Old Lutherans

Submitted by Sean Russell

A soldier comes home. He doesn’t have to go too far to get there, since it was not a foreign war. The battlefront was the home front. In fact, it’s really more a matter of returning to what’s left of home, than home itself—a location on a map more than anything that could be called a dwelling.

Sound familiar? If you’re an American, this might seem completely foreign, but if you’re that particular breed called a Southerner, this is the story of your great to third great grandfather. It’s also the plot to Godzilla: Minus One.

In Ken Burns’ documentary “The Civil War,” the show stealing Shelby Foote is reflecting on a quote by General Patton. He says:

“As a Southerner I would say one of the main importances of the war is that Southerners have a sense of defeat which none of the rest of the country has. You see in the movie Patton, the actor who plays Patton saying, ‘We Americans have never lost a war.’ That’s a rather amazing statement for him to make as Patton because Patton’s grandfather was in Lee’s army of Northern Virginia and he certainly lost a war.”

That sense of defeat is the air the characters in this latest Godzilla movie breathe. Their months-old defeat defines everything about their daily lives. Everything is a rebuilding process. Families are composed of orphaned children and otherwise childless veterans. Homes must be rebuilt from the ground up. Every story is a war story. The loss unites them.

It is this last aspect that the Yankee race cannot comprehend because, as Patton is quoted saying, to be American is to have never lost a war. Apparently Patton was reconstructed, but for those of us who still feel our roots digging into our native soil, loss is largely what defines us. Loss unites us. You can see it in our literature through William Faulkner and our music through the Allman Brothers.

Loss is also the major theme in Godzilla: Minus One, beginning with the title. The movie is called Minus One because WW2 brought Japan to zero. They had two atomic bombs dropped on them on top of already having been flattened. They had nothing left, not even their pride. So while American soldiers and sailors were kissing random women in Times Square, Japanese veterans were licking their wounds. They were at zero, then Godzilla set them back even further—minus one.

I classify Godzilla movies in three categories:

1) Godzilla is the bad monster. The good monster must save us from him. We see this in the battles with Mothra.

2) Godzilla is the good monster. He must save us from the bad monster. We see this in the battles with King Ghidorah.

3) Godzilla is the bad monster. We are screwed. This is the category Minus One fits into.

This third category is important because, though it is never addressed in Minus One, the audience is already aware. Just like the first time we see Godzilla’s back spikes turn blue, we already know what’s going to happen before the on-screen characters know. We know there are other monsters in Godzilla’s world. We know that they are not being addressed. Therefore, we know that Japan is all alone in this fight. In fact, there are scenes which address America expressly not getting involved and helping Japan. They are all alone with no foreign help.

Such was Lincoln’s War. The South was flattened, save the chimneys. Foreign powers refused to get involved. The men were largely killed off. Those who survived were broken inside. The war was over.

Then, the Reconstruction Kaiju came from the sea. Again, there was no foreign help. Carpetbaggers came and bought up lands which new taxes made nearly impossible to keep. Newly freed slaves roamed aimlessly, committing mass crime which new Yankee overlords refused to prosecute. We were kicked while we were down.

So while Yankee sensibilities see a freshly defeated Japanese nation trying to rebuild as a people who are eating their just desserts, I could not help but sympathize with them while watching Minus One. I felt the connections with the Confederacy right away, even though I could almost guarantee the writers had no intention of making the connection themselves. To paraphrase Shelby Foote, to be Southern is to understand defeat.

I highly recommend Godzilla: Minus One for these and other reasons. I write this to point out the power of something as abstract as a Kaiju film to garner American sympathies for such a dastardly foe as WW2 Japan, a people whom many Americans today still say deserved to have two atomic bombs dropped on them. Imagine what such a medium could do for our Confederate ancestors.

Also, for what it’s worth, I’m not the only one already calling this the greatest Godzilla movie of all time. See it on the biggest screen possible, especially my Southern brothers and sisters.