That was a huge theme in post WWII movies. The war in the Pacific was flat out racist and hate-filled to a degree Europe never imagined. The Japanese were still a fanatic medieval monarchy and took things to a level of brutality and cruelty unimaginable in the ETO. Beheadings of prisoners, rape, murder, torture, etc. In Nanking the German Nazi Ambassador was sickened by what he was seeing. That’s right, even actual nazis were shocked by them.
When we hit islands the common lingo was that the island was infested with vermin, monkeys, lice, etc.... and the battles were fought to the last Jap with maybe 10 or 15 survivors standing there shell shocked. And we only took them alive for intel value. Guys sent home ashtrays made out of Jap skulls, gold teeth, you name it. They our men watched as Japs even committed suicide to get at them.
That was the most bitter war we have ever fought when it come to outright hate.
So after the war we had quite a pickle on how to turn it all off. We wanted to have a cooperative Japan and the USSR was looming.
Right about then you see Hollywood churn out a raft of “Japanese are actually kinda nice now” kind of films.
Bad Day at Black Rock, Teahouse of the August moon, Bridges of Toko Ri and many others.
BTW, interesting aside about Bad Day at Black Rock. Lee Marvin was the leading bully in the film. In WWII he was a Marine PFC and was wounded on Saipan.
“So after the war we had quite a pickle on how to turn it all off. We wanted to have a cooperative Japan and the USSR was looming.”
Interesting take on how to “turn it all off.” That definitely was a huge quandary.
I’ve got a bit of a personal parallel. My dad’s family immigrated from Germany in 1927 (dad was three), just 9 years after the WW 1 Armistice (about the same amount of time that “Bad Day at Black Rock” took place after WW 2). The hatred toward Germans because of the ferocity of long drawn-out vicious trench warfare, the new use of machine guns, the use of gas against troops, etc was close to the hatred of the Japanese. It was tough living in The Bronx nine years after the close of WW 1. On the plus side, my dad learned some good street fighting skills and went on to box in the Marine Corps.