Imagined America in Occupied Japan--(Re-) Educational Films Shown by the U.S. Occupation Forces to the Japanese, 1948-1952

Abstract

In post-WWII occupied Japan, the U.S. Occupation Forces showed hundreds of educational documentary films to the Japanese people. The topics of these films varied from American culture to public hygiene and international relations. This paper will explore the imposition and reception of the educational program carried out by the Occupation Forces through films, thereby showing what messages the Americans tried to convey and how the Japanese audience read these films.1 There has been considerable scholarly discussion of commercial films in occupied Japan, most notably, for example, in Kyoko Hirano’s Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo: Japanese Cinema under the American Occupation, 1945–1952.2 John Dower also touched upon popular commercial films in Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.3 Few scholars have explored, however, the educational documentary films shown in the same period, in spite of their unique significance arising from the political messages encoded in the narratives. Akira Abe, a scholar of educational history, has dealt with the educational documentary films in his Japanese language book Senryo-ki chiho kyoiku seisaku no keisei katei [The Process of the Formation of Local Educational Policies in Occupied

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