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Research Paper On Shall We Dance

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Shall We Dance is a 1996 Japanese movie directed by Masayuki Suo. It follows the story of Mr. Sugiyama, a depressed accountant working in Tokyo. On his commute home from work one day, he decides to start taking ballroom dancing lessons after seeing a beautiful woman in the dance school's window. He later comes to truly enjoy dancing and finds new happiness in ballroom dancing and the new friends that he makes. The film showcases several aspects of Japanese culture, including the life of businessmen, or salarymen, and the intricacies of relationships between Japanese couples. Mr. Sugiyama is a Japanese businessman in a large city, which is a common profession in Japan, and his wife is a stay-at-home mother. Women who decide to stay home in Japan are more …show more content…

Sugiyama and his wife sleep in two separate beds located in the same room instead of sharing a bed like the majority of couples in the United States would do. Couples in separate beds were also regularly found in American-produced movies from the 1930s to the 1960s; however, this was because of American film censorship laws, known as the Hays Code, that declared it was too scandalous to show a man and a woman sharing a bed even though they commonly do in America. This law was changed in 1968 and now American couples are portrayed as sharing the same bed as they usually do in reality. Mr. Sugiyama and his wife being shown in two different beds in the film is not the result of a Japanese film law, but is instead a common trait of Japanese couples, who are known to have two separate beds in their homes. This could be because of comfort, especially for a couple in which the husband works late, such as Mr. Sugiyama on some nights. Sleeping in separate beds would help to prevent his wife from waking up after he gets home from work or dance practice. It may also be because of a lack of closeness in their marriage, as shown in Mr. Sugiyama's sadness and his desire to hide his dancing from his

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