My Year of Meats

A documentary, according to Funk and Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary, is defined as 1. Pertaining to, consisting of, or based upon documents. 2. That presents factual material objectively without fictionalizing 3. A motion picture dealing with events circumstances in a factual way. In the book My Year of Meats written by Ruth Ozeki, Jane Takagi-Little describes herself professionally as a woman with her heart set upon becoming a documentarian, who at present serves as a cultural go- between in the advertising industry. Her asset in the difficult world of freelance film making is that she is bi-cultural and bilingual, being the child of an American born father and a Japanese born mother Jane has to accept that this is her step up into the business of documentary making and her chance to make a name for herself with the goal of directing a documentary herself someday. When she accepts the position of coordinator of the documentary My American Wife, Jane understands her role to be to select American women who use Meat and bring the Japanese television viewing public into these homes and lives as they demonstrate their favorite meat recipes; to increase sales of American meat in Japan. Jane being the main character she had to go through many difficult situations that she shouldn’t be criticized for.

Having a White father and a Japanese mother Jane has to deal with a lot that goes around, especially with making hard decisions. "Being racially 'half'--neither here nor there-- I was uniquely suited to the niche I was to occupy in the television industry. Although my heart was set on being a documentarian, it seems I was more useful as a go-between, a cultural pimp, selling off the vast illusion of America to a cramped population on that small string of Pacific islands (9)." Hired to oversee the production of a sponsor-friendly cooking show about meat, Jane quickly learns that the expectations of her Japanese bosses are based as much on assumptions about America, as a not so subtle attempt to sell as much meat as possible. Jane is in fact a cultural bridge between the image that Japanese have of Americans and the truth of America and its meat industry. With all these high standards she deals with many things on her mind, Jane had to make big decisions she had to go against what she really wanted to do. She started to believe since that since she is half Japanese and half White she was more useful to be opening up Japan to America’s meat production through a show called “My American Wife”. Having all this pressure of being the cultural border must have been a lot of pressure to deal with. Clearly Jane shouldn’t be criticized because she had to deal with all this pressure.

Jane didn’t listen to Ueno on making “My American Wife”, but she had good reasons why she didn’t. The show “My American wife” was supposed to open up to Japan to the American culture, but Jane Takagi-Little follows her own path. While directing a TV show called “My American Wife” Jane realizes that her goals for the show are different than the producers in Japan. When faced with a list from Tokyo of “Desirable things… Docile husband, obedient children, wholesome lifestyle, clean house…” (12) Jane felt that this description did not fit the average American family. Despite the fact Jane was told only to show the types of people and meats specified by the producers in Japan, Jane began to show diverse people and meats that are not beef. “The Beef-Ex injunction on the demographics of our wives was still in effect… The Martinez family would obviously break this mold” (58) the producers in Japan, especially “John” Ueno, became increasingly angry, but Jane still continued to show controversial families. For one of the shows she even featured lesbians, who were vegetarians, this is very controversial because the program sponsor was Beef-Ex. As Jane is rebelling against the semi-racist regulations for the family of choice, she begins to discover the hormones and chemicals that are fed or injected into cattle. One such chemical is Diethylstilbestrol (DES) was fed to cattle and given to pregnant women for many years. Later it was discovered that DES had several serious side effects on the farmers handling the chemical and on the unborn children in the wombs of women who received