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Dynamite Graffiti
Movie

Dynamite Graffiti

2018 • Unknown

Woke Score
4
out of 10

Plot

When Suei was little, his mother had an affair with a young man who lived next door. Suei's mother and the young man killed themselves by using dynamite. After Suei graduated from high school, he worked at a factory before quitting his job. He then went to Tokyo and began working in the erotic magazine industry. Suei eventually became the chief editor of a famous erotic magazine in the 1980's.

Overall Series Review

The movie is a Japanese biopic chronicling the life of Akira Suei, who rose to become a successful erotic magazine editor in the 1980s. The plot focuses on his personal trajectory, which is profoundly affected by the childhood trauma of his mother committing suicide with her lover using dynamite. The narrative explores the ambiguous boundary between art and pornography and questions the social censorship and morality policing of the era. The story focuses on the male protagonist’s ambitions and his difficult, often cold, relationships with the women in his life.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics2/10

The movie is a historically and ethnically authentic Japanese biopic with an all-Japanese cast, focusing on a specific individual's life and career merit. The plot centers on personal trauma and professional drive to succeed as a publishing impresario. The narrative does not utilize race, intersectional hierarchy, or the vilification of whiteness as a primary thematic tool.

Oikophobia2/10

The film is Japanese and offers a critique of specific elements of Japanese society, namely the "censorial prudishness" and rigid social moralities of the 1970s and 80s. This critique focuses on social restrictions and the desire for freedom, not a broad framing of the home culture as fundamentally corrupt or racist. The film does not demonize ancestors or hold external cultures as spiritually superior.

Feminism4/10

The story is male-centric and the female characters, including his wife and mistress, are often victims of the male protagonist’s neglect and emotional distance. The male lead is highly ambitious and successful, not a bumbling idiot. The plot is driven by a focus on the male editor and his career in commercialized female sexuality, failing to understand the motivations of the women involved. The central relationship is anti-family due to neglect, adultery, and the mother's tragic anti-natalist choice of suicide.

LGBTQ+2/10

The narrative centers on the heterosexual world of erotic magazines and the protagonist's dysfunctional relationships with his wife and female employee. The nuclear family unit is a background structure that has collapsed through adultery and suicide, but the focus of the film is not on centering alternative sexualities or propagating gender ideology.

Anti-Theism8/10

The movie operates in a world of profound moral ambiguity. It depicts the protagonist living a life outside of conventional social moralities, pursuing a career built on smut and successfully challenging the 'morality policing' of society. The film's observational, non-condemning tone suggests that morality is subjective and the idea of 'Objective Truth' is absent.