American Culture, Riding a Mushroom Cloud – NYTimes.com

American Culture, Riding a Mushroom Cloud

In “Chewing Gum and Chocolate,” Shomei Tomatsu explored the attractions and contradictions of American culture and the military in postwar Japan.

via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/american-culture-riding-a-mushroom-cloud/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog

The photographer Shomei Tomatsu was drawn to ninja and samurai movies as a child in post-World War II Japan, even though teachers forbade students from seeing them. They called them “disreputable.” He found them irresistible.