A Dignified Presence and a Woman Standing on the Edge of the City - Hiroko Shino and the Image of Women in 1970s Japan (1970s-1980s)

A Dignified Presence and a Woman Standing on the Edge of the City - Hiroko Shino and the Image of Women in 1970s Japan (1970s-1980s)

Hiroko Shino (born in 1948) is an actress who, through TV dramas and films, created a new image of women as "working women" and "women who live between family and society" during the period of high economic growth after World War II and the subsequent social transformation. From the late 1960s to the 1970s, the transition from film to television was underway, and women's social advancement and values were rapidly changing. Scouted while a student at Tohoku Gakuin University, she made her debut as a singer, and later gained attention as an actress in the 1973 TV drama "It's Time".

Her representative roles include that of a landlady and the mother-in-law, daughter, and wife in family dramas, such as "To Friday's Wives III," in which she portrayed the troubles and friendships of middle-class urban women. Her appearance was both elegant and determined, and she presented an image of a woman who "has value not only at home, but also within her own society. Her life trajectory, in which she took a break from acting, married writer Shizuka Ijuin in 1992, and moved to Sendai, also bears witness to the period of continuous change in Japanese culture from the postwar era to the bubble era.

Compared to other actresses of the same generation, Mariko Kaga, for example, played a woman against a backdrop of decadence and urban spare time, while Hiroko Shino's moderate performance of "everyday life, work, and family" left hope on the screen that "even an ordinary woman can have a core. While Chieko Matsubara mainly portrayed the image of purity and youth, Shino played a mature woman in a realistic manner, and her portrayal of a middle-class family in the age of TV drew wide sympathy.

The background of the times at the time included the accelerating advance of women into society, the rising divorce rate, the shift to nuclear families, and competition for TV ratings, and the main themes of the dramas were "the shape of the family," "working women," and "wife independence. The main themes of the dramas shifted to "the shape of the family," "working women," and "independence as a wife. The women played by Hiroko Shino were unwavering in the midst of these changes and will be remembered as "dignified women.