Bloggrokker (Scott) Althusser

Ideology=illusion/allusion?
Althusser/Ideological State Apparatuses==Godzilla?
It seems I've got no choice but to transplant Louis Althusser's concept of Ideological State Apparatuses, specifically the Cultural Ideological State Apparatus, micro-specifically the film wing of the Cultural Ideological State Apparatus, all the way to--despite and although I've got a feeling Althusser wrote addressing primarily Western societies--the most technologically-berserk, and, I might add, most postmodern--largely due, I'd suppose, to its ceaseless infatuation for and Lyotardian radically-eclectic cultural filtering (who remembers Shonen Knife?) of Western trends--among the Asian Pacific Rim states, Japan.
Before I go any further, if it weren't for that current ad running wherein The Madison Avenue Media-Mashers re-appropriated images from the terrible Americanized '98 Godzilla into a tele-shilling spot for Doritos or Fritos or something similar within The Annals of Salted Chipdom, the ad I happened to see right after reading Althusser, well, I might've had something more meaningful to report. Oh well, I recall Dr. Rodge saying bad tv habits were required for this class. Here goes.
Long story made brief, this ad brought to mind misty childhood memories of seeing the '54 Godzilla on tv, a moody exercise in scale-model-demolishing, and, as just about everyone into film history knows, a metaphor for atomic annihilation--an allusion to atomic annihilation.
And, as an allusion, the film, too, is an illusion--colossal radioactives reptiles aren't real, they're imaginary, but the resulting Geiger counter-gone-grave horrors, for the Japanese masses, are not.
And this brings me to Althusser's thesis: "Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence." As I see it, Godzilla is an ideological tool for hegemonic ends.
And what are these hegemonic ends? What were the Japanese coerced through film into accepting?
"Real conditions of existence"--the Japanese were treated to the realities of total destruction if a path somewhat resembling capitalism weren't followed.
They followed this path, and as they did, they whipped their great reptilian allusion to atomic annihilation into a bumbling pop-cultural ambassador, duking it out with Mothra and Ghidrah in a neverending string of sequels--ah, "sequelitis," that ever-popular capitalist cinematic syndrome.
I'll call what the hegemonic Japanese film industry did "Godzillification," or, if the original Japanese is preferred, "Gojirification"--the celluloid "monsterizing" of a historical tragedy for ideological ends.
And the terrible Americanized Godzilla as it relates to historical tragedies/ What might Baudrillard say?
He might say something regarding the precession of simulacra, something along the lines of "the map preceding the territory," something akin to the Americanized Godzilla being a transcultural simulacrum "precessing" the future tragedy of 9/11--the American film is centered in New York City--just as the original Japanese film is a hegemonic"processing" of a past tragedy.
And, hegemonies being hegemonies, what might future films reveal? Might there be a film in the works, either Japanese or American, that applies "Godzillification" to 9/11?
There's always the burgeoning Arabic film industry.
Can a bloated rubber suit be made for The Great Satan?