In pop culture, movies and video games in the last decades of the 20th century

Introduction. The second part of the 20th century, from the post-World War II period onward, has seen a gradual expansion of international mobility. As a result of the process of economic and socio-cultural integration that since the 1990s we have begun to define more precisely as globalization, the world has become increasingly smaller. The Schengen Treaty and low-cost flights, moreover, have made Europe a unique space in terms of tourism as well. Even my generation, which experienced childhood in the 1980s, can hardly remember a Europe of borders and passports. However, despite the shrinking of the world, the fascination of distant lands remains. Mass tourism has only confirmed, according to fashions and times, the attraction for those lands that intrigue, attract, seem exotic. It should always be kept in mind, however, that the category of “exoticism” is determined by point of view, and that here we start from the European worldview.

The subject of this article, is the European and American vision of East Asia, particularly China and Japan, elaborated in the West through pop culture, cinema and videgames in the last decades of the 20th century. Such a vision, then, started from a self-representation (e.g., of Japanese anime or Hong Kong cinema), was reflected in Western counterpart dimensions (e.g., in Hollywood films of Asian settings), and was then reworked by the Western imagination into a set of specific ideas.

The West/East category is very old, and Orientalisms have marked fashions, artistic trends, political ideas, at various stages of European history. What is interesting, is that those ideas somehow transited into the “pop” vision of East Asia and helped to give that vision a new shape.
Even today, when direct and deeper knowledge of East Asia is more widespread, a certain stereotypical view and exoticism of these countries is an important component of European and American representation of that part of the world. But before the years that saw the explosion of globalization and the Internet, this fascination, which was both simplification and idealization, produced its own peculiar vision, unreal though suggestive and important from a sociological point of view and generally representative of a popular imagination.

Why China and Japan? For two main reasons. First, because of the frequency of association that the Western imaginary itself makes of these two cultures. The cultural and linguistic distinction of these two civilizations is not always well understood even in today’s common sense, incredible as it may seem. Common sense even tends to regard the Chinese language and the Japanese language as two neighboring languages, when it is well known that linguistically they are extremely different languages and belong to different language families.

The second reason, however, is historical. The relationship between China and Japan has been openly adversarial from the late 19th century to the end of World War II, and has been latently so until today. However, nationalisms, political antagonisms, reasons of hetero-directed geopolitical opportunism, cannot deny a fundamental historical fact: traditional Japanese civilization arose from the union of the indigenous substratum with the fundamental influences coming from the Chinese culture of the Tang period. Indeed, it is impossible to deny that the vast majority of elements of traditional Japanese culture, formed between the Nara and Heian periods, appear somewhat “Chinese” to an outside eye and are in practice reworkings, albeit original, of Chinese culture. In the long Japanese Middle Ages, then, Japanese civilization took an increasingly autonomous path, but that initial legacy continued to weigh heavily. The educated class continued to compose poetry in classical Chinese until the late 19th century, recognizing the Chinese language as a vehicle of high culture as happened to Latin in Europe.

East Asia as a land of martial arts. If there is one view – warped and vaguely boyish, especially in its Western counterpart – with which the West has looked at East Asia, it is the one we can glean from martial arts films. By this I do not mean that it is a bad genre, or second-rate. On the contrary, even when they can be considered products of pure entertainment, martial arts films retain their own appeal, as is the case with so-called genre literature. Even products considered by critics to be somewhat kitschy, arouse a certain interest in fans, including the writer here. The definition used above of “vaguely boyish optics” is thus to be understood as a simplified view of a reality, with the emphasis on certain characters and the assumption of certain elements as stereotypes.
Martial arts cinema as a genre originated in China in the 1930s. According to Lu Zhouxiang and Qi Zhang, martial arts films that glorified the strength of warriors practicing kung fu should be associated “with Chinese nationalism after the various defeats China suffered at the hands of foreign imperialist powers in the early 20th century. This relationship was further reinforced by martial arts films. In the first half of the 20th century, martial arts films contributed to the construction of Chinese national identity.”

