Arrgh – Godzilla
as a kid
I would often play at being Godzilla
stomping on my toys
kicking them over
breathing my fire breath on them
invulnerable powerful dangerous
enjoying that ants were sacred of me
as I grew up
I would pull on my Godzilla suit
when things weren’t going my way
emotionally swing out at people
stomping on their intentions
when they didn’t suit my expectations
I later found out that Godzilla
was a man in a rubber suit
a small sweaty Japanese man
actually men
because the suit didn’t breath properly
the actors would tire out get sick
they couldn’t see out of the eye holes
and had to lead to the set
pointed in the right direction
just like my loss of vision
when I pulled on my Godzilla suit
to strike out at life
but I refused to let anyone
lead me in the right direction
if the actor was in the suit too long
he’d break out in a rash
get too itchy to wear it
me I’d break out in rash decisions
end up with itchy resentments
that I’d take out on those around me
like those actors
no one knew who I was
as long as I wore the suit
every good villain has a motive
has something he wants
but it was never clear what Godzilla wanted
except to be left the fuck alone
we never see Godzilla relaxing
beyond floating
to the bottom of the sea to sleep
all of his energy was spent
battling the nuisances of a life
he didn’t even want to be part of
of being a monster stuck in a normal world
that didn’t have a place for monsters
Godzilla sneezed
This is a piece that works on many levels – the retro nostalgia of Japanese horror movies for starters and how they effected the child and how they resonate within us as adults. Though this pulling on of the suit didn’t occur to me as the result of nostalgia. I’d purchased a great Godzilla t-shirt at FanExpo & was wearing at a recovery meeting. The topic was acting out and this whole image of me donning the Godzilla suit to act out as someone I wasn’t came to me.
Jake was here a minute ago
It moves into the practicality of the actors in those suits – all true info about the rashes, the visual difficulties – which were somewhat solved for later movies. I push the analogy of hiding in the suit, acting out in the suit, in hopes that the suit would get the blame – no one blames the actor in the Godzilla movies for the damage that results.
booted under
I might also add that sweaty Japanese men are definitely on my list of turn ons – I’m sure some of that comes from these films and the exoticness of the actors – though the good-looking one’s were usually the reporters not the scientists. The American release of the first Godzilla was repackaged from the original to include scenes with Raymond Burr (pre-Perry). Burr is one of those out-but-hidden gay actors – adding an ever deeper resonance of the nature of hidden to this piece.
TOpoet 