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50TH ANNIVERSARY OF MONSTER'S FILM DEBUT
Scholarly conference to analyze Godzilla

LAWRENCE, Kan. - He's attacked other monsters and terrorized Japan for decades. Now Godzilla is confronting academics who want to wrestle with his legacy,

The University of Kansas plans to pay homage to the giant lizard later this month. organizing a three-day scholarly conference for the 50th anniversary of his first film.

It's not just about celebrating campy creature features. Planners want to provoke discussion of globalization, Japanese pop culture and Japanese-American relations after World War II.

"I would like people to take Godzilla more seriously," said Bill Tsutsui, a history professor at the University of Kansas and author of the book "Godzilla on My Mind," which discusses the history of the monster's movies.

The conference that begins October 28 will offer speeches, panel discussions and free screenings of Godzilla films, including "Gojiro," the Japanese movie that started Godzilla's career in November 1954.

Atop the movie theater will be an inflatable 28-foot Godzilla balloon.

The notion of a serious Godzilla conference drew puzzled looks on campus.

"It's kind of odd," freshman Kathleen Schafer said. "I didn't think scholors would be interested."

But historians. anthropologists and other academics are coming from universities such as Duke, Harvard, and Vanderbilt.

Japan's Toho Co. has produced 27 Godzilla films in five decades, with a 28th movie, "Godizilla: Final Wars," to be released in December. An American "Godzilla" was released in 1998, though many aficionos don't concider it a true Godzilla movie.

Takao Shibata, the Japanese consul general in Kansas City, MO., said the meeting will helpeducate people about his nation but acknowledged: "The idea of this kind of serious analysis of the evolution of Godzilla - it never occurred to me."

Film festival pits Godzilla vs. Lawrence

Kansas University professor Bill Tsutsui recalls lying on the shag carpeting of his family's rec room in the 1970s, anxiously staring at the Zenith while the "Creature Double Feature" was about to air on a Houston UHF station.

"Like a lot of kids, I wanted to be Godzilla," Tsutsui says. "I wanted to put myself in that role; I wanted to stomp miniature cities; I wanted to make chemical plants explode."

So he got his wish ... sort of.

"I twisted my mother's arm -- and she was not much of a seamstress -- until she would make me a Godzilla costume," he remembers. "This costume was actually hilarious. It was a 1970s green nylon thing. If you had smoked a cigarette within 50 feet of it I probably would have gone up in flames. It had a long tail and these semi-dorsal fins, which she had cut up pillow foam rubber to make the tail. She dyed a pair of my grandmother's church gloves green.

"I thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's before I went to the Halloween fun fair and everybody made fun of me and tore my tail."

Tsutsui is finally getting his revenge.

On Thursday, a three-day conference organized by the professor of Japanese history is set to kick off. "In Godzilla's Footsteps: Japanese Pop Culture Icons on the Global Stage" will feature a film festival dedicated to the towering radioactive beast, along with speeches and panel discussions with experts in the field.

"I think we have the big-name scholars from all over the country who work on Japanese popular culture," says Tsutsui, author of the book, "Godzilla on My Mind." "None of whom probably would have admitted before this they had any interest in Godzilla, but when we put the call out, they all responded yes."

Gateway to the East

Those who weren't raised on the dozens of post-1950s films that saw the King of the Monsters duking it out with giant foes such as Mothra, Megalon and Ghidorah, might be asking one question about this international symposium: Why Godzilla?

"Before Godzilla, when Americans thought of Japan, they thought of World War II," Tsutsui explains. "But Godzilla really offers us a lot of cultural insight into Japanese culture since World War II, and to ourselves as to why we as Americans respond to this guy in a rubber suit trashing Japanese cities."

Tsutsui and co-organizer Michiko Ito first flirted with the concept four years ago when they launched a more modest conference called "Godzilla Takes Kansas!"

"We had a very good response," says Ito, a KU librarian for Japanese studies. "We thought we could do it on a larger scale. We thought the globalization of Japanese popular culture through Godzilla would be a good topic for the conference."

Unlike Tsutsui, Ito had little knowledge of Godzilla, despite growing up in Nagoya, Japan. She judged the film series to be "cheap stuff for kids." It was only after college that she began to appreciate the material.

In Godzilla's Footsteps film festival
A three-day scholarly conference celebrates the 50th anniversary of the release of the original Godzilla film.

