Censorship In The Film 'University Of Laughs'

‘University of laughs’ is a comedy movie which interprets a censorship tradition during 1940s in a funny way. It is hard to experience direct censorship nowadays. We don’t see blank spaces in a newspaper which represent something deleted. However, there was time when national policy includes restricting freedom of speech. In fact, our freedom to publish anything we want is not something that existed for long. Through this movie, we can get a glimpse of what was going on during 1940 in Japanese media.

The movie has two main figures. Tsubaki Hajime is a playwright. Sakisaka Mutsuo is a government censor. Sakisaka is a person of strong personality. He, as a high government official, is an ardent supporter of the current government policies. His

Japan wanted more than Korea. Japan’s ambition resulted in Sino-Japanese war. Furthermore, Japan allied with Germany and Italy, invading many other nations. In 1940s, which is the time background of the movie, Japan was in the middle of the War. Since the war was getting longer, the entire nation mobilized to support the war. Japan needed to rationalize this war to explain national mobilization despite the discomfort it caused to its civilians. As a result, nation focused on educating its people as nationals who would fight vigorously, and even kill themselves for the nation. Colonial Korea was not an exception. Japan exploited resources from colonial Korea to support the war. Human resources were another form of exploitation. Recruitment of soldiers from Korea became mandatory from 1938. In this vein, censorship became necessary in media production. Any argument which is against the current policy should be silenced. In that way, the nation can force people to think as if all the civilians are supporting war as

Any stories related to the enemies of Japan including Britain and France were not allowed to be shown. Mr. Sakisaka gets furious by the fact that Tsubaki bring motif from the Shakespeare’s story. Tsubaki can’t stop playing on words with Japan’s imperialistic situation which further triggers Mr. Sakisaka’s temper. However, as more time two characters spent together, the theme of their narrative deviate itself from censorship issue. Rather, their talk shows the Tsubaki’s enthusiasm about his play. Tsubaki does not care how other people think about him continuously rephrasing his work by the censor. He only cares about his work getting better. At this point, this movie shows one of its hidden themes, the conviction of a playwright. Mr. Sakisaka started to see Tsubaki not as person who should be revised but as a person with occupational pride. That understanding seems to lead movie into happy ending. However, unexpected twist works as a reminder of the time