The Birth and Death of a Professional Wrestling Alter-Ego: Takahara Hidekazu’s Gamushara and the Loss of a Transgressive Identity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/jll.2019.80Abstract
Japanese filmmaker Takahara Hidekazu's film Gamushara (2015), portrays joshi puroresu (female professional wrestling) star Yasukawa Act working through the trauma of sexual abuse through the spectacular world of professional wrestling. Shortly before the film’s release, Yasukawa was involved in what the Japanese media labeled the "Ghastly Match," wherein she had her orbital bone shattered in the ring. Takahara followed Yasukawa over the course of a year, tracking her recovery as well as her sudden retirement due to injury. The ensuing long form documentary was included on the film’s home video release and offers a unique portrait of a woman holding on to her spectacular, transgressive identity before letting it die. The cycle offers a portrait of the birth and death of an identity, built upon the receiving and inflicting of violence, at the point of healing and asks: what strength is lost within this process? What freedom is gained at the loss of an alter-ego defined by a transgressive femininity? In answering such questions, it frames the potential hold of the audience on a transgressive in-ring persona—a metaphorical wrestling match that pits viewer against artist—while revealing the difficulties for a woman working to change and overcome the ‘script’ that governs her in-ring performances and shades her traumas.
The article frames Yasukawa’s growing alienation from her selves through close formal analysis of the films, interviews with the filmmaking team and fellow wrestlers, and a theoretical framework that combines studies on recovery from trauma with those detailing the transgressive possibility of wrestling and its structuring dichotomy between the fake and the real. It positions the film against previous representations of joshi puroresu in cinema to track the shifting gender politics of the form as it has come to be appreciated by a largely male audience as well as against Takahara’s previous self-critical pornographic Pink Films. Such comparisons underline how Yasukawa’s feminine transgression exists within a fraught and muddled setting often shaped by a male gaze. To consider the possibilities and limits of Yasukawa’s multivalent transgression of both gender and identity norms as well as the operating scripts of professional wrestling and trauma, the article also engages with gender scholar Sharon Marcus’ writing on how the rape script might be transcended via the development of a woman’s capacity for violence.
Through such a critical prism, Takahara’s Gamushara cycle ultimately emerges as a vital and crucially murky documentary series for gender and media scholars concerned with the tensions of identity formation within spaces of spectacle wherein one’s performed screams might mask one’s real cries for help.
References
After Gamushara, Dir. Takahara Hidekazu, Perfs. Yasukawa Yuka and Yasukawa Yuka and Yasukawa Act, 2017. Maxam Inc. Digital Copy.
Aiba, Keiko, “The Impact of Women’s Pro Wrestling Performances on the Transformation of Gender.” in B. Chow, C. Warden and E. Laine, eds., Performance and Professional Wrestling, (Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2016), 85-94.
———, “Japanese Women Professional Wrestlers and Body Image” in Fujimura Kumiko, ed., Transforming Japan: How Feminism and Diversity Are Making A Difference (Fanselow. New York: The Feminist Press, 2011), 268-283.
———, Personal interview, August 31, 2015.
Barthes, Roland, "The World of Wrestling." Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), 15-25.
Gaea Girls dirs. Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams, 2000. British Broadcasting Corporation. Digital Copy.
Gamushara. Dir. Takahara Hidekazu, Perfs. Yasukawa Yuka and Yasukawa Yuka and Yasukawa Act, 2015, Maxam Inc. Digital Copy.
Girls Hate Pure. Dir. Takahara Hidekazu. Perf. Yasukawa Yuka. lovepunk, 2008. Digital Copy.
Herman, Judith, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic
Abuse to Political Terror (New York: Basic Books, 1992),
Hill, Annette, “Spectacle of Excess: The Passion Work of Professional Wrestlers, Fans and Anti-Fans,” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18.2 (2015). 174–189
A Human Murder Weapon. Dir. Miike Takashi, Perfs. Megumi Kudo and Combat Toyoda, 1992, Maxam. Digital Copy.
Itani, Satoko, “Japanese Female and ‘Trans’ Athletes: Negotiating Subjectivity and Media Constructions of Gender, Sexuality, and Nation,” PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto (2015).
Kazuo Hara. “Gamushara Review,” Kinema Junpo, Excerpt from the Gamushara Facebook Page, April 5, 2015.
Koh, Wilson, “‘It’s What’s Best for Business’—‘Worked Shoots’ and the Commodified Authentic in Postmillennial Professional Wrestling,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 34.5 (2017), 459-479.
Marcus, Sharon, “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention,” in Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott, eds., Feminists Theorize the Political (New York: Routledge, 1992), 385-403.
Red-Hot Youth. Dir. Naitô Makoto, Perfs. Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda, 1977, Toei Company. Digital Copy.
Thompson, Lee Austin, “Professional Wrestling in Japan — Media and Message,” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 21.1 (March 1986), 65-81, 77.
———, “The Body Politic in the International Arena: Professional Wrestling in Japan,” in William W. Kelly and Atsuo Sugimoto, eds., This Sporting Life Sports and Body Culture in Modern Japan (New Haven, CT: Yale U Press, 2007), 107-124.
Tsumugi. Dir. Hidekazu Takahara, Perf. Sora Aoi, 2004. DVD. Pink Eiga, 2009.
“A Very Special Talk.” Shūkan Puroresu, 1782 (March 18, 2015), 7-12.
Wolf, Kris, Personal interview co-conducted with Marianne Tarcov, September 8, 2015.
Yasukawa, Yuka and Takahara Hidekazu, Personal interviews, July 2015 and August 2016.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licenseor its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
- The Author agrees to digitally sign the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work.