Projected coevalness and post-colonial tourism: the persistence of cultural hierarchy in contemporary Japanese-Taiwanese film

In East Asia, amidst increasing economic development and global integration since the late twentieth century, films, media and tourism have both reshaped and perpetuated hierarchical relationships between nations. In the case of Taiwan and Japan, the Cold War military industrial and political system in which they are embedded has assisted in the perpetuation of an image of Japanese cultural superiority over Taiwan rooted in their colonial history. ❧ Based in postcolonial, Japanese empire and intra-East Asian studies, this thesis identifies points of the asymmetrical cultural hierarchy between Japan and Taiwan in contemporary films and media with the intention of illuminating the development of the current Japan-Taiwan relationship from historical, cultural and materialist perspectives. These points include the dominance of Japanese cultural and linguistic products in the Taiwanese market, the fantasized lessening of a modernization gap and thus “projected coevalness” in economic and cultural development between Taiwan and Japan, and the privileged ignorance afforded by many Japanese towards the affairs of Taiwan and their former colonies. This work also highlights the self-representation and agency of cultural producers in both countries to explore the logic behind preferred cultural associations in addition to the nation-branding involved with the marketing of intercultural films. These examples show how peculiarities within the relationship of an ex-colonized and ex-colonizer state have sustained long after formal imperialism has ended.