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King of the Merchandise: How Showa Era Paratexts Forever Changed the Godzilla Franchise

The Godzilla media franchise is one of the longest running media franchises, which means the character himself has gone through many changes throughout the years. However, in American pop culture, the characters of Godzilla is perceived as a hero, a friend of humanity and defender of Earth. This reputation comes from the Showa Era, where Godzilla often fought on the side of humanity, rather than trying to destroy them as depicted in the original Gojira. In recent years, Toho, Godzilla's corporate owners, have been steering the King of the Monsters back into the villain role. Despite this tone shift by Godzilla's owners, American Godzilla paratexts still generally depict Godzilla as a hero. These depictions of Godzilla are used to maintain his status as a family friendly heritage brand and keep a door open for parents to introduce their children to the brand. Such a strategy allows Godzilla to survive into the modern day as an international powerhouse franchise.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1808412
Date05 1900
CreatorsCooper, Dalton
ContributorsBrannon Donoghue, Courtney, Porst, Jennifer, Weiner, Robert
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formatv, 62 pages, Text
RightsPublic, Cooper, Dalton, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved.

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