shame in japan.
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — All About Lily Chou-Chou
webmistah — 18 years ago(July 01, 2007 10:20 PM)
first i wanna say that this was a good but depressing film.
it was so unrealistic from my point of view.
my main problem was shiori.
if i understood correctly shiori was raped by hoshino and he taped this.
then he pimped her out by threatening her with the tape.
now here in the us, or the west i should say this wouldnt make a whole lotta sense.
if this happened in real life hoshino would be in jail serving 25 to life for rape of a minor. the girl would feel ashamed but she would be more ashamed to sell herself so i think she would end up reporting him.
but no such thing happens.
is this a realistic portrayal?
would a real japanese girl do all this just so her parents or whatever wouldnt know she was raped? -
Theowne — 18 years ago(July 03, 2007 03:48 PM)
According to a news article: "sexual assault is notoriously under-reported in Japan because of the shame of being a victim." So yes, that is a factor. Also, you have to consider they are children. Imagine the sort of fear she must feel, knowing what Hoshino could show to others and what it could do to her life. I mean, watching the movie it might seem to us, "go and tell the police", etc, but the circumstances are not the same.
satec, scarborough, toronto, ontario, canada, the world
-
-
neutralmonk — 18 years ago(March 31, 2008 01:02 AM)
from what I understood, hoshino did not rape tsuda but rather found (maybe on the internet?) videos she had made herself.
This also would explain the extent of what she does afterwards in order for her parents not to learn about it.
but maybe i'm wrong.. -
tripitacha — 18 years ago(April 01, 2008 06:32 PM)
Ok, ok, everyone says the film is overlong as it is (I don't think it's long enough!), but I think there could have been a greater emphasis on Shiroi and the clearly massive psychological traumas she was going through. She appears quite late in the film, has a number of scenes with Yuichi, and eventually she kills herself. This scene in particular is already is soul-destroyingly sad, but still, I think we could have done with more scenes on the struggles Shiroi was clearly having to deal with, i.e. whatever it was exactly that happened between her and Hoshino in the first place and the pain of being a child prostitute. But then again, by this point in the film, the intense pain of being a schoolkid ANYWAY has already been made implicit, so it's like Shiroi is. ok wait, I've digressed.
But to contradict my point, even though her character is established and concluded quite quickly, I still am amazed at just how intensely tragic the scene is where she's flying the kites, and suddenly you catch a glimpse of two kites in the sky, before her death. I think it's fascinating just how affecting this scene was, probably the saddest in the entire film, even though Shiroi wasn't established as strongly as Yuichi, Hoshino or even Kuno.
Getting the bus saves time but it sure don't lengthen yr life! - Harvey Pekar -
ofshoesandshipsandceilin — 14 years ago(June 09, 2011 09:09 AM)
You posted this ages ago, but I'm going to write my response anyway. Maybe it'll help out some other users.
I'm pretty sure Shiori was NOT raped by Hoshino.
I think they were saying that he got her on tape doing one of her enjo-kosai jobs. (Most likely using the camera he bought with the wads of cash they stole and took on his Okinawa trip)
Using this footage he blackmails Shiori into giving him some of the money she gets from selling herself.
This should make more sense because of course Shiori would not want people knowing/seeing her prostituting herself for money.
If you're right and Hoshino did rape her, it would not make sense, as you say.
And a minor suggestion on watching foreign films:
This isn't a personal attack on you in fact it's something that a lot of people, probably including myself, do without meaning to but you should really try not to watch foreign films and then peg everything that happens in it as a cultural thing.
Of course a lot of what goes on here is cultural.
But first and foremost you should watch as a human being watching human beings, not as an American watching Japanese people.
Before asking yourself about the culture of shame in Japan, and how that plays a part in Shiori's actions, it might be more productive to first think about the issues of sex and rape and the shame that's associated with them in ANY country. Reported rape cases are never really reflective or how many rapes actually happen many go unreported (in Japan AND in the U.S., although I won't deny the possibility that the rate of unreported cases may be higher here in Japan) because it's such a painful, intimate issue. Most victims would probably prefer to bury it and try to forget about it then go public with it and try to prosecute the rapist.
It's easy to watch a movie that's not of your own culture and then swallow it down as a representation of that whole culture. "Oh that's how things are over there." I know I do it do, as do most people I'm sure. But I'm hoping that the next time either of us watch a foreign film, we have the open-mindedness to observe as PEOPLE, not Americans or Japanese or whoever.