To be highlighted, in addition to the self-celebratory and political character of the Chinese-born genre, is the very centrality of the traditional Chinese martial art, Kung fu. Undoubtedly, Kung fu is one of those elements that contributed most to the pop image of the Orient, particularly with the success of the genre in the 1970s.

Already the term “Kung fu,” however, is according to some problematic. It designates in the popular definition the totality of traditional Chinese martial arts, “but some practitioners and writers object to this usage, insisting on adopting other labels such as wushu.” The term Kung Fu is said to be a relatively modern invention to include various dialectal terms that designated traditional Chinese martial arts.

A breakthrough in the genre came with a film by newcomer Akira Kurosawa: Sanshirō Sugata (姿三四郎 Sugata Sanshirō). Released in 1943, it tells the story of the judo champion, Sugata Sanshirō, and is one of the first films to portray the expert martial arts hero who undergoes physical and moral discipline, characteristics that would become constants in the cinematography of this genre.
Before the explosion of the martial arts genre in America and the subsequent spread in Europe of films mostly centered on Japanese settings and ninja-like figures, the height of popularity was reached with the Bruce Lee films.

The story of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee is so well known that we will spend only a few words on it. Born in America to Hong Kong Chinese, uindi belonging to Cantonese China, his multiple cultural identity granted him a broad view on the tastes and desires of Westerners, which ensured his films some success.

Also present in Bruce Lee’s films is the component of claiming the pride of the Chinese people, at least in one of the films known in Italy as Dalla Cina con furore, from 1972 and directed by Lo Wei. The original title is Jīng Wǔ Mén (精武门), translatable as “The Jing Wu School.” Set against the backdrop of an early twentieth-century Shanghai, the film tells the story of a revenge carried out by Chen following the poisoning of his Kung Fu master by Chinese traitors on commission from the Japanese invaders. The film, therefore, fits into the nationalist strand we mentioned above, and features Chinese characters resisting the bullying of the Japanese, portrayed in a truly unflattering light.

Imitations of well-known films in which Bruce Lee appears were not counted in the following years. But soon attention and the market shifted interest from China to Japan regarding the martial arts genre.

The glossy Hollywood cinema in the frivolous 1980s repurposed the martial arts genre in countless variations. What is interesting is that even when the protagonists were Westerners, it was through the guidance of Eastern mentors and disciplines that they achieved strength in combat.
We will mention a couple of films exemplifying the genre in American cinema. The first is the Karate Kid trilogy, directed by John G. Avildsen. The first film in the series was released in 1984, and it is a milestone in laying the foundation for East Asian pop imagery, not only in relation to the fighting arts. The plot, universally known, requires little note of explanation. Young, awkward Daniel LaRusso, who has recently moved to town, is bullied by a group of karate-practicing boys led by a violent and unscrupulous teacher. One night among others, Daniel is rescued by a mysterious figure who knocks out the group of boys who attacked Daniel. That mysterious figure turns out to be old Nariyoshi Miyagi, Daniel’s Japanese neighbor and native of Okinawa; an old man who under a submissive appearance conceals a remarkable skill in practicing karate.

Beyond the details of the plot, some elements appear in the film that continue and emphasize the Western imagery of East Asia. The sage Miyagi, in fact, does not only help young Daniel from a “sports” and technical point of view. Mastery of karate, obtained indirectly through different jobs of which everyone remembers the “wax on, wax off,” also comes through an inner spiritual shift, with an unconventional view of the world around us. Educating the hand in painting a wooden fence, it is nothing but a way to parry the blows of the opponent. But violence is not enough. Miyagi is also a skilled cultivator of Bonsai, the small dwarf trees of Japanese tradition. Strengths and sensibilities are not opposites.

