction and involvement in the war. In "Imperial Radiance in the 1930's War Literature," Zeljko Cipris explores how brightness as a symbol of the emperor was portrayed to the Japanese through writings from the battlefields of China.
Through examining the various visual and literary manifestations of the emperor and the imperial institutions, this panel contributes to the research on the social implications of tennosei and the "image makers" of Imperial Japan.
Imperial Images in Okinawa
Steve Rabson, Brown University
This paper traces the history of imperial images in Okinawa, with emphasis on the Showa Period. The Ministry of Education and the Bureau of Shrines had much to do with disseminating imperial imagery. Okinawa was the first prefecture where portraits of the Emperor were displayed in public schools by government order in 1887. The Meiji Era campaign to downgrade indigenous divinities and established State Shinto and reverence for the emperor assigned local deities to the lower rung of the pantheon hierarchy. Such efforts escalated in early Showa, especially after the China Incident, when towns and villages were pressured to build new shrines and provide accommodations for clergy from the national cult.
These efforts met with varying degrees of acceptance, resistance, and disinterest. Many in Okinawa resented this intrusion into their private sphere, but others were proud to be part of the Japanese empire and welcomed these "assimilation" measures. References to the emperor as head of the national family can be found in local propaganda and in the letters of young Okinawans, many of them eager to prove their loyalty and true Japaneseness conscripted for the devastating Battle of 1945.
To many in postwar Okinawa, the image of the emperor is sharply negative as the embodiment of wartime imperialism and Okinawa's sacrifice to it. Yet today some Okinawans still revere the emperor, displaying photographs of the imperial family in their tokonoma. Thus images of the emperor in Okinawa continue to be mixed in a nation that relentlessly stresses "homogeneity."
Mother of the Family State: Public Images of the Japanese Empress, 1926-1945
Sally A. Hastings, Purdue University
Emperor Hirohito had the longest reign in Japanese history and he shared its entirety with his wife Nagako. By 1926, the emperor of Japan had become a symbol of the nation. Visitors to Japan associated him with school ceremonies honoring the Imperial Rescript on Education or with Japan's rising military might. Photographs usually showed him in a Western military uniform, astride his horse, reviewing the troops. Needless to say, his wife was nowhere to be seen. The empress performed, of course, a number of public duties: greeting members of the diplomatic corps and their wives on their arrival in the country, attending philanthropic meetings, and visiting certain educational institutions for women. Most photographs of Nagako, however, reflected her role as wife and mother, a role that took place far from the reviewing stand.
Her motherhood was used both to draw citizens into the family state and to attract private donations for social work facilities for poor mothers with children. Moreover, from 1933 on, the empress's birthday served as an occasion for women to express their patriotism. Public images of the empress, then, served to encourage women to bear children and raise them for the service of the state. At the same time, both the public appearances of the empress and the celebrations by women of the wifely portion of the imperial pair articulated the legitimate role of women in the construction of empire, albeit with a high degree of gender differentiation.
Imperial Presence, Symbols, and Surrogates: The Image of the Emperor in Japan's
Wartime Newreels
Roger W. Purdy, John Carroll University
By the 1930s, the image of the emperor had evolved into a symbol which embodied the virtues of Japan and its people. This paper will look at the way images of the Showa Emperor were portrayed to Japan through Japanese wartime newsreels. Newsreels provided the Japanese with their most vivid images of their country at war. Also, through newsreel stories that showed the emperor or his symbols and surrogates, the Japanese could actually see imperial support and sanction of the war effort.
Newsreel stories where the emperor was actually visible and stories when all that was shown was a symbol or a surrogate created a visual hierarchy of imperial involvement. Most obvious in this hierarchy are shots of the emperor viewing the troops at the Yoyogi Parade Grounds and worshipping at Yasukuni Shrine. Whether by circumstance or design, these pictures created in the viewer's mind potent images linking the emperor with the war.
The newsreels also provided a link between the emperor and the Japanese people through the use of datsubo ("hats off"). This demonstration of respect, however, proceeded every story in which the emperor or symbol appeared. By the end of the war newsreels used this exclusive show of respect on stories about suicide pilots and the defense efforts at home, thus transferring the imperial mantel of sanction and support of the war from the emperor to the people.
Imperial Radiance in the 1930s War Literature
Zeljko (Jake) Cipris, Colgate University
There are rather few direct references to the emperor in the Japanese war literature of the 1930s. The imperial presence and prestige seem nonetheless tangible in the radiant aura that illuminates the battle zones of China and the exploits of Japan's soldiers. Brightness is a conspicuous and recurring image in the war writings of such authors as Ozaki Shiro, Kobayashi Hideo, Hino Ashihei, Hayashi Fumiko, and Ishikawa Tatsuzo. As a direct descendant of the sun goddess, the emperor in a sense has a monopoly on sunlight which is then made to impart legitimacy and beauty to a military enterprise ostensibly willed by him. Some of the outstanding battlefront officers who may be seen as surrogates of the emperor himself are also depicted as radiating an inspiring glow. The handful of writers critical of the war effort tend to use the imagery of light ironically-as do Kaneko Mitsuharu and Ishikawa Jun-or not at all.