Gojira (1954)
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday

Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster
When: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 29

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
When: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 30

Where: All three movies screen at Liberty Hall,
642 Mass.
Ticket price: All festival screenings are free
Ticket information: 749-1972
More information: www.libertyhall.net/

"I was a girl and not into monsters. I much prefer anime or manga (comic books)," she says. "Somehow I got a tape from a professor in Japan saying it was really good. I was already a grown-up, and I did not like Godzilla movies at all. But after watching the tape, I was shocked that it was so great."

Giant monsters attack

Ito considers the 1954 original "Gojira" her favorite, and that is one of a trio of pictures audiences will be able to enjoy during free festival screenings at Liberty Hall, 642 Mass.

"The director (Ishirô Honda) had gone through Hiroshima not long after the bombings," Tsutsui says of the movie that launched the franchise. "He'd seen the damage. He wanted the film to be a serious anti-nuclear statement."

In Japan, this work is deemed a classic on a par with how Americans view "King Kong." In fact, the film received the equivalent of a Japanese Academy Award nomination upon its release, but lost to Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai" -- long regarded as one of the greatest films of all time.

Also showing is "Godzilla vs. Hedorah" aka "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster." The 1971 flick is an outrageously trippy production that introduces an anti-pollution theme.

"It's actually one of the most violent of the films," Tsutsui describes. "I think that's why some people really like it and some people don't."

One of the newest Godzilla projects will make its Lawrence debut. Tsutsui claims the 2001 effort "Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack" features better special effects and a more sophisticated story line than the childhood "Creature Features" he grew up with.

He says, "Like many of the latest films, it is strongly influenced by the aesthetics and conventions of anime; it also contains mystical elements and a strong female lead -- also responses to contemporary Japanese pop culture trends."

Tsutsui believes Lawrence is a perfect location for "In Godzilla's Footsteps," despite the city's modest size.

"I think it's great because the whole community can get involved," he says. "In New York or Los Angeles -- places where there are quite large communities of fans -- it could just become lost in the buzz of what was happening in those towns. But in Lawrence it can be the center of attention."

Even though Lawrence has never been the site of a Godzilla movie (in production or in the onscreen destruction thereof), one resident has been involved with a related project for more than a decade.

Local filmmaker Roger Holden has cultivated a professional relationship with Yoshimitsu Banno, the director of "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster," and even recruited the man to come to Lawrence several years ago to speak.

"More recently I was invited by Mr. Banno to go to Toho Films (in Japan) and present an idea for a Godzilla movie," Holden recalls. "It was called ‘Godzilla 2001' and was about Godzilla fighting a virtual reality monster. We kept in touch throughout the years, and we are working on a really amazing top secret project now."

Holden considers "In Godzilla's Footsteps" a fitting tribute to a cultural icon that doesn't always receive the respect it deserves.

"During the holidays, they always run the movie ‘It's a Wonderful Life,'" he explains. "In that movie Jimmy Stewart is shown how the world would be if he had not been born. With this conference, it's the same thing: It's hard to imagine the world as we know it today if there had not been a Godzilla."

LAWRENCE, Kan. Oct 17, 2004 — He's attacked other monsters and terrorized Japan for decades. Now Godzilla is confronting academics who want to wrestle with his legacy.

The University of Kansas plans to pay homage to the giant lizard later this month, organizing a three-day scholarly conference for the 50th anniversary of his first film.

It's not just about celebrating campy creature features. Planners want to provoke discussion of globalization, Japanese pop culture and Japanese-American relations after World War II.

"I would like people to take Godzilla more seriously," said Bill Tsutsui, a history professor at the University of Kansas and author of the book "Godzilla on My Mind," which discusses the history of the monster's movies.

The conference that begins Oct. 28 will offer speeches, panel discussions and free screenings of Godzilla films, including "Gojira," the Japanese movie that started Godzilla's career in November 1954.

Atop the movie theater will be an inflatable 28-foot Godzilla balloon. Items from Tsutsui's collection of Godzilla memorabilia will be on display in the university's main library.

The notion of a serious Godzilla conference drew puzzled looks on campus.

"It's kind of odd," freshman Kathleen Schafer said. "I didn't think scholars would be interested."

But historians, anthropologists and other academics are coming from universities such as Duke, Harvard and Vanderbilt.

Among the fans in attendance will be Andrew Kar, a technical writer from St. Joseph, Mo., who has been hooked on monster movies since childhood.

"When you're a 35-year-old man and you're still enjoying these films, you have to ask yourself why," he said. "For some of us, it translates. For others, it's gibberish."

Japan's Toho Co. has produced 27 Godzilla films in five decades, with a 28th movie, "Godzilla: Final Wars," to be released in December. An American "Godzilla" was released in 1998, though many aficionados don't consider it a true Godzilla movie.

