Stereotypes In Gung Ho

Gung Ho Gung Ho is a movie with good insight on what is like when two cultures have to work together to make what they want happen. In this case, it is American and Japanese men working together at an automobile factory in America. Assan Motors Corporation owns the factory and uses Japanese men to run it with American workers. Hunt Stevenson, the American who originally brought over the Japanese, is used as a go-between for the two different parties. I believe that the movie used stereotypes about both cultures to show the issues the two cultures would face in this situation and how they might overcome them. The stereotypes used in the film are mostly about the cultures as a whole. For the Japanese it was that their culture is collectivistic, which means they put more importance on the success of the group instead of the success of each individual. At one point in the movie, a worker did not even want to go home from work when his wife was in labor. The stereotype for the Americans

When the American worker’s hand got hurt at the factory many of the other workers went with him to the hospital instead of staying to work, which shows individualism by putting their friend over the factory. The team exercises that the Japanese did to start the day before going into the factory is a collectivistic idea that the American workers are not used to and do not want to do. High and low context cultures are also seen throughout the movie. The Japanese men have a lot of high context expectations, like when Hunt and several higher up Japanese workers are having dinner at Takahara’s house. An low context situation is when Hunt and Takahara go to get drinks, what matters is what they are talking about and not what is going on around them, even if a lot of people are looking at