East Asia, and Japan in particular, in cinema of this kind is a land of spirituality, meditation, a spiritual journey within oneself. Little does it matter, that that same image is the result of an almost mythical creation by the very West that sees with foreign eyes that (still, and despite globalization) distant world. In the creation of imagery, suggestion matters more than reality.

Of a more action mold, and of decidedly lesser impact, is another film that although it was not as successful as the Karate Kid saga, it renders well a type of film that is minor, but equally belonging to the genre. The 1985 film known in Italy as American Warrior (original title American Ninja, directed by Sam Firstenberg), through a rather simple and predictable plot, tells of U.S. Marine Joe Armstrong, played by young Michael Dudikoff, who is sent to an American base in the Philippines as punishment for his rebellious and impatient with orders character. Soon, the base falls victim to hostile rebels, led by an unimaginative leader known as the Black Ninja. We learn that Joe is an unbeatable practitioner of ninjutsu, or the set of techniques and martial arts of ninjas.
Even to be generous, this film is hardly a masterpiece of cinematography. Not even of genre filmmaking. It is, however, a set of stereotypes that take on emblematic value in shaping the Western imagination about East Asia.

The figure of the ninja is in some ways almost more a Western invention than an Asian one, because it comes from the popular imagination of the late 19th century in Japan, but then is taken up and enriched by Western cinema and popular culture. This figure has limited historical verisimilitude in its classical depiction: the only certainty we have is that between the 15th and 16th centuries techniques of disguise, light weapon fighting, and the use of objects designed to overcome obstacles were perfected and employed in practices similar to what we might call espionage today. However, ninja is a modern term; an older word for referring to these figures is shinobi.

Imagery in cinema and in popular culture takes its cue from this undefined historical reality to create the character of the ninja warrior, often dressed in the typical black suit that allows only his eyes to be seen. The ninja disappears in a cloud of smoke after an explosion he himself causes, throws pointed weapons in the shape of nails or sharp-pointed stars, and flies on contraptions resembling large kites.

The video game market, particularly in the 1980s of the 20th century, also contributed to the creation of this figure of popular imagination.

The 1980s were the heyday of arcade video games, a term for the coin-operated or coin-operated machines that invaded bars, clubs, and arcades around the world, beginning in the 1960s but reaching their peak of success in the late 1970s and late 1980s. Much of the market was dominated by Japanese companies, hence also the commercial use of figures taken from Japanese popular culture.

Relative to the figure of the ninja, we mention in passing two well-known video games of the genre, Shinobi (SEGA, from 1987), a traditional setting, with typically Japanese characters and names, and Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja (DECO 1988), also of Japanese production, but with a U.S. setting. The ninjas here are the bad guys, kidnappers of the president of the United States.
The success of these electronic Arcade games was later accompanied by a similarly widespread release for home computers such as the Commodore 64 or early game consoles.
Generally, the plots of these types of games, include kidnappings of innocents by criminal gangs, and the game play involves rescuing the victims by daredevil heroes skilled in the arts of combat.

In popular culture, narrative patterns, whether constructed for literary works, movies, or video games, undergo a process of simplification that makes stories at once trivial but strongly connoted in the bene\male sense.

Conclusion. Understanding the boundary between reality and imagination in the sociological study of mass popular culture phenomena is not always easy. Veracious elements coexist with forced simplifications, objects assumed as strongly typical symbols perhaps in the context of origin turn out to be entirely secondary in the space where they originated. Not to mention that sometimes there is even a reverse path: objects attributed to a certain culture by an external culture “return” to the culture of origin, which in turn accepts them as authentic.

This happens for artistic and entertainment products such as novels, movies and video games, as much as for the view of spirituality and religiosity we externally take of other cultures.
If one wants to understand a society’s representation of a specific object or phenomenon, in this case East Asia, it is precisely the analysis of those mass culture products that gives us back the actual experience of a collective imagination. What emerges is not the “reality” of the object itself, but rather the imagined object. And the collective imaginary is also a way of understanding ourselves in the mirror of what is outside of us.