Mishima Yukio and the Homoeroticisation of the Emperor of Japan

Abstract

This article aims to contextualise Mishima Yukio’s works and nationalist politics into a history of Japanese queer politics. Mishima Yukio is considered as one of the most prominent artists in modern Japan, famous for his homosexual-themed works and nationalist politics. This article explores the discursive relationships between Japanese national politics and homoeroticism through analysing Mishima Yukio’s works. It will review discourses about Mishima, his performance, works and sexuality; it points out how these discourses contain homophobic presumptions and overlook the wider social and historical contexts of Mishima’s works. The article will discuss Mishima’s far-right political discourses and representations in his famous political essays The Defense of Culture (Bunka bōuei ron) (1969) and The Manifesto of Anti-revolution (Han-kakumei ron) (1969) and the film Patriot (Yūkoku) (1966). This article points out that Mishima intertwined homoerotic ethos and Japanese national politics through the emperor, establishing a space for queer homoerotic desire in Japan’s public culture and politics. In conclusion, this article discusses how Mishima’s representation of the homoeroticised emperor prepared the ground to limit political discourses of queer politics in contemporary Japan.

Keywords

• Mishima Yukio
• homosexuality in Japan
• gay politics
• the emperor system
• queer in Japan