Respect

"Broken to the Fist," Shogun

Lens Past Fifth is an experimental television anthology. Each piece takes a single episode from television and briefly looks through it.

From Latin respectus, from the verb respicere—“to look back at, regard,” from re- “back” + specere “to look at.”

“Damn it all. Why is this happening to us? Beastly cannon, piles of corpses…we didn’t ask for this,” Uejirou, the gardener, laments to Muraji in the opening scene. The shadow of death follows, leads, and supersedes the characters’ actions, forcing them to bend to the will of the unknowable. The characters are complacent in their politics despite an imminent ending for them all. Cultural differences clash and then dissipate when everyone faces the permanence of death.

The dinner scene presents the peak of the cultural clashes between the Japanese and the Anjin. Moreover, a ringing similarity of toxic masculinity further subjugates the women in this scene. Anjin’s crush on Mariko influences his choice to stand up for her, yet it does not charge him to be respectful to her from the beginning. Buntaro (angry that his wife serves the Anjin) is drunk and humiliates Mariko because he can not take out his anger on the Anjin. In a world filled with war and death, she can’t commit suicide without her husband’s permission. As a wife, her life is out of her hands–a harsh truth Buntaro showcases. He proves that he can hit his target regardless of whether it is his wife or a post. The only respect he gives to anyone is what is obligated of him.