28/ Looking for Jiro

2011
By TT Takemoto
Duration: 5:45 min.
Recommended by Hiroshi Shimizu and Ben Kobashigawa

How does this work investigate “hope?”
Japanese American National Library (JANL) is pleased to recommend TT Takemoto’s experimental video Looking for Jiro. A fine work providing an eye-opening treatment of a subject completely unacknowledged in previous research on Japanese American mass incarceration during WWII. It captures in a refreshing and sympathetic way what must surely have been a sad and lonely experience for someone who previously lived in the shadows of his community. Takemoto's piecing the story together from fragmentary documentary evidence is impressive and the campy elements add a light-hearted touch.

About the work:
“This film explores hidden dimensions of same-sex intimacy in Japanese American wartime history through a queer ABBA/Madonna mash-up of performance and historical footage. It was inspired by Jiro Onuma, a dandy gay bachelor who was one of the few known adult LGBT Japanese Americans incarcerated by the US government during World War II. His archival collection reveals that he worked in the Topaz prison camp mess hall and liked muscular men. My drag king performance as Onuma seeks to imagine how he survived the isolation, boredom, and heteronormativity of the camps—where ‘time goes by so slowly’ when you are waiting for a lover who will never arrive. The film is a gesture of hope, longing, and resistance. US war propaganda footage was originally intended to show Japanese Americans as reliable workers. But in this queer fantasy, Jiro also refuses this labor. As Madonna suggests, he is ‘fed up’ and ‘tired of waiting on you.’ Through his acts of homoerotic breadmaking, Jiro can dream of body builders as he fists his way towards being and becoming his own muscular fantasy. I hope viewers enjoy the film’s queer sensibilities while contemplating how we might reclaim our queer pasts in the present.” —TT Takemoto