You might think that applying any kind of deep criticism to a series of movies starring a moth puppet is a waste of digital ink, but you’d be wrong for several reasons. Beginning with Mothra (1961) and continuing through Mothra vs. Godzilla (1963) and Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster (1964), the folks at Toho Studios — most notably director Ishiro Honda and screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa — crafted a delightful giant monster trilogy with a throughline message of feminism, multiculturalism, and anti-colonialism. This trio of films is the giant moth feminist fairy tale you never knew you needed.
Mothra
Subversive from the beginning, the original Mothra is basically a parody of your standard monster rampage film. In fact, it specifically takes the tropes and archetypes that you’d see in something like King Kong (1933) and recasts them to question the status quo. In Mothra, as in Kong, an expedition to a tropical island by an unscrupulous capitalist ends with comparatively small women being taken against their will, a forced performance in a city, and a subsequent rampage in that city by the title monster. Where Kong plays the story straight, Mothra subverts the expected narrative by making the slimy capitalist Clark Nelson (Jerry Ito) into the monster, as he lugs around the doll-sized fairies known as the Shobijin (Emi and Yumi Ito, no relation to Jerry) who serve as priestesses of the mighty moth. He smuggles them to the definitely-not-New York metropolis of New Kirk City, where he forces them to sing for an audience of wealthy patrons. Luckily, their song was actually a prayer to summon Mothra, who promptly wrecks the shit out of NKC and fucks up Clark Nelson’s Christmas. As a final touch, the heroic characters end the film by waving happily to Mothra and welcoming her to come back.
As a film, Mothra comes down squarely on the side of the oppressed. Clark Nelson is just the worst, using his financial and political power to exploit indigenous women, whose physical size is a handy indicator of how heavily the deck is stacked in his favor. Opposing his exploitation are heroic journalists and scientists, who often serve as protagonists in these early kaiju films; theoretically seekers of truth with public interests at heart, they make good fools for self-interested creeps like Nelson.
Hilariously, most of this was lost on the American distributor, who, presented with the story of a delicate, graceful goddess avenging abuses suffered by indigenous people (and especially indigenous women), whipped up a spectacularly tone-deaf poster in which a demonic lepidopteran “ravishes a universe for love.”
Mothra vs. Godzilla
If Mothra is about a feminine divinity striking back at an abusive, hypercapitalist patriarchy, its sequel heightens the symbolism by including an oppositional force of masculinity. The human archetypes remain the same; our villains are exploitative hyper-capitalists trying to monetize indigenous culture, and they’re opposed once again by good-hearted reporters and scientists, including Professor Miura (Hiroshi Koizumi), the only human character to appear in all three films. The two most important additions, though, are a masculine counterpart to Mothra in Godzilla, and an increased level of agency from the indigenous characters.
In this film, a catastrophic typhoon washes both an enormous egg and a sleeping Godzilla onto Japan’s shores. Venture capitalists Kumayama (Yoshifumi Tajima) and Torohata (Kenji Sahara) claim ownership of the egg and decide to make it a sideshow attraction. The Shobijin appear to warn them against disrespecting their goddess, but they’re ignored. Professor Miura and this film’s reporter heroes Sakai (Akira Takarada) and Junko (Yuriko Hoshi) try to help, but have no real recourse against the villains. When Godzilla wakes up and starts forging a path of destruction across Japan toward the egg, Miura, Sakai, and Junko travel to Infant Island to ask for Mothra’s help, and that’s where things get interesting.
The heroes are soundly rebuffed by both the island’s chief (Yoshio Kosugi) and the Shobijin. These indigenous characters, asked for their input, probably for the first time in the history of the fucking genre, put our heroes on blast. Miura, representing science, is told that he has himself to blame for the radioactive menace that is Godzilla, while Sakai is shamed for the media’s complicity in the exploitation of indigenous people. Luckily, Lois Lane-esque gal reporter Junko is on hand to become the film’s moral center.
She acknowledges that she has failed the islanders and that they are right to distrust her, but argues passionately that Godzilla will kill indiscriminately, including those who had no part in the exploitation and no way to stop it. She argues for unity, not only against Godzilla but against the human forces that drive exploitation. This plea convinces Mothra herself to intercede, despite communicating via the fairies that she is near death.
The two kaiju battle, and Mothra does surprisingly well until she takes a direct hit from Godzilla’s thermonuclear breath. Just as she dies, her egg hatches into twin caterpillars that manage to immobilize Godzilla within a cocoon and drop him in the sea, but not before he absentmindedly crushes Kumayama and Torohata. Our villains, true to form, failed to evacuate with the rest Tokyo because they were arguing about how to split the profits of their scheme. The film ends with Japan, Mothra, and the people of Infant Island in a tentative alliance against those forces that would stand in the way of worldwide peace and equality.
