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Article published In:
Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 8:2 (2018) ► pp.207–228

Machina ex homine, homo ex machina

Metaphor and ideology in Shinya Tsukamoto’s “Tetsuo: The Iron Man”

| University of Gdańsk

In this article, I identify and describe multimodal hybrid metaphors—the conceptual representation of two elements represented as merged into a new single ‘gestalt’—represented by the machine and human body domains in “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” (鉄男: Tetsuo), a Japanese avant-garde film. Since “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” portrays the genesis of a man whose body becomes a human-machine hybrid, I explore to what extent this film can act as an example of how hybrid metaphors are conveyed. In line with the ideological function of metaphors, where the use of alternative metaphors may produce different meanings and potentially have different effects on the recipient, I also try to interpret how these hybrid metaphors reveal information about the contemporary Japanese society. Specifically, the ideological analysis considers how the notion of ‘artificial’ and the social phenomena of misogyny, homophobia and social deviance are held to characterise the post-World War II Japanese culture.

Keywords: cyborg theory, hybrid metaphor, ideology, Japanese culture, metaphor, multimodality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. machine and human body
  • 3.Cyborg theory and hybrid metaphors
  • 4.Metaphors, sequences and interpretations
  • 5.“Tetsuo: The Iron Man” and metaphors
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Ideology in “Tetsuo: The Iron Man”
    • 7.1The nature of the artificial
    • 7.2Misogyny, homophobia and social deviance
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 23 October 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.17003.pop
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