infections, transmissions, cultures: the aids scandals of 1990s japan and the genesis of...
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Infections, Transmissions, Cultures: Infections, Transmissions, Cultures: The AIDS Scandals of 1990s Japan and the The AIDS Scandals of 1990s Japan and the
Genesis of “J-Horror”Genesis of “J-Horror”
Brian BergstromBrian Bergstrom
Summer Institute 2006Summer Institute 2006
Infections Then & Now: Infectious Diseases ArounInfections Then & Now: Infectious Diseases Around the Worldd the World
June 29, 2006June 29, 2006
Infection (感染)
2004
Ochiai Masayuki
-- First in “J-Horror” Imprint
-- Made in Conjunction with Lion‘s Gate
-- Released in Japan
-- Produced with an Eye Toward Marketability in Am
erica
A Genealogy of “J-Horror”• Parasite Eve (パラサイト・イブ) Ochiai Masayuki, 1997• Ring (リング) Nakata Hideo, 1998 • Rasen (らせん) Iida Joji, 1998• Ju-on / The Grudge (呪怨) Suzuki Takashi, 2000• Pulse (回路) Kurosawa Kiyoshi, 2001• Dark Water (仄暗い水の底から) Nakata Hideo, 2002• One Missed Call (着信アリ) Miike Takashi, 2003• Infection (感染) Ochiai Masayuki, 2004• Premonition (予言) Tsuruta Norio, 2004
(movies listed in yellow have been remade in America)
The HIV-Tainted Blood Product Scandals of the mid-1990s
• Part of a larger phenomenon of uncovered government corruption touched off by changes in party leadership
• Revolved around the distribution of unheated blood plasma to hemophiliacs during the early to mid 1980s that resulted in the infection of almost half of the hemophiliac population in Japan
• Starting in 1995, lawsuits brought against the government and pharmaceutical companies by hemophiliacs became prominent in the public sphere
• In 1996, monetary compensation and formal apologies were compelled from the defendants, and in 1997, three defendants linked to both the government and the pharmaceutical companies involved pled guilty to professional negligence and were sentenced to jail terms in 2000
Distinctive Features of HIV/AIDS in the Japanese Public Sphere
• The Role of Foreigners
• “High Risk” Groups
• Identity Politics:
• Hemophiliacs with HIV
• Hansen‘s Disease Sufferers
• Gay Movement
Reading Disease
• Metaphor
• Susan Sontag, AIDS and Its Metaphors
• The Politics of Reading “Against Interpretation”
• Anagram
• Ferdinand de Saussure
• “The anagram permits us to see how another outside text, a hidden quote, can both organize and modify the order of elements in a given text” -- Mikhail Iampolski, The Memory of Tiresias: Intertextuality and Film
Anagramming Fear: The Patterns of J-Horror• Infection
• The Body as Locus of Fear
• Haunting as Invasion
• Transmission
• Technologies and Networks
• Trauma as Origin
• Culture
• Innocence and Culpability
• Agency
• The End of the World
Parasite Eve (パラサイト・イブ)
1997
Ochiai Masayuki
-- Mitochondria as Foreign Agent
-- Corruption of Science
-- Violation of Agency
One Missed Call (着信アリ)
2003
Miike Takashi
-- Technological Transmission
-- Sociality and Vulnerability
-- Violation of Agency
-- Violation of Bodily Integrity
Ring (リング)
1998
Nakata Hideo
-- Technological Transmission
-- Haunting as Viral Infection
-- The End of the World
Conclusions
• Metaphor and Meaning
• Ethics and Fear I: Reflection
• The Face of HIV
• Transnational Transmissions
• Remake / Reproduction
• International Systems / Foreign Agents
• Apocalypse and Pleasure
• The Viral Sublime
• The Extra/ordinary
• Ethics and Fear II: Projection
Apocalypse and Pleasure:
The End of One Missed Call (着信アリ)
QuickTime™ and aH.264 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Selected BibliographyFeldman, Eric A. “Blood Justice: Courts, Conflict, and Compens
ation in Japan, France and the United States.” Law & Society Review (34: 3, 2000) 651-701.
Iampolski, Mikhail. The Memory of Tiresias: Intertextuality and Film. Harsha Ram, trans. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Japan Times. “Abe Pleads Not Guilty” Mar. 17, 1997.Japan Times. “AIDS Expert Took Funds from Drug Companies.”
Mar. 11, 1996Japan Times. “Green Cross Executives Guilty.” Mar. 1, 2000.Japan Times. “Health Minister Apologizes to HIV Hemophiliacs.”
Oct. 23, 1995.Rucka, Nicholas. “The Death of J-Horror?” Dec 2, 2005. http://
www.midnighteye.com/features/death-of-j-horror.shtml.Sena, Hideaki. Parasite Eve. Tyrone Grillo, trans. New York: V
ertical, 2005Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphor
s. New York: Picador, 2001Suzuki, Koji. Ring. Glynne Walley, trans. New York: Vertical, 2
003.