Godzilla and Mothra’s complex relationship is based in the mythic tradition of the ryū and the hōō, opposing-yet-complementary beasts often incorrectly equated with the dragon and the phoenix by people whose understanding of Asian mythology comes from takeout menus. Although the dragon and the phoenix are rough physical analogues of the ryū and the hōō, their cultural roles and mythic connotations vary wildly. For example, while both the dragon and the ryū are powerful reptilian beasts, one is associated with fire and the other with water. Fittingly, as creatures born of the conflict between East and West — the nuclear terror and American occupation of Japan that ended World War II — Godzilla and Mothra are syncretic monsters, blending elements from both European and Asian myth.
To Western audiences, Godzilla reads as a dragon; he’s an aggressively territorial fire-breathing reptilian carnivore. He doesn’t have wings and he doesn’t hoard gold, but he shares enough in common with classic depictions of dragons that the relationship is apparent. He’s also related to an even older breed of dragon, the primordial chaos serpents which appear as foes of the gods in countless Indo-European creation myths. His home is the deepest part of the ocean, the Biblical Deep that predates creation itself, and each time he leaves it he threatens to return the world to a state of formless chaos. Although he’s heavily associated with fire, Godzilla is fundamentally a water and storm deity, just like the ryū. The destruction he wreaks resembles a natural disaster as much as an actively malicious attack, and his appearance is almost always from the sea. On at least two occasions — Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1954) and Mothra vs. Godzilla — his appearance is presaged by a mighty storm. The ryū is also considered to be fundamentally male, opposed and balanced by the female hōō.
Even though she isn’t a bird, Mothra is definitely a graceful flying creature in the hōō mold. Both of them are associated with benevolence and good omens, and remember that Mothra’s decision to battle Godzilla also signalled the birth of a new era of cooperation between Japan and Infant Island. Further, like the Western phoenix, Mothra enjoys a limited sort of immortality, with her own death triggering the birth of her daughters, who will in turn become benevolent mother goddesses themselves.
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
Since the previous film ended with the reconciliation of Japan and Infant Island on a platform of egalitarianism, what do you suppose the next step is? If you guessed that Godzilla himself would be reconciled with both Mothra and humanity in common defense of Earth, man, you’re paying thematic attention. The Shobijin have even more agency this time around, traveling to Japan on a goodwill tour, appearing as guests on a television program. They even perform a song — of their own volition — a pointed contrast to their servitude to Clark Nelson in the first film. What’s more, they become active participants in the action of the film; rather than damsels or ambassadors, they get their tiny hands dirty in action sequences. Most memorably, they are able to foil an assassination attempt by slipping past the killers and shutting the lights off.
The character who drives the film’s action is another woman, Princess Salno (Akiko Wakabayashi), who simultaneously develops amnesia and clairvoyant powers following a botched assassination attempt. She takes on the Shobijin’s previous role as harbinger of monster attacks, but this time around the people of Japan are slightly more willing to listen. She warns of a veritable monsterocalypse: not only will Godzilla appear, but so will the giant pteranodon Rodan and the Lovecraftian space menace King Ghidorah. Ghidorah razes Japan as Godzilla and Rodan aimlessly brawl, oblivious to the larger threat posed by the space dragon. Mothra, still a caterpillar, approaches the pair and, I shit you not, engages them in a debate. In a sequence mirroring Junko’s impassioned plea in the previous film, the juvenile Mothra pleads with Godzilla and Rodan to pitch in against the monster that threatens them all.
Amusingly, it turns out that Godzilla’s fury is rooted in a deep-seated case of butthurt. He complains to Mothra that humanity is really annoying, and they’re always attacking him and he can tell that they don’t like him. The Shobijin relate Godzilla’s feelings to the human characters, who respond with incredulity: “These monsters are as stupid as human beings!” It’s intentionally campy, but it’s also an appropriate response given Mothra’s established role as a champion of social justice. Who better to oppose her than a tantrum-prone male that’s thoughtlessly ignoring the suffering of thousands and wants to complain about how hard he has it? Can we get him fitted with a giant fedora?
Ultimately, the infant Mothra gets tired of arguing with Godzilla and tries to battle King Ghidorah herself. Seeing the (relatively) little caterpillar handed her own thorax finally spurs Godzilla and Rodan to action, and Earth’s monsters wreck Ghidorah. In keeping with the theme of progress established by the earlier films, there’s no going back; for the remainder of the original series, Godzilla would be a begrudging ally of Mothra and humanity. For his next ten films, he would use his size and strength to protect those in the path of other kaiju, even if he’d rather be sleeping on the floor of the sea.
Mothra, the Icon
Mothra doesn’t get nearly the attention she deserves as a pop-cultural feminist icon. I mean, she’s literally thousands of times bigger than Wonder Woman, and it hasn’t taken them 75 years to put her in a movie. She’s one of the only kaiju that’s consistently been able to match up with the so-called King of the Monsters, and certainly the only one to make him check his privilege. She’s a delicate, beautiful mother goddess, a champion of the oppressed, and a righteous, city-wrecking avenger.
Anybody want to throw a bandanna on her head and figure out how a moth flexes a bicep? I have a really sweet t-shirt idea.