Visitors to the monster museum will learn what World Children’s Land wants them to learn. When the cockroaches announce that Shukra and Mamagon are excellent ideas, and plan to include them among the Monster Island detainees in the museum, they reveal their preference for monsters with easy-to-package, superficial relevance. Lacking ambiguity, Shukra and Mamagon are less politically threatening than something like Godzilla. Toho makes money by selling the likeness of a character whose popularity was established in movies that often criticized the profit motive. Godzilla’s expressive power as a symbolic figure is at odds with his value as a commercial icon. Reduced to a mere commodity, Godzilla no longer raises uncomfortable questions.
David Kalat on the hidden depths of Godzilla vs. Gigan
(via astoundingbeyondbelief)
(via astoundingbeyondbelief)