Director Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, moves toward being a critique of American gender norms and oddities, more than it assumes the role of romantic comedy. Or rather, it is a display of gender norms and oddities as they are couched inside of a romantic comedy shell.

Recent Yale graduate, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) and has-been Hollywood actor Bob (Bill Murray), both find themselves in Tokyo. She's with her photographer husband on a shoot, feeling painfully aimless. He's in town shooting a whiskey commercial, while his family nags him from afar. Bob and Charlotte find each other in the dismal confusion, and they end up experiencing Tokyo, and discovering new sides of themselves, together. The character portrayals give way for an unnerving and alienating look at insecurities and hierarchies of gender that cast poorly on male and female roles. Johansson and Murray take on these personas with remarkable ease, unveiling a quaint and exceptional chemistry.

Bill Murray as Bob

Bob Harris's inhabitation of space in Tokyo reflects Hollywood as a culturally-ill city that has him enslaved to it. The scene in which Bob shoots the Suntory commercial, articulates this project. Bob passively sits in a chair as hair and makeup artists enhance his features, and in turn transform his body into a one-dimensional caricature. The scene is articulated as absurd and comedic due to a double culture disconnect that occurs within our protagonist Bob. His suit jacket is cinched down the center of his back with metal clips. His body in this scene looks like a puppet, and literally what ensues is the behavior of a puppet.

Bob as the representation of alcohol becomes a problematic depiction of the American notion of alcoholism, as Bob consistently ingests alcohol throughout the film in order to deal with his own disillusionment and affect problems. On one level, Bob's career is acting; however, when he is paid to perform an off-putting and downright disconnected off-screen persona, he then participates in a cross-cultural, economic exchange. The awkward and deflated tone of the scene caricatures East and West. Underneath this display of miscommunication between Bob and the production team, lies a dehumanizing and superficial cultural transaction where a bottom line is involved: an inauthentic identity is to be performed for a paycheck. This scene illustrates a glamourless Hollywood that is marred by superficiality and dehumanizing economics.

Scarlett Johansson as Charlotte

Like Bob, Charlotte experiences cultural alienation when encountering her husband's conversation with fellow Hollywoodite, Kelly, in the Tokyo hotel. The connection between John and Kelly even as it is made up exclusively of platitudes and superficiality, marks a connection he feels with his national condition. Charlotte, however, cannot participate in this human connection because of her alienation from American culture. John and Kelly exude a certain drifty aloofness and shallow concern for each other, which is suggested by the meaningless and materialistic conversation. She announces that he is her favorite photographer, as well as tethering herself to her role as an actress in Tokyo. For each, his/her industry identity precedes any other potential notion of identity; in their correlative identifications with industry lies the suggestion that they not only carry the American film industry within their bodies, but assume no conscious understanding of this national identity.

Charlotte seems alienated by young Hollywood, as exhibited by the emotional detachment between her and her husband, as well as the spatial dislocation. In this scene, John puts his arm around Charlotte as he whole-heartedly addresses Kelly, and Charlotte moves his arm away from her. This moment of affective rejection marks Charlotte's rejection of American culture. In one sense, affect becomes the signifier of cultural communication, or rather, miscommunication. This consolidation of public and private, of affect and nationhood, only becomes visible in the global city of Tokyo. Coppola uses culture to talk about culture, and stages all of this alongside emotional disconnections and connections.

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