'Screening Enlightenment' an excellent work on how Japan became a key market for Hollywood
TOKYO — The Occupation of Japan lasted approximately six years and seven months, during which time the American rulers issued a total of 2,627 orders. Among them were the instituting of reforms which included the disbandment of the giant zaibatsu conglomerates, the abolishment of the feudal agrarian system, the implementation of a war-renouncing constitution, and the elimination of the old ie system, in which the male head of the family had tremendous authority over marriage, divorce and adoption. The elimination of this system meant that women now had equal legal status to men.
Many of those inside the Tokyo-based Occupation General Headquarters or GHQ, as it was known, and those who wrote about it, hailed this effort as a huge success. After all, they reasoned, the Occupiers had remade what was essentially a feudal society into a modern democratic one and, in the process, had helped their former enemies recover from a horrific defeat — providing food, clothing, medicine and the means to rebuild a shattered economy. In fact, many termed their time in Japan with their Japanese friends as a “golden honeymoon,” one which created eternal bonds of friend- ship, mutual respect and admiration.
They pointed with pride to the way Japanese took to such American institutions as dance halls, golf, Santa Claus and “demokurashi” with its refreshing tone of egalitarianism. See how the prospect of an American-style middle-class existence was intoxicating the nation, they said. And look at the high number of marriages between Japanese women and American men. Didn’t that say something about what kind of Occupation it really was?
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