The video Yoji, What’s Wrong with You? from 1987 is inscribed in Mako Idemitsu’s vein of video works from the beginning of the 1970s. It explores the theme of the mother-and-son relationship in a method similar to that employed in another video, The Marriage of Yasushi (1986). Idemitsu was born in Tokyo in 1940 in a traditional patriarchal Japanese family. After marrying Sam Francis (an abstract expressionist painter), she settled in California where she had two children. Torn between the role of a woman and a mother, she next went through a phase of identity crisis. Seeking means to express her doubts, she acquired an 8mm camera and began filming the feminine condition within feminist circles. In 1973, she decided to return to Japan where she continued to work on feminist issues, incorporating a critique of the Japanese family at the same time. She has since become a pioneer of feminist art in her country of origin. In time, the videographer established her own “Mako Style” characterised by the projection of the characters’ interiority on television monitors that are integrated into the video settings. It was while enhancing the videos’ quality when Idemitsu first had the idea of inserting monitors into the frame. In her opinion, as video is the best medium for information, the monitors have an important narrative role. By revealing to the viewers the characters’ thoughts and the past events in their lives, the monitors add depth to the plot. Yoji, What’s Wrong with You? explores numerous questions which are inherent in Idemitsu’s analysis of Japanese society since her beginnings as a videographer. Marriage, family, womanhood and motherhood are the major themes in her work. It is the mother-and-son relationship which is at the heart of Yoji, What’s Wrong with You?: Mama had everything planned out for Yoji way before he was born, and neither her husband who left her, nor her beloved son could turn her away from her aspirations. Maternal manipulation thus collides with the son’s desire to live his own life. Idemitsu’s style is evident here in the way images on the monitors play a decisive narrative role, informing the spectator on the mother’s psychology and the son’s dilemmas. We learn that Mama’s husband cheated on her, that he did not keep his promise to make her happy. Terrified of losing her son one day, she makes Yoji vow to satisfy her unfulfilled wish. In liberating herself from marital dependency, she succumbs to maternal obsession. Having no identity apart from the maternal role she plays, Mama condemns Yoji to remain a son and not a man. On the overall, Idemitsu’s oeuvre takes interest in the feminine condition in contemporary society and in particular the Japanese society. With Yoji, What’s Wrong with You?, the videographer appears to ask: in accomplishing motherhood, is the woman reduced to become a seductress?

Diane-Sophie Girin 
Translated by Yin Ker