The Erotic and the Vulgar: Visual Culture and Organized Labor's Critique of U.S. Hegemony in Occupied Japan

Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 3-34, March 2007

Posted: 23 Apr 2008

See all articles by Christopher Gerteis

Christopher Gerteis

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Abstract

This essay engages the colonial legacy of postwar Japan by arguing that the political cartoons produced as part of the postwar Japanese labor movement's critique of U.S. cultural hegemony illustrate how gendered discourses underpinned, and sometimes undermined, the ideologies formally represented by visual artists and the organizations that funded them. A significant component of organized labor's propaganda rested on a corpus of visual media that depicted women as icons of Japanese national culture. Japan's most militant labor unions were propagating anti-imperialist discourses that invoked an engendered/endangered nation that accentuated the importance of union roles for men by subordinating, then eliminating, union roles for women.

Keywords: Japan, Gender Studies, Working-Class Politics

JEL Classification: J51, J71

Suggested Citation

Gerteis, Christopher, The Erotic and the Vulgar: Visual Culture and Organized Labor's Critique of U.S. Hegemony in Occupied Japan. Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 3-34, March 2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1123132

Christopher Gerteis (Contact Author)

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London ( email )

Thornhaugh Street
Russell Square: College Buildings 541
London, WC1H 0XG
United Kingdom

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