The story below is originally published on Mainichi Daily News by Mainichi Shinbun (http://mdn.mainichi.jp). |
They admitted inventing its kinky features, or rather deliberately mistranslating them from the original gossip magazine. |
In fact, this is far from the general Japanese' behavior or sense of worth. |
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※ この和訳はあくまでもボランティアの方々による一例であり、翻訳の正確さについては各自判断してください。 もし誤訳(の疑い)を発見した場合には、直接ページを編集して訂正するか翻訳者連絡掲示板に報告してください。 |
Exposed genitalia makes breakthrough on Japan's silver screens 2005,8,5
Shukan Post 8/12 By Ryann Connell
Japanese moviegoers will finally be able to see fully exposed genitalia on the silver screen for the first time ever later this month, according to Shukan Post (8/12).
Japan's Eirin, the name commonly used for the Administration Commission of Motion Picture Code of Ethics, has traditionally taken a hard line against the display of reproductive organs on celluloid, requiring moviemakers to blot them out of view by using a digital mosaic.
Renowned director Nagisa Oshima, who was at the helm for "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence," was involved in a decades long battle with Eirin over the depiction of genitalia in his controversial 1976 flick "In the Realm of the Senses."
Oshima claimed the famously revealing movie was art, but Eirin insisted it was pornographic and censors sliced through the movie.
Even when given a re-run in Japanese theaters five years ago, Eirin still make adjustments to 15 parts of the movie.
The closest genitalia have come to being screened publicly in Japan was the briefest of glimpses of a male member that pops up when two football players clash in Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday" in 1999.
But, with the Japanese premiere in late August of "Kinsey," local moviegoers will get their first unadulterated glimpse of both male and female reproductive organs.
"We discussed it quite a bit internally before deciding the scene where the organs appear is really important for the overall movie and that we wanted it to be screened uncut and without a mosaic," a spokesman for Shochiku, the distributor of "Kinsey," tells Shukan Post.
Eirin, which has a strict policy of prohibiting the display or genitalia or pubic hair, has bent when it comes to "Kinsey," a biopic of U.S. sex academic Alfred Kinsey.
"It's not on screen for long and, overall, we decided that the scene did not touch on Eirin's regulations," a spokesman for the movie ethics committee tells Shukan Post.
"Kinsey" tells the story of the academic's study of the sexual practice of some 18,000 white Americans in the 1940s and '50s.
The academic later wrote up his findings in "The Kinsey Report," which made him famous throughout the world.
The scene in "Kinsey" where the genitalia are displayed features Liam Neeson as the title character explaining the reproductive act to a group of university students.
The scene is depicted as an earth-shattering moment in Kinsey's life because it prompts him to realize that existing sex education is insufficient and he begins his study to find data to back up his demand for improvements.
Japanese sex educationalists are hoping "Kinsey" will reveal more than mere members.
"There's nothing dirty about the scene where the genitalia are displayed. In fact, I thought it showed how serious an academic Kinsey was. This movie does not just show Kinsey's life, it also has the added value of sparking discussion about modern sexuality. There aren't too many academics like Kinsey nowadays. And, no matter how open we've become about sexuality, there are still many areas that remain taboo," Japan's foremost sexologist Kim Myung Gan tells Shukan Post.
"There's a chance that showing this movie without a mosaic may deepen discussion about sex education. Hopefully, this movie could establish a precedent for how sexuality is depicted."
(By Ryann Connell)
August 5, 2005