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Tokyo Displays Mixed Feelings at Premiere of 'Pearl Harbor' from Disgust to
Despair
by HUGH HURDMEIGH
TOKYO, June 21 The first screening in Japan of the egregious stinker "Pearl
Harbor," did not quite have the roar of the original event, but that was not
for want of trying.
Once the lights went off in Tokyo Dome, a huge stadium with a retractable
roof, the question was how 30,000 Japanese, who had won their tickets in
video store lotteries (second prize -- *two* tickets?), or were specially
invited (based on ability to endure psychic assault?) would react to seeing
their countrymen portrayed as faceless villains.
>From editing to marketing, Buena Vista International, the Disney division
that is distributing the film in Japan, appears to have gone to some lengths
to try to soften the blatant racism, chauvinism, and vapidity of the original
(although BV executives admitted that removing all of it would leave only the
special effects). A soliloquy at the end about America's victory was toned
down here, but any suggestion that the movie be altered to include real
causes of the war, some events that actually happened, and three dimensional,
or even two dimensional, characters were dismissed by Disney overseers as a
violation of corporate ethics.
There was special anxiety over potential trauma to American psyches if it
were ever to leak out that U.S. imperialism was a leading contributor to
Pearl Harbor. American historians say the time is not ripe for its public to
learn that World War II was largely a turf war, fought in the Pacific to
decide if Proctor & Gamble et al had exclusive rights to squeeze surplus
value from Asian masses, or if Mitsubishi et al could cut in on the action.
Nor was it considered judicious to elaborate on the embargoes and other acts
of war committed by the West preceding Pearl Harbor, together with
Rambouillet-style ultimata.
BV executives briefly considered a maverick proposal to include footage of
Secretary of War Henry Stimson's diary entry for November 25, 1941, when he
wrote that the salient issue was "how we should maneuver them into the
position of firing the first shot." Since it would involve reading and
cognitive understanding, it was thought that this portion of history would be
safe from exposure in the U.S.. But the idea was rejected because there was
no obvious link to a Disney product.
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