Read Online Tokyo Underworld by Robert Whiting - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert Whiting
Ads: Link
one Japanese university professor:
To the viewing public, Japanese matches with the barbaric Americans resembled nothing so much as a battle between the cowboys and the Indians, battles which they had seen so much of in American westerns (like
Stagecoach
, immensely popular in Japan.)
The Indians in Hollywood movies were invariably the bad guys while the cowboys – the white man – by contrast, were morally in the right, free of malice and ultimately emerged victorious. That was the appeal of such films to American moviegoers. It reinforced their perception of themselves as superior beings. And in reverse form, that was the appeal of professional wrestling to the Japanese.
The Rikidozan disease affected every segment of society, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, educated and illiterate. The comments of Machiko Kondo, a United Nations officer, born and raised in Tokyo, about the ‘Riki effect’ on her father, were typical:
My father was an engineer. He was highly intelligent and liked intellectual TV shows: professorial debates on NHK, lectures on science and so forth. He liked to discuss German philosophy: Goethe, Hegel, and others. He was very serious minded and looked down on things that weren’t intellectual.
But he became another person when professional wrestling came on, especially Japanese versus American. Something came over him. He would shoot his fist in the air, yell, jump up and down, get all excited. It was really strange. I could never understand why an intelligent person like him could watch Rikidozan so much.
To him, I guess Riki was like Robin Hood.
It soon became evident that what the public wanted to see was big, Godzilla-sized Americans cut down to size, the bigger and badder, the better. And thus economics dictated that Zappetti’s career sputter to a halt. MacFarland’s, on the other hand, went in the other direction. Adopting the moniker ‘Gorgeous Mac’, and billed also by his promoter as ‘The Wild Bull of Nebraska’, MacFarland was a great hit in defeat. He performed before large crowds on TV, appeared in magazine interviews and quickly became well known. In early January 1956, he called a press conference to announce that he was forming his own wrestling group to capitalize on his success and also to announce his engagement to the daughter of a major
zaibatsu
family, an ardent pro wrestling fan. This was not as unusual as it might sound, given the Alice-in-Wonderland existence
gaijin
in Japan led at the time.
Although surveys consistently showed that two-thirds of theJapanese populace wanted nothing to do with foreigners, that still left a third who did, and they weren’t especially picky, given the relatively limited supply and the growing postwar need for Japan to become more familiar with the rest of the world. There were thousands of semiliterate Westerners making a living teaching English in language schools and universities, homely military wives able to parlay blonde hair and big breasts into careers as models and movie actresses in Tokyo and countless other examples of career success exceeding qualifications. Demand exceeded supply. And thus MacFarland, a man with no ring experience who had become well known in Japan simply because he was American, big and conveniently available to wrestle – and lose – on TV, was on the verge of marrying into one of the wealthiest families in the entire country. Western foreigners could do things like that in those days because the Japanese simply didn’t know any better.
Unbeknownst to anyone, however, MacFarland had serious problems. He was in Japan illegally, having entered on a sixty-day tourist visa that had run out weeks earlier. His US passport had also expired. And he was broke, despite his substantial earnings. He had not paid his hotel bill in weeks – it stood at well over a million yen – and he had accumulated other debts as well. He also suffered from bouts of manic depression and for six months in 1948 had
To the viewing public, Japanese matches with the barbaric Americans resembled nothing so much as a battle between the cowboys and the Indians, battles which they had seen so much of in American westerns (like
Stagecoach
, immensely popular in Japan.)
The Indians in Hollywood movies were invariably the bad guys while the cowboys – the white man – by contrast, were morally in the right, free of malice and ultimately emerged victorious. That was the appeal of such films to American moviegoers. It reinforced their perception of themselves as superior beings. And in reverse form, that was the appeal of professional wrestling to the Japanese.
The Rikidozan disease affected every segment of society, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, educated and illiterate. The comments of Machiko Kondo, a United Nations officer, born and raised in Tokyo, about the ‘Riki effect’ on her father, were typical:
My father was an engineer. He was highly intelligent and liked intellectual TV shows: professorial debates on NHK, lectures on science and so forth. He liked to discuss German philosophy: Goethe, Hegel, and others. He was very serious minded and looked down on things that weren’t intellectual.
But he became another person when professional wrestling came on, especially Japanese versus American. Something came over him. He would shoot his fist in the air, yell, jump up and down, get all excited. It was really strange. I could never understand why an intelligent person like him could watch Rikidozan so much.
To him, I guess Riki was like Robin Hood.
It soon became evident that what the public wanted to see was big, Godzilla-sized Americans cut down to size, the bigger and badder, the better. And thus economics dictated that Zappetti’s career sputter to a halt. MacFarland’s, on the other hand, went in the other direction. Adopting the moniker ‘Gorgeous Mac’, and billed also by his promoter as ‘The Wild Bull of Nebraska’, MacFarland was a great hit in defeat. He performed before large crowds on TV, appeared in magazine interviews and quickly became well known. In early January 1956, he called a press conference to announce that he was forming his own wrestling group to capitalize on his success and also to announce his engagement to the daughter of a major
zaibatsu
family, an ardent pro wrestling fan. This was not as unusual as it might sound, given the Alice-in-Wonderland existence
gaijin
in Japan led at the time.
Although surveys consistently showed that two-thirds of theJapanese populace wanted nothing to do with foreigners, that still left a third who did, and they weren’t especially picky, given the relatively limited supply and the growing postwar need for Japan to become more familiar with the rest of the world. There were thousands of semiliterate Westerners making a living teaching English in language schools and universities, homely military wives able to parlay blonde hair and big breasts into careers as models and movie actresses in Tokyo and countless other examples of career success exceeding qualifications. Demand exceeded supply. And thus MacFarland, a man with no ring experience who had become well known in Japan simply because he was American, big and conveniently available to wrestle – and lose – on TV, was on the verge of marrying into one of the wealthiest families in the entire country. Western foreigners could do things like that in those days because the Japanese simply didn’t know any better.
Unbeknownst to anyone, however, MacFarland had serious problems. He was in Japan illegally, having entered on a sixty-day tourist visa that had run out weeks earlier. His US passport had also expired. And he was broke, despite his substantial earnings. He had not paid his hotel bill in weeks – it stood at well over a million yen – and he had accumulated other debts as well. He also suffered from bouts of manic depression and for six months in 1948 had
Similar Books
