Yotsuya Kaidan - Popularity

Popularity

Yotsuya Kaidan's popularity is often accounted for by the way it fit the mood of its time, as well as its use of universal themes. The Bunsei era was a time of social unrest, and the repressed position of women in society was severe. The exchange of power for powerlessness was something audiences could relate to. Oiwa went from a delicate victim to a powerful avenger, while Iemon transforms from tormentor to tormented.

Also, Oiwa is much more direct in her vengeance than Okiku, another popular kabuki ghost, and she is much more brutal. This added level of violence thrilled audiences, who were seeking more and more violent forms of entertainment.

In addition, the performance of Yotsuya Kaidan was filled with fantastic special effects, with her ruined face projecting magnificently from an onstage lantern, and her hair falling out in impossible amounts.

Yotsuya Kaidan paired the conventions of kizewamono "raw life play", which looked at the lives of non-nobles, and kaidanmono "ghost play".

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Famous quotes containing the word popularity:

    In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.
    Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)

    A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.
    Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)

    The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.
    David Mamet (b. 1947)