Paper short abstract:

This presentation explores how in the 1950s dominant narratives of Japan’s postwar high economic growth, salaryman job security and modernization were reinforced through cinema, especially in the ‘salaryman-films’ of the studio Toho, such as their popular ‘Company President’ (Shachō) series.

Paper long abstract:

The 1950s is considered the second golden age of the Japanese film industry. The six main film production companies - Shochiku, Toho, Shintoho, Daiei, Toei (from 1951) and Nikkatsu (from 1954) - released two films per week, 50 weeks a year, annually producing more than 500 works, and the number of theatre attendees steadily increased throughout the 1950s. Although, during this golden age, many of the great pre-war auteurs like Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse, and Gosho experienced a second blooming, while younger directors such as Kurosawa and Kinoshita attained maturity, this period also saw the birth of many of Japan's most popular long running series of light entertainment.

This presentation explores how in the 1950s dominant narratives of Japan’s postwar high economic growth, salaryman security and modernization were reinforced through cinema, especially in the ‘salaryman-films’ produced at Toho, such as their popular long running comedy ‘Company President’ (Shachō) series, produced from 1956 until the 1970s, and other musically infused salaryman comedies. These films focused on the average salaryman, and came to reflect white collar workers' frustration over the rigidly hierarchical Japanese workplace and its incompetent bosses, as well as anxieties surrounding the rapidly changing society of the postwar period, traditional values, and rebellious youth culture.

This presentation investigates the form, content, and in a wider sense, meaning of these early films that garnered immense popularity as they helped to create a vision of the modern white-collar worker in post war Japan.