Yoshikuni Igarashi, director of east Asian studies at Vanderbilt, sees Godzilla films as important cultural artifacts.

For example, the first Godzilla film came only eight months after the United States tested a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.

The movie in which H-bomb testing disturbs Godzilla's undersea habitat and transforms him into a behemoth with fiery, radioactive breath reflects anxiety and a feeling of helplessness in the face of a nuclear threat, Igarashi said.

The franchise was widely known for its campy special effects. Godzilla films featured men in dinosaur suits stomping around miniature urban landscapes and some monster battles that, Tsutsui acknowledged in his book, seem more like professional wrestling matches.

When an American version of the first film was released in 1956 re-edited to include new scenes featuring Raymond Burr of "Perry Mason" fame the New York Times dismissed it as "cheap cinematic horror-stuff."

"It is true there were some bad, bad films produced, particularly in the late '60s and early '70s," said Igarashi, who plans to lecture at the conference on the 1964 movie "Godzilla vs. the Thing," in which Godzilla battles the giant moth, Mothra, and its offspring.

Two Japanese foundations provided $35,000 to help fund the conference.

Takao Shibata, the Japanese consul general in Kansas City, Mo., said the meeting will help educate people about his nation but acknowledged: "The idea of this kind of serious analysis of the evolution of Godzilla it never occurred to me."

Godzilla gets props as he invades city

It might be the biggest, scariest proclamation in city history.

City commissioners Tuesday night are slated to designate Oct. 24-30 as "Godzilla Week."

Honored guest though the Japanese movie celebrity may be, there is one particular type of havoc from which the monster must refrain while indoors at public places.

"He can be fire-breathing," said Assistant City Manager Dave Corliss. "But he better not be smoking."

The proclamation accompanies an Oct. 28-30 conference at Kansas University, "In Godzilla's Footsteps: Japanese Pop Culture Icons on the Global Stage," sponsored by KU's Center for East Asian Studies.

The three-day scholarly conference isn't just about celebrating the creature features many people grew up with and still love. Conference participants want to get people thinking about globalization, the rise of Japanese pop culture and Japanese-American relations after World War II.

"I would like people to take Godzilla more seriously," said Bill Tsutsui, a Kansas history professor and a fan since childhood. He helped organize the conference.

But not so seriously they don't have fun with it.

"The King of the Monsters demands respect and the supplication of the masses," Tsutsui said. "So it is only right that Lawrence proclaim Godzilla Week on the occasion of his 50th birthday and visit to Lawrence. A similar proclamation was requested from Governor Sebelius, but she declined. Either the governor must not have a very good sense of humor or she must not know the power of Godzilla. I'm expecting Godzilla to vaporize Topeka."

The week's programs will feature scholars from around the world, screenings of three Godzilla films, staged readings of original plays, museum and library exhibitions, and a series of talks and book-signings.

Organizers plan to inflate a 28-foot Godzilla balloon atop Liberty Hall, where the films will play, and items from Tsutsui's own private collection of Godzilla memorabilia will be displayed in the university's main library through the end of the year. Tsutsui also wrote a recently published book, "Godzilla on My Mind," discussing the history of the monster's movies and appeal.

Japan's Toho Co. has produced 27 Godzilla films in five decades, with a 28th, "Godzilla: Final Wars," to be released in December. An American "Godzilla" was released in 1998, though many aficionados don't consider it a true Godzilla movie.

Tsutsui said he and Michiko Ito, the university's Japanese studies librarian, hit upon the idea of a conference two years ago. They'd organized a local, two-day Godzilla film festival in 2000.

The conference budget is $50,000, with two Japanese foundations providing $35,000 in grants and the university picking up the rest of the cost.

Takao Shibata, the Japanese consul general in Kansas City, Mo., said the conference would educate people about his nation but acknowledged, "The idea of this kind of serious analysis of the evolution of Godzilla -- it never occurred to me."

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Godzilla events
Here are some highlights of Godzilla Week:

Godzilla Body Parts Tour For Kids, Oct. 15 - Nov. 12, KU Natural History Museum. A scavenger hunt for dinosaur parts that end up as part of the King of Monsters. Admission free.

"Zodgyra and the Seven Deadly Sins," seven 10-minute plays about Godzilla, 8 p.m., Oct. 26, Lawrence Arts Center.

"In Godzilla's Footsteps," kickoff, 12:30 p.m. Oct 28, Seventh and Massachusetts streets. Baby Jay will flip a switch to inflate the 28-feet-tall Godzilla that will be perched on the roof at Liberty Hall for the three days